Thursday, January 28, 2016

13 Months! (and random thoughts)

Where did the month of January go?  I'm big on resolutions and goal-setting and last night I finally made time to write my resolutions for 2016.  Better late than never, right?  After reading Better Than Before (which I love and highly recommend), I am trying to set quantifiable and measurable goals and have a mix of personal, professional, fitness, and emotional health-type resolutions.  We'll see.  Even when I don't keep all of my resolutions, I find them to be helpful reminders of what is important to me throughout the year.  Plus, I love looking back at them (I have paper copies back to high school and have kept them electronically since 2006). 
Enjoying a warm winter day at the park (in pigtails!)


I've been all over the place with posts I have wanted to write, so I'm going to stick to a bullet-point list so I can get it all down:

  • I read this quote and it really resonated with me: “Here is a little secret about grief, catastrophe, loss, suffering: you are exactly the same after as before.  Only more so."  I'm not certain that I agree, but it made me think a lot about who I was before we lost Q and who I am now.  Perhaps the ways in which I have changed aren't really changes, but just that I feel and experience those feelings and behaviors in different ways?  Incidentally, this quote was from "After Birth," which I loathed.  I haven't read a book that made me so angry in such a long time.  The protagonist spent most of the book lamenting how terrible the birth of her son was (she had to have a c-section, it didn't go as planned, blah blah blah...) and it was so irritating.  
  • In trying to find the title of "After Birth," I looked at my GoodReads list of books read for 2016 and realized that I seem to be on a grief-death kick.  I also read "The Opposite of Loneliness" (the author died just days after her graduation from Yale) and "When Breath Becomes Air".  I'd recommend both of those.  The latter is intense (the author writes it while dying of lung cancer), but so, so good.  And "The Opposite of Loneliness" is similarly heartbreaking... the author writes of her hopes and dreams, about how she'll be in the future as a parent, etc.  And all of that was taken away.  Both were a reminder of even when things are bad, how much worse they could be.  I know that no one wants to hear "It could be worse," but sometimes it is helpful to have a little perspective.
  • Oh, did you come here for news about Baby B being a TODDLER and 13 months old?  Well, fine!  B is... amazing!  She is walking all over the place, babbling (mostly) unintelligibly, smiling, laughing, reading, loving her stuffed animals, and generally causing trouble in the best way possible.  I write this in every post, but she is such a joy.  When I get home from work, we often sit in the study (effectively her play room at this point) and she sits in my lap and looks at her books (she flips the pages super fast and doesn't let me read to her).  I snuggle her and smell her head and kiss her cheeks and generally just smother her with love.  Sometimes it just is too much and I get super emotional... I feel overwhelmed by how much I love her.
  • I am running a marathon on February 14th. I feel under-prepared but I know I just need to get back out there and get it done.  We'll see how that goes.
  • My thoughts are still often with getting pregnant again.  I think that is a subject for another post, but you all are probably sick of hearing about it.  
  • I stopped nursing.  I thought I would be very sad about this, but it was okay -- it was time for us.  B loves milk and I was tired of pumping at work.   The only thing I miss about it now is the snuggle time and the ease of nursing vs. having to prepare a bottle.
I'll leave you with a few more photos.  Thanks to those of you who are still reading.  One of my resolutions is to blog more frequently, so we'll see if I can stick to that.  The bar is set pretty low...
Good morning!

With my favorite girl before a day of skiing with my husband
(she was unfazed by the ski resort daycare, which was awesome).

8 comments:

  1. Great update. The baby snuggles are so lovely, aren't they?

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    1. Oh, my gosh. The snuggles are the best. I just returned from a 2-night work trip and I couldn't get into B's room fast enough this morning to get some snuggles.

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  2. Love all the updates. B is darling as usual and yes, a toddler! Good luck with that marathon! Looking forward to hearing updates on that. And you skied Steamboat? We used to ski there often! I'm so spoiled and rarely take interest in skiing when conditions are the most optimal. :)

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    1. Aww, thanks. Yes, a toddler. It happened so quickly. We were at Steamboat and i Love it there. We are like-minded about skiing - we don't really bother going unless the conditions are idea. It has been a good winter here...

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  3. Wow B is cute! Thanks for the updates.
    And, as for getting pregnant again, I don't think we would be sick of that. We are hear to support you no matter what you decide and how you get there!

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    1. Thanks :) And thanks re: pregnancy considerations. I think I'll post about it this week since it is front of mind for me. I appreciate the support.

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  4. Glad to see an update from you, and that everything is going so well! I can actually very much relate to the quote you posted. Though perhaps "not changed" isn't a very helpful way to describe it - but I have much more sharply outlined priorities now, and some people are not so happy with this. Especially people who were mostly interested in the parts of me that have dropped in priority. Not sure if this makes sense...
    Getting pregnant again is probably on many of our minds once our babies are not babies anymore... go ahead and share!

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    1. I agree. I am the same person, but what you say about more sharply-outlined priorities is spot on. I very much know what I want and don't do/say/tolerate what I don't want (for better or for worse). Totally makes sense to me.

      True... I'm going to share today :)

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