January was a difficult month for me. I haven’t been sleeping well, and as other things came together and I was hoping to get back on track with healthier habits, the sleep puzzle piece didn’t, and it really is a major thing for me. I wouldn’t say I took for granted how well I slept before I had kids, because I have enough loved ones who don’t sleep well to know that it really was a super power that I should treasure. Still, discovering just how much poor sleep impacts my life for the worse has been quite an eye-opener. Thankfully, the month concluded with a visit to my doctor who I’m now working with on some strategies, and I’ll see her again in a month to check in.
I also came down with a sinus infection. I get them pretty much every year, and I should probably bring that up with my doctor at some point too! One thing at a time. Anyway, after about 10 days the infection went away on its own, but it was a very unpleasant 10 days with severe sinus pain and headaches.
Still, I did have lots of fun with the kids in January.
Adam’s third birthday was on January 6th, and I went with Curious George as a theme since he’s really been getting into the shows and books lately. We celebrated by taking him to our favorite park to play and have some chicken tenders and cake. Our favorite local restaurant hooked us up with a party platter of tenders that we could enjoy for the occasion, and it was a really lovely afternoon. Plus, Adam loves the novelty of eating cake outside, so I was happy to oblige on his birthday.
Adam also started preschool at the tail end of January. Our decision to send him, especially as the omicron variant was still trending here, was a difficult one. After nearly two years of caution due to the pandemic, did we really want to open up our household to that risk? When we weighed all of the considerations, we decided to send him. I know kids will likely bounce back from the isolation better than most adults, but we felt that he needed the socialization and support that 2.5 hours of preschool each day could offer him.
Martin Luther King day happened to fall on Tu B’Shevat this year, meaning we had a three day weekend with the boys that we could also use to celebrate trees! Adam and I did some tree art and activities, and then the four of us took a walk to a trail nearby to visit some trees. No tree planting happened, but it was still a nice way to observe the holiday.
In personal project news, I managed to snag a few more SLT cards from a shop online. I haven’t turned the first card into jewelry yet, but I noticed that my options for getting parts were rapidly disappearing, and figured I should take this opportunity to stock up. I also got some “lamps” from the IBM s/360, which will be fun to incorporate somehow. I think I should get a little box to store all of this in though, it’s floating around the house in a cardboard box, which is not optimal and I really don’t want any of this stuff to get damaged.
Now that I’ve finished breastfeeding, we also closed down the little “nest” I had in the corner of our bedroom and moved the big, fluffy chair downstairs into our living room. It now lives in front of the fireplace, which has a TV above it that came with the house. We never used the TV, and kept talking about getting rid of it (we have another TV in the room!) but in the meantime, I decided to connect my Nintendo Switch up to it. I like playing games on the device, but if I am able to cuddle up in my fluffy chair in front of the fire, having a big screen for games is nice.
But if January (and honestly the last quarter of 2021 when I gained back half the weight I had lost) taught me anything, it’s that I need to stop pushing myself so hard. Now is not the right time in my life to be hustling both at work and at home. If I’m going to be putting in the effort at work that I want to for this promotion, that means I need to slow down with my hobbies for a bit and make sure I’m sleeping, exercising, and eating well. When I stop having a baby waking me up at 5:30AM (or earlier) every day and can get more help around the house, I can re-evaluate my situation. But with two kids under four at home and a pandemic outside our doorstep, now is not the time to guilt trip myself about not getting around to making nerdy jewelry, regardless of how much fun it is in the moment. So maybe I’ll play around here and there, but most nights I’m going to try to get to bed as early as possible. Hopefully. This is hard for me.