a new year with new challenges... and some old ones

One of my new challenges is to get in better shape. It's not really a "New Year's Resolution" per se, but since I just happen to be about 3 months postpartum and also still about 16 lbs over my pre-pregnancy weight (I haven't lost any additional weight since the first two weeks), it's time to be a little more proactive. Our apartment remodeled the old laundry room into a workout room. I have been there twice so far... once to check it out, and once to actually do a session. I just did the treadmill and will probably stick with that for the forseeable future, unless it's busy, and then I will probably do the stepper. I've never really thought my diet was TOO terrible, but when I keep thinking about exercising, it's also making me think twice about what I eat, too, like for snacks and whatnot. I need to get more fruits and veggies and fewer chips and cookies. Or maybe I can put the fruits and veggies IN the chips and cookies, lol, like make dried veggie chips and then put carrots and zucchini in the cookies.

An always-ongoing challenge is finances, of course. We are very very blessed to have received an answer to our prayers for a good job for hubby, but after nearly four months on the job, he still does not have his own route yet and therefore is still making "training" pay. He tells me that he is next in line to get one, though, so hopefully any day now we will have some changes. Meanwhile, the training pay comes just slightly short of our monthly needs, so I have been continuing to work as well. I have narrowed down all my transcription things to just two companies, and between the two of them, it's a nice supplement to hubby's job. January is also a month where his job gets three checks, so there's that "extra" money, too, which will help keep us afloat.

Benjamin is growing like a weed. I weighed him today and he is 13 lbs 13 oz. Lydia didn't reach that weight until nearly 10 months. He has a double chin and is very smiley and loves to "talk" to people. I've gotten to where I can get him up on my back for grocery store trips, and it's SO much comfier than wearing him on my front. I am trying to branch out to a few different ways to wrap him up there, but am having a few failures intermixed with my successes. But at least I CAN get him there. We are still ECing with him as well, and that is also still having its hits and misses. He still has skin issues on his face. His dr said at his 2 month appointment that it was just acne and sensitive skin, but I'm starting to wonder if it's eczema and if he's sensitive to something in my diet. I tried to keep a food log b/c the redness does come and go (although it's heavier on the "come" side than the "go" side), but I really eat the exact same thing every day so that didn't help me any.

Lydia has entered the terrible threes in full force. Whenever I'm consistent with her discipline, she is a dream child, but if I slack even in the very slightest, she sees that as an opportunity to whine, cry, run away when I call her, etc. It is hard to be consistent w/ Benjamin around, since often times he is nursing or needing a diaper or whatever at the same time that she needs attention, but with prayers and with the grace of God, I will continue to try to be a better mother each day than I was the day before. And tomorrow it will be easy to do that, because today, I did not have a good day, mostly related to her potty training, or lack thereof. I got upset at a situation in the evening, and told her how I really felt. :(

But let me elaborate on the potty training and then you might be able to at least understand my frustrations. Last week, I set up a posterboard in the bathroom. On it, there are pictures of pee and poop in the potty (ok pictures of potties and then I colored some brown and yellow... I wanted it to be real but not TOO real, lol), pictures of wet and dirty diapers being put into the pail, a picture of Lydia "telling" me and hubby that she needs to go potty, and a picture of a dry diaper. She was with me while I was making it, and I talked it up, but it still took a few days or so for her to understand what it was for. But she seemed to like it. Oh and at the very bottom was a picture of her "prize"... some Dora panties.

She is still not catching on that she needs to (eventually) initiate her own trips to the potty. But she does things that get my hopes up, and then does other things that just make me really feel like she WILL be wearing diapers to college. On Sunday, she stayed dry (in a Pull-up) ALL DAY, including a #2 in the afternoon. Granted, I was taking her more often than I would have gone myself (and I initiated all the trips), but still, ALL DAY... including eating out after church and being out late like that (she went early at the restaurant and then not again until we got home). But then today, it was diaper after diaper. She did have one instance where I was in the bathroom, and she was in there too, w/ a wet diaper, so I took the old diaper off while I was sitting down and she was standing next to me. Then while her diaper was off and I finished up my business, she sat down UNPROMPTED on her little potty and went #1. Then she thought about it and said she had to go #2, and a few minutes later, she did that as well... also in her potty. We celebrated and got stickers and I started to put a diaper back on her (trying to save the $$$ Pull-ups for church) but she wanted a Pull-up. I told her that she needed to go to the potty on her own and if she peed or pooped in it, then she'd be getting a diaper. Not even FIVE minutes later... she did #2... IN the Pull-up. Yay. Then this evening right before bed, another #2, in her diaper. :( And it was one that was really hard to clean up, too.

So that is where we are with that. I don't want to close on that unhappy note, so I'll share a couple of recent pictures of Benjamin, since it's been a while since I shared.