Reprieve

The Lord saw fit to give me (and Theo) a reprieve from our not so great week last week. Don't get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed having Theo home since he was on vacation. But as for parenthood, last week was not great. It had great moments...like our zoo trip, trip to the park, etc but all in all, it was a hard week on all of us.

So this week, so far has been great with one little glitch on Monday with Carter at the YMCA (for another post). Olivia has been sleeping better at night but still waking up a couple of times to nurse. She has been sleeping back in her bed. I nurse her in our bed and then she is back to her crib. She went through a phase where she didn't want to fall asleep at night. Or if she did, she would wake up an hour later screaming. Well, I started nursing her in her room in the rocking chair, with the lights dim, and her music on (and Carter either downstairs, or in her room being quiet). I think that helped. She is also finally taking some longer naps. For a long while there she wouldn't sleep longer than 20 or 30 minutes. But today, I am happy to report she took a 2.5 hour nap!! WOOHOOO for naps! Carter and I spent some quality time together. His new favorite thing is listening to chicka chicka boom boom on the computer (thanks mom!) Then it was "rest" aka movie time. I made tomato basil soup from scratch for lunch and even had time to read a book for a few minutes! I feel so refreshed!

We joined the YMCA at the start of the year and I have gone for the past five days. I have done a yoga class twice, a pilates class, ran on the track a few times, and lifted some weights. I feel pretty darn good. I told Theo that the motivating factor was getting a break from the kids for an hour! But whatever works, right? I took Olivia twice to the childcare. She cried almost the whole time Saturday but did awesome yesterday! Theo kept her for me this morning even though he had been up working all night so I could go to the pilates class and not worry about how Olivia was doing. I am grateful. Well, yes and no...that pilates kicked my tail! I haven't worked my ab muscles, which are virtually nonexsistent since getting pregnant and giving birth, really hard! I am so glad we joined the gym. I feel like even that on hour away most days really helps me mentally. I get so bogged down with doing so much for everyone else and rarely do things for myself. Working out really helps me.

I am taking a gym break tomorrow so we can go back to MOPS. Haven't been since before Christmas so it will be nice to see all my friends. Theo is back at work this weekend so I don't imagine we'll do too much. It snowed yesterday for about half and hour and then the sun came out. But today, the temperatures are much cooler. We had several days of great weather so I am not complaining!

And as usual, pics of my two favorite kiddos....