1) Exercise for 20 minutes per day. I should really just change the title of this section to 'Monthly Pregnancy Update' because that's what it's turned in to. But I like pretending that this is still about exercise. Truthfully, for 36 weeks I'm still getting a pretty good amount. I've had some weird bone pain in my legs, so I didn't do my prenatal workout video as often as I should have. I managed once a week for this month. I've finally come to terms with the fact that I can really only expect to complete the 'express' third trimester workout on the DVD. It's half an hour, instead of 45 minutes, but it makes all the difference in both 1) my willingness to actually do it and 2) Lily's willingness to put up with me doing something other than entertain her. For some reason all of a sudden she just can't do ANYTHING without me. But more on that later. The days I don't get the video in, it's usually for a good reason, like walking two miles to do our miscellaneous errands for the day and chasing Lily all around all day long.
So far I've gained 24 pounds, which is a few less than with Lily at this point. I was pretty surprised when I looked that up because I feel much smaller, and my maternity clothes are fitting better than they did last time. Must be because it's all muscle...
2) Send one letter per week. This month many of you readers probably received a Halloween card from Lily. I think one mass mailing per month counts as one letter per week, right? I'm still amazed at how hard this resolution turned out to be to keep. It takes a lot of thought to write letters. And a lot of time to actually just sit down and write it. I'm going to renew this resolution for next year and try to make it actual letters to my actual friends, and not cheat by sending just Lily's footprints.
3) Bake and decorate one thing outside of work per month. This was a good month for baking. Honey spice cookies, oatcakes, pumpkin spice mini muffins, and Jello Jigglers (do they count as baking?). Not a whole lot of decorating again. Decorating is fun, but truthfully it's more fun baking with Lily so I've been focusing on that part of things.
4) Stop comparing myself to other moms. This was okay this month. We had our troubles with participating in classes, but that seems to be settling a little bit. I didn't really change anything, we still use the three strikes rule, but talking about WHY things are happening seems to be helping a lot. For the rest of the week, Lily was able to remember why we left music class and, I think, understood that it would happen again if she wasn't listening to me or the teacher. And the next week we talked about how Lily is a big girl and she needs to show the babies how good she is at following directions and help them understand what's going on. That has been a really big incentive, wanting to help with other babies. Another thing making me feel better has been paying attention to other kids her age around, and seeing that they're all exhibiting the same behaviors. She's just being two, and as long as I keep trying to help her become a civilized human, we will get through this and it will be okay.
One really recent, and annoying, change that Lily is going through is her need for me to be right next to her all of the time. Doing what she's doing. Entertaining her, keeping her amused, holding her hand. This has mostly manifested itself in my not being able to work out, even if I encourage her to do the video with me (she used to love that). But she has also been very reluctant for me to leave her at Sunday school. She used to love going to play with the other kids, but now just wants me to stay with her. I can't tell if she doesn't like the teacher, the room, or whatever, but it leads to a total meltdown when I try to leave. She calms down pretty easily after I leave, but it's hard to convince the teacher that's going to be the case when she's wailing and screaming and throwing herself on the ground. I know that this is probably just normal separation anxiety and that this too shall pass.
What I'm about to say next will probably put me in a special class of terrible parents: I dislike reading to my child. I know, I know. It's so good for them, bonding, language skills, logic skills, blah blah blah. It's BORING. We read the same 10 books over and over. And I have to read them the same way every time. And she wants to read them all of the time. When eating. When peeing. When brushing her teeth. When watching TV. I should be happy that she likes to read books with me so much. And you would think it would be a nice, easy thing we could do together when I'm huge. But it's not. It takes a lot of effort to read to a toddler. To make it worthwhile you have to engage them, ask questions, point to things, have them point to things, have them tell you the story, use funny voices, etc. Truthfully, it's exhausting. Not to mention that she likes to sit on my lap, which is super uncomfortable right now. She absolutely will not look at them on her own. She won't even hold them and turn the pages when I read to her.
I know how whiney this all sounds, but I just don't have the words to describe why it irks me so. I loved reading as a kid and still do. I can't wait to share some of my favorite books with her, The Mennyms, Finn Family Moomintroll, The Chronicles of Narnia. I'm all about reading chapter books before bed. But board books, picture books, children's books, I'm ready to move on.
So that's where things are one month until the boy is due to arrive. We still haven't finished getting things ready around the apartment (side rail on the bed, revamping the Lily Pad, finding/washing the bottles, etc.) but we've still got 30 days, right? It'll all get done. Sometime.
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