I can’t believe that it is already April 15. What happened to February and March? I’ve fallen off my goals a bit for the new year. However, I’ve actually got one big goal accomplished.
We purchased new furniture. This a big project Nate and I have talked about for a couple years. We had been using old furniture of mine – desk, dining room table, etc. Plus we had glass tables, which I’ve been REALLY sick of for a while now. I hate cleaning them and they always look dusty. Plus, we need a lot of storage with a small apartment. We have both become tired of the constant clutter. So, we went on a shopping spree at Ikea. We purchased a new dining room table and chairs, a new desk/office unit with tons of cubes and storage – awesome – and we replaced one end table with a simple wood table and replaced the other with another cube/shelf unit. Then the same for the bedroom. No more glass – yippy! Our house looks so much better and it does amazing things for my mental health.
Other than that, it has been sort of interesting at the Kogler household. Fynn is doing great. He’s getting so big and he is cruising now. He doesn’t want to sit or crawl, he just wants to move from one piece of furniture to another. It’s way too cute. However a mobile baby means it is a lot harder to get work done during the day. I think back to when I was working full time and working from home on Fridays. He was such a calm little guy. He would just play under his gym or in is exersaucer while I would work. Now, he’s trying to break my computer screen and he complains if I’m not playing with him. I know it’s good for him to play by himself, but I really like playing with him…so I think I’m my own worst enemy on that front.
I’ve been talking about going back to work part time in the fall. Mostly doing what I’m doing at home in an office. It’s a bit hard to work out. Daycare is expensive when you’re working only part time. I also don’t think it will be any more cost effective to hire a nanny (nanny taxes, etc). I’ll have to do a lot of thinking about this. If it works alright to just keep doing what I’m doing for a while, that might be how it has to be. Now that the house is set up better and baby-proofed correctly, I think this might get a little bit easier (not a lot easier) but a little bit over the next few weeks.
I’ve picked up one other problem. If anyone has a solution to this, I’m all ears. As some of you might know, I have a gigantic child. He’s not fat, just a really big guy. I just have not been doing a lot of core exercises and my back is killing me. When I mean killing me, I mean I’m all hunched over and can barely carry the little guy or walk for that matter. I just have this huge muscle knot in my left side. I’m working hard on carrying Fynn on both sides, but he’s heavy and picking him up hurts. The problem is that I can’t really rest. I mean, I’m a stay-at-home mom and neither set of parents live in town. I just have no one to call for help. I just wish I could call my mom and ask for help. Even 1 week of half day help would be a life-saver. My back was getting better when Nate was home for a week. Just to share the load until I can recover. Alas. Maybe when my mom retires, they can stay on the boat for a few weeks in June or July and help me out. Until then, I’ll get a walker. 🙁
I has similar issues with my back after I had Alex (and he wasn’t that big). My whole back used to tingle when I was washing dishes! I went to the doctor about it and she recommended getting a massage to help work out the muscles. It didn’t completely fix it, but it did definitely help. The problem reoccurred sooner with Beth (who was 25 pounds at 1 year and didn’t start walking until 14 months). I’ve been getting massages every 4-6 weeks just to keep it in check. It’s not the most cost-effective solution, but it may help relive the pain. I wish I had a better solution. Try to avoid picking him up as much as possible, which I know is difficult. Now that he’s cruising, he should be walking soon and it gets better because they don’t want to be carried as much. Wish I could help more, but I’m working full-time myself and can barely find time to do everything I need to.