At the beginning of this year, in an effort to support my resolve to blog more, I started something new: monthly takeaways. Call it a recap, a reflection or a review. The monthly takeaways are one part blog therapy and two parts a measure of the growth and progress I’ve made in my life (or not). After all, a month left behind means my son is one month older, I am one month older and therefore, hopefully, one month wiser.
My hope is that these takeaways will be fun and interactive and that you will join me by posting about your takeaways from this past month, in the comments below.
For one reason or another, there weren’t many things I learned last month. Either because I just plain didn’t have the time to jot stuff down and snap photos, let alone reflect on life. Alas, here’s what does stick out…
My April Takeaways
1. I am officially fertile again. No, I am not pregnant! In fact, the total opposite happened… I got my period for the first time in 17 months.
2. My husband Jason gave me his cold this past month and I passed it on to our son Mylo. Fluids and snuggles eventually did our bodies good. Coddling the baby to bed did our sleepless nights bad.
3. This takeaway deserves a post all its own, but I’ve yet to write it. After getting over our two-week colds, we decided to sleep train Mylo again. Only this time it required moving our bed into the living room. While sleeping on a mattress as if we’re back in college is not ideal, the sleep training has been a success.
Oh two bedroom, where art thou?
4. Mylo truly has a zest for anything physical. Toss him onto a bed of pillows and he bellows with laughter. Drag him around by his feet so his shirt “swifts” our hardwood floors clean and he snorts and giggles the entire time. He’ll cut a rug to Adele and Fuse until he sweats and he just ADORES being thrown in the air.
He’s an active one I tell ya.
5. Despite making no money this past year, Uncle Sam surprised us with an unexpected bounty. That or having a kid really does bode well with the taxman.
6. We moved our car out of the expensive covered parking garage we’ve parked in for four years to contend with the rat race of alternate side of the street parking. Not only is it one less bill per month, but it also ended a complicated situation we had gotten into by letting a homeless man and his dog sleep in our car at night.
7. Mylo went to his friend Gratia’s 1st birthday party in the park on a particularly blustery April afternoon. Mylo had his first taste of a cupcake and learned how to play bang on musical instruments. I learned to keep my mouth shut when it comes to the contentious topic of schooling your children. When I told a couple who is moving to an area of Brooklyn Heights that would have them zoned for the most desirable public school in the borough, they informed me that they’re actually “hoping to get into” Saint Ann’s where tuition ranges between 23 and 30 thousand dollars. Well didn’t I feel like a loser?!
Mylo taking in the festivities while watching the birthday girl celebrate.
8. My brother-in-law Damien flew in (like the wind) from California last week. He adores his nephew and has even offered to watch him while we step out for a couple of hours but is adamant about not changing diapers. Somehow I managed to get him to put a onesie on the baby, though. I told him, “It opens in the crotch, figure it out.” It took him seven minutes and a ton of negotiating to get the boy to sit still, but he did it. I feel a diaper change coming on in his near future!
A wise guy to my left and to my right.
9. I could care less about the royal wedding. Will and Kate are a charming couple but I was really disappointed to see my country’s extensive media coverage pre and post-nuptials. Especially when hundreds of people died following the tornadoes down south, just two days before the big day.
10. If there is anyone who cared less than me about the royal wedding it was my husband. So much so that when I told Jason we were invited to a royal wedding party a day AFTER the royal wedding on our friends’ roof deck down the block, he asked, “Can I sit this one out?” Uh, NO!! And yet look who had a ball parading around like the queen?
Queen for the day.
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So, what are some of your takeaways from this past month? Please share them with me in the comments, I’d love to hear!
Sorry for being MIA! Great take-aways
#3 – it seems everyone has a different idea of what “sleep training” is, would you mind elaborating?
#6 – um, how did you get into a situation where you were allowing a homeless man and his dog into your car in the first place???
#10 – that picture is priceless!
Hm… my take-aways for April?
1-Starting a new job sucks. I need to stop being so paranoid about failing and just focus on learning the ropes.
2-Communication is so important in my marriage. Wish as busy as the two of us are we need to work on having regular date nights or something so we don’t end up in such emotional exhaustion.
3-I should have started acupuncture for my old dog a year ago. I am truly amazed at what it has done for him!
Boo for colds, periods, and having to re-sleep-train.
I am glad Mylo is sleeping again, and I hope you get your bedroom back soon!
I had to chuckle at the caption of the mattress photo. My mantra at the moment is similar. We desperately need more room.
My takeaway from April is, where the heck did it go?? I am living in the blur, as I have heard it called. There is too much to do and the babies are constantly taking off in opposite directions. Maybe my takeaway should be that I need to learn better time management skills!
Speaking of being inefficient…I have been trying to respond to your comment about ICLW for a long time. And seriously, every single time I sit down at the laptop something happens (like just now, I had to go clean up cat puke). So I hope you can forgive my delayed response! But I wanted to tell you that I don’t think you should feel badly at all about stumbling onto ICLW even though you don’t struggle with infertility. In fact, I’m so glad that I found you through it. I love reading about Mylo’s latest adventures, I enjoy your writing style, and I find that I can really relate to your posts. More importantly, though, what I needed most when I was struggling to conceive was comfort and acceptance. You have such a big heart, and such a sensitivity to pain and loss. I am sure that any comments you leave on infertility blogs would be welcomed. After all, as Mel says – comments are the new hug.
And now I guess we know what happens when I am not able to get online for a while. I leave novels for comments! 😉