Starting Off The New Year

It has been one week since my last entry – and what a week it has been! Not so much from the standpoint of the number of activities we have done (or in our case, have not done) but rather surviving the nights well enough to make it through the next day. This week also marked my return to work after a month-long maternity leave. I work from home so it is not like it was a huge ordeal of trying to get two kids and myself out the door, but it was back to work nonetheless. I have cut back my hours to part time and hired my mom to watch the boys while I work on Monday, Tuesday and half day Wednesday. It is kind of nice being back to work, - and for a short time I have a life beyond Baby Land. I am enjoying my first non-work day of the week today but setting up my work schedule like this has me thinking today is Saturday.

Jacques and I also joined a gym. This is new to me – and rather humbling. The winters here are too cold and the summers too hot humid to exercise in the great outdoors. Since the weather in Southern California was always so nice I could exercise outside and didn’t need to go to a gym; I was never into the treadmill thing since you run and run but don’t go anywhere. I thought I would never join a gym and here I am having swallowed my pride and am now the proud member of the Clarksville Athletic Club. To make a long story short, we joined the National Fitness Center in Clarksville on Monday but canceled our membership today, which was within the 3-day risk free cancellation time frame, for several reasons. I went to work out last night at 8:30 pm and they had already closed so Jacques and I were disappointed that the gym didn’t have longer hours. And the gym was pretty small, didn’t offer a whole lot and was kind of expensive. My parents used the Clarksville Athletic Club last year and loved it so we looked into it. It is offers an indoor and outdoor pool, kid’s classes (where Jadon can burn all his energy in the tumbling class), a cinema workout room (basically a movie theater with treadmills) and whole lot more. It’s cheaper, has longer hours, and childcare is provided. So we have switched to this gym and I can’t wait to work out. I bought some new running shoes the other night – and I am going to go down a rabbit trail on this. Saucony is my favorite brand of running shoes. I have worn them since my high school track & field and cross country days. I have strayed only twice into Nike and Adidas but never liked either of them. The only place I know in Clarksville that carries Saucony is The Finish Line at the mall – and wouldn’t you know it, they only had one pair left and it was in my size. Granted, I prefer white shoes with blue trim but now was not the time to be picky. It was either wear the gray shoes with pink trim or venture into the Nike realm again, so gray and pink it was. I also got a few new workout clothes so now I am ready for a fashionable gym workout, which I am hoping is tonight or tomorrow. Jacques and I used to have a ‘workout date night’ when we were dating and I am hoping we can repeat that. Granted, I was training for a marathon during those date nights so it won’t be as intense now as it was then, but it is always fun to workout together. Jacques is my favorite workout partner!

Now, onto the reason why this week has been so hard… my kids have conspired against us! Jacques had to get up at 4:00 am Friday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to get to Nashville for a job. Jadon gets up when he hears Jacques getting ready for work and no matter what time that is, Jadon doesn’t go back to bed. Nathan, well, he is a piece of work. The bouncer no longer works, the swing no longer works, snuggling him in the boppy no longer works, the co-sleeper no longer works... NOTHING works! This kid only sleeps at night when you hold him. He sleeps fine in the boppy, bouncer and swing during the day so go figure… So either we hear him cry and fuss for hours on end and get no sleep or he goes into bed with us and we kind of get some sleep, though not much. We don’t sleep well when he is bed with us for fear of rolling over him or having the sheets/pillows suffocate him. Not to mention he wakes up every two to three hours to eat so that doesn’t help at all. Around 7:30 am – 8:00 am he decides he can sleep in the swing, boppy or bouncer and would be well with the world EXCEPT Jadon normally wakes up 7:00 am. I can’t go back to sleep when Nathan does because Jadon either cries if I put him in his room with the baby gate up or he destroys the house if he is out of his room while I try to sleep. Now that Jacques is getting up at 4:00 am, Jadon gets up at 4:00 am, and I have lost even more sleep. The other morning Jadon woke up at 2:00 am and wanted to play… I have a headache from all this!

And in an update form my earlier post, Jadon still refuses to say ‘please’ for juice so we are going 7 days without juice. Man, does this kid have a strong will! Until next time...