2015

Starting off with a bad selfie!

I haven't had a chance to recap 2014 on here, but besides a couple of races and a trip earlier in the year (which I would link but am using my phone at the moment), 2014 was a year of baking a baby and dealing with the aftermath. I also got a cute new niece and nephew out of it, as well. Family gatherings are very hectic now!

Looking forward, I am hoping that this year will involve a return to normalcy, at least as much as can occur with a new baby. I look forward to incorporating Baby Tuesday into things that "The Ukrainian" and I used to enjoy as a party of two. I also look forward to seeing Tuesday grow and learn about the world. I am hoping to bake and cook and run again, too. The last thing I made was a pandan cake on Christmas Eve, but I wouldn't have been able to do it without help from my younger sister and a napping baby.

Blogging more often would be nice. This post in itself required multiple sittings.  I have many posts I'd like to write -- mostly reviews :) -- that will have to remain unwritten for now. You'd think me not working would facilitate that, but I generally have sole responsibility over Tuesday's needs almost all hours of the day. When he is down, I try to relax, deal with his feeding stuff (so time consuming!), use the bathroom, or eat. I don't know how people can do this on their own, as most days I feel like that is what I'm doing, and it's much more tedious than my full-time job. On that note, our daycare situation isn't going as planned, so in the little free time I have, I'm scrambling to find care so I can eventually return to work and earn the raise I earned last year!

Tuesday is just over 7 weeks old, so the two-month mark and first immunization are just around the corner. And thank goodness, because I'm itching to go out with him (nothing crazy but just more than now). So far, he's only been to select houses, medical appointments, and in the stroller around the neighborhood, including our local hiking trail. I took him out for a play date on my own, and that first solo driving a baby experience was scary to me but very uneventful.

I've been trying to work out most days, even if just for 10 minutes (thanks, YouTube!) before I shower. If I do both of these things in a day, I feel somewhat human. I'll do 20-30 minute workouts a couple of times a week. I even did Focus T-25 recently (I'd link this if I wasn't on my phone but you can see my Reviews page). Soon, I'll be cleared for ab work again, which is great because I can sneak that in more easily than cardio and it's the area that needs the most work. Right now, it's just lumpy enough to make it hard for me to wear my work staples, button up shirts tucked in and dress pants, belted. I'm not sure when I will ever have the time or energy to really focus on slimming down again. I'd really like to not feel so awkward and gross, beyond the fact that I'm frequently cleaning off spit up, pee, and milk off of myself and find putting on makeup a horrid chore but must due to terrible hormones on my skin. Maybe when I am no longer lactating and am sleeping more?

Diet is the other part of the equation. During the first month I had Tuesday, his great grandmother brought over a Russian cake, like an entire multi-layered one, and I pretty much singlehandedly ate it in less than a week. I cut out middle-of-the-night eating after the first month, and now I'm trying to eat more vegetables and good proteins instead of the carb-fest that has powered me through the beginning. I watched my diet very closely during pregnancy, so maybe part of it is that it was novel to eat freely again. My lactose intolerance seemed to ease up in the second half of my pregnancy, though I think it's starting to return, so all the better if I work on these changes now.