It’s a new year and the posts reflecting on a year gone by and goals for the year ahead are popping up. I like reading these and I usually write them. When I start to think about this past year I have a lot to think about. And when I went through blog posts of the last year I was pleasantly surprised to see some of the fun things we did – and that I kept a better record of this year than the one in my head.
January: I did notice that I didn’t do a new year post for 2013 though. Actually it’s still on my wipe board of “blog ideas” that I neglected all year, but that’s ok. Last Christmas – while nice – was should we say…stressful. Then my Grandma died a week later and I wrote this post about some of the many things that made that week awful, besides the obvious. I think my favorite post of the whole year might be Simon’s 18 month update. Watching this video makes me want to make posting videos of the kid talking a priority. Or at least taking more video for my own use.
February, March, and April were a few months of writing about transitioning to parenting a walking, talking, active toddler. And there was a lot going on professionally for me too. I got my first peer reviewed publication and did a follow-up study to my master’s thesis that will be published in a book coming out this March! We took a mini-vacation to Houston and I went to Seattle for a conference. This is also when I took my first blogging break. I was busy with school work and while I loved working 3.5 days a week to spend time with Simon it was challenging.
May and June were pretty awesome. I took a step back at school and said “no” to a couple of things, which was hard to do but ultimately for the best. Because of some paperwork problems with daycare we had been going to a back-up center that was further away, so I made the decision to take the summer off and keep Simon home. I think we spent every single day in June at the playground. There were also a lot of family days. Our walk on the High Line was my chance to pull out the DSLR and work on photography. Simon has a best friend, and on this play date L’s mom and I talked about having a second kid and how we were unsure if/when it would happen. What I like most about this is that we were both pregnant but didn’t know it, so in a few days/weeks both boys will have little brothers who I hope will also be great friends. That was probably the biggest behind the scenes theme of these months, wanting a second baby and not knowing how big an issue PCOS was going to be. The longest cycle ever resulted in the babe currently in my belly. We found out just before sending Simon to the grandparents for a week and Rob and I heading to Florida for an adults only vacation – at Universal Studios.
July brought Simon’s second birthday and pregnancy exhaustion. I threw up a few times but I think at least of half of the feeling crappy was due to the heat. We decided to send Simon back to daycare 3 days a week since I was now on an expedited timeline for a few school milestones. This is also the month I started weaning. I just couldn’t handle being pregnant and nursing in the heat. It was October before Simon nursed for the last time, and ultimately I am happy with our journey. But a part of me still regrets weaning before he was really ready.
August was a dream vacation to the beach in Maine. It was relaxing and not too hot, kind of perfect. We soaked up every last minute of summer as a family and I’m so glad that we did.
September, October, November, December: I started back to school. For the first time Simon was in school 5 days a week and on top of this I was teaching on Sundays, which meant working part of Saturday most weeks. In order to take the spring semester off to be home with the baby, I picked up an extra class to fulfill my fellowship requirement of two classes a year and it happened to be on the weekend. I spent many Mondays sleeping and catching up on things I usually do on the weekend. We tried to spend most Saturdays as a family. Ultimately this is good for our family in the long run, but it’s been a really rough semester mentally and physically. I’m so glad it’s over.
From a blogging standpoint I spent these months blogging about blogging and pregnancy, and started taking pictures again. The last few weeks have been tough in trying to finish things up. This year flew by, for that reason I’m so glad I have a record of the actually pretty great year we’ve had, but I feel like I’ve been fighting a losing battle to slow down. For Christmas I took a break and now it’s good to be back.
Isn’t it interesting to be able to look back at the year and realize how much more we did than we remember off the top of our heads? I love blogging for that reason. 🙂 I have a feeling 2014 will be even busier for both of us, but I hope we can keep up with the record-keeping task of blogging!
That is a great year! And next promises to be even more wonderful. You know I was right with you this semester with the stress (though dealing with it less gracefully than you). I can honestly say that even though I’ve been grading papers and working on fellowship applications since bringing Nu-Nu home, I am infinitely more relaxed than I was when I was teaching Sundays and working weeks and dragging that pregnant butt of mine around. That was hard and I didn’t give myself the breaks I needed– I just kept pushing it until I physically couldn’t do anymore. Pregnancy is exhausting so I’m glad you get a little break now to recover before the birth.
I’m glad I appear to be handling it gracefully, it doesn’t always feel that way. I’m also grateful to have this “down time” although I have cried a LOT this week as I re prioritize what has to happen vs. what “should” get done.