2010 Now In Progress

Monday, January 4th was the real start to my new year. Joe went back to work that day and it took until then for me to be 100% recovered from my cold so that's the day I ended up starting my "getting in shape" program (so my last restaurant meal ended up being Buffalo Wild Wings takeout Sunday night). Since I was so wiped out all of last week, the house needed major cleaning so Logan went to Babysitter's for the first time since Dec. 22nd. I also took my first bath since I think July! I needed a relaxing moment after we had another car issue.

On Sunday, January 3rd we were on our way home from Nebraska Furniture Mart where we had just bought a new entertainment stand now that we have a new TV. At the last minute we decided to pick it up on Monday because we were driving Joe's car and there isn't as much room as my car - but we hadn't driven my car because I was washing Logan's carseat. It's a good thing we didn't have our entertainment stand with us because about half way home Joe's car died! Thankfully, we were at a stop light in the right turn lane and no one was behind him so he was able to turn his flashers on and after that people just went around him. We happened to be right at a gas station so he pushed his car backward a few feet into the parking lot.

We went inside and he looked up the nearest towing company. . .$100! I totally forgot that I've been a AAA member the past 3 years (because my parents gave it to me as a gift) so thankfully when I called AAA on Monday they said I can mail in the receipt and be fully reimbursed.

We were closest to my friend Lisa P's house so I called her but she didn't hear her phone so we called our neighbors Sean & Brenda and Sean said he would come pick us up - whew! The whole experience took quite awhile. . .I bought Logan some snacks as he & I waited inside and Joe was in & out. His car was towed to our automotive shop and he left them a message asking if they would be able to tell what is wrong with it. They called on Monday and actually suggested we buy a new car because we'd be better off financially! Eek, that's when you know it's bad. So Joe has finally realized that the time has come to get an SUV or minivan or some type of more reliable, bigger, newer vehicle - so we had AAA tow it to our house Tuesday and are going to start looking at dealerships now. I had planned to go over to Brooke's for Stay At Home Mom day on Tuesday but will be stranded at home until Friday so we will do it that day instead.

Otherwise, that's been it since New Year's. I refreshed myself on the information found in Dr. Sears' The Discipline Book which I raved about here late summer/early fall and will finally be doing a post over it next time. Because I lost it (meaning, I yelled at Logan) because he has gotten into a habit of throwing his food and I don't know how to get him to stop. It started when he was a year old - every now and then he'd throw a couple of bites to the dogs (once he saw when he accidentally dropped food how excited they were to eat it)! Several months later it progressed to whenever he was finished if there was any food left he'd just dump it all out on the floor! Well now often times as soon as I give him his food he'll just throw his plate or bowl and straw cup and so the entire meal dumps out everywhere! (It doesn't matter if the dogs are there or not, he tries to do this at restaurants, too.)

Until now I have managed to stay cool about it but now am getting really frustrated. Aside from it being a total mess, this is often after he's made a huge deal about how hungry he is so I go to the work of fixing him something and then he throws it down right away and is done! But unlike last time when I yelled and he laughed (because thankfully I hardly ever yell at him), this time his lip quivered and he cried - so I have felt guilty ever since. The book offers parents healthy alternatives to yelling and (something I will NEVER do: spanking). So, like I said, I will summarize the rest of the book in my next post.

But for this post, as I said in my previous post titled Happy New Year!, I will reveal my New Years Resolutions. Last year my post about this was titled My Son's CT Scan (and other stuff) because Logan's CT scan was exactly a year ago - on January 5th last year (glad I don't have to deal with anything like that this year)! My last year's list was:

10) Hire a maid (I deleted this one in the fall because having a son this age allows me to clean whereas last year with a 9 month old until he was 18 months old it was nearly impossible.)
9) Get caught up on my blogs to present day, then blog 5 days a week, short posts (well, my blogs have been "live" as of August's post Never Buy Anything From Someone Who Approaches You (OK Marketing, Inc. Scam), but I didn't start writing more often & shorter posts until October. However, I got off that pattern in November around Cosmo's cancer, but after the book summary I plan to get back into writing shorter posts more often.)
8) Take a weekend road trip by myself to visit friends in Iowa (sort of. I went to Iowa in April without Joe and saw one friend - but Logan was at my parents' house and I was there dropping off & picking up my friend Sarah, so hopefully THIS year I can go back for the sole purpose of visiting friends while Logan stays in Omaha with Joe.)
7) Read at least one fiction book a month (I did this one! After Logan was born I only read 3 books between April and January - but since then I have read at least one novel a month which has been fantastic since I used to read, like, 4 a month!)
6) Go to physical therapy/get rid of de Quervain's Tenosynovitis (I didn't have to! My De Quervain's went away in February by itself!)
5) Eliptical machine, aerobics, or yoga at least five days a week (I didn't do this until October because I had hoped going on an hour walk every day with Logan would be sufficient. But it wasn't. However, I got out of working out in November so I started back up two days ago and will stick with it this time!)
4) Cook something healthy & homemade every single night (I wrote in August that I gave this one up. I'll do it when I can but that's the best I can hope for at this time in my life.)
3) Decorate all of the rooms in my house (in the fall I revised this to "our main floor." I came so close! I did all rooms except our office. So that is next on my list and then the upstairs should be easy so I'll definitely be done by our 3rd anniversary of living in this house which is August 2010.)
2) Learn CPR and heimlich (I never took a class, but in March I educated myself a lot via the internet, and gave a link to a video in my post Catch Up Time.)
1) Finish the book I'm writing

That one transitions me to this year's list! I did not finish book #4 and I admit part of that was because my dream had always been to be a published novelist at age 30. Since my 30th birthday was on December 21st I knew it wasn't going to happen BY then. However, duh, I have 11 more months of being 30, so why not at least TRY? Even if it doesn't happen this particular year, I shouldn't stop making steps in that direction. So, I have the same goal this year: to finish my novel - and also to do a weekend writing retreat by myself this month so that I can make the revisions to my last book, since I submitted it to a new publisher over the summer and was told in the fall that they will consider it if I change some things (the post about that was I Love This Age).

My third and final new year's resolution this year is starting this coming Sunday attend as many church services this year as we can! We have been taking the lazy route by not going since Logan learned to run around, but around 18 months I noticed that it shouldn't be hard anymore - so now that we'll be home for the forseeable weekends I really want to make it a priority because I feel my spiritual side is lacking and I need to strengthen it in 2010! That also includes reading more Christian material, etc. (I listened to Christian music all day Monday when I was cleaning.) Not to mention, Joe & I want Logan to get in the habit of going since around the time he turns two we will be able to start teaching him about God and praying, etc! :)

On a completely different subject, Logan's had two toenails fall off recently! His pediatrician noticed at his 18 month check up two months ago that Logan drags his toes sometimes when he walks which has really beaten up his toenails. They've never been very nice looking because you know how babies roll their toes until they start standing? Well he did that even after he started standing and walking. It's only when he's bored so it's like a bad habit or something - but now it has led to two toenails actually falling off and his big one is about to (it's ripped at the bottom)! It looks painful but he has never acted like it is (which is probably why he keeps doing it). I hope he grows out of it soon!

We tried to reintroduce his pjs but I noticed a couple of splotches started forming on his arms and as soon as I put cotton on him again they went away, so still no polyester for him.

On Monday I threw away his high chair. I had mentioned in my post About Nothing Really that the tray part wasn't in save-worthy condition so we'd started using just the booster seat at 18 months old and would probably throw away the tray around 20 months. So for the past couple of months we've been using it off & on but the time to say goodbye for good came this week. Now he's eating every meal like a big boy!

Shortly before Christmas Logan began wanting to resume potty training. I wanted to hold off until after we returned home from traveling so this weekend I plan to buy a book and start the process for real (we somewhat started it in August when he was 16.5 months old because he began doing it on his own and went #2 in his toddler toilet every day during the month of October but he stopped at 18.5 months. Now he's 20.5 months.) Hopefully the bookstore will have a better selection than over TG I browsed briefly and all that they had was one about potty training your child at 6 months old. Seriously?! That's just ridiculous!

I will end this post with some cute pictures of Logan. Joe's mom took these when she watched him in October while Joe & I went to Lake Rathbun! We had no idea she did this (she borrowed her friend's motorcycle) until we opened up a big frame for Christmas - these 3 pictures were mounted together! We couldn't stop laughing!!!!