#02162022

I’m still over here, friends! Eating good food, getting a big ol’ chop to my hair, and enjoying Valentine’s Day with my boys.

First things first: I chopped a TON of length off my hair and I love it so freaking much. I’m losing a lot less hair in the shower, all the color I put in my hair ages ago is finally gone, and pep doesn’t rip my hair out anymore! Plus, way easier maintenance-wise. I didn’t realize how dead and style-less it was before, until I chopped it. Sometimes a fresh cut is so rejuvenating.

Second: since last weekend when I had an awful night with pep, when we were up all night together, we’ve started sleep training, and it’s been so much less emotionally taxing than I expected. He’s a little champ. Instead of rocking him fully to sleep like we’ve been, one of us will now sit quietly with him for 10-15 minutes max in the rocking chair before bed/naps, whisper to him, sing a song, play with a stuffed animal, whatever, and then put him down awake in his crib. He whines and sometimes cries right away, but as soon as we leave the room, he settles and puts himself to sleep. It’s gotta be related to this that he also really hasn’t woken up at all crying for us overnight. He woke up once crying over the past week, and it was because his nose was super stuffy. We helped him with that and he went right back to bed. I can’t overstate how AMAZING and transformative this has been for me. I had tied so much more stress and anxiety to his sleep troubles than I had realized. I started to anticipate him waking or having trouble going down, and I would be filled with such dread, anticipating the exhaustion to come. Fingers crossed - those days seem like they’re in the rear view.

Valentine’s Day here was simple and lovely. I took some cute lipstick-on-the-cheek photos with pep, though he totally did NOT love the process. 😅 B and pep went out to the supermarket and got some steaks for dinner, plus picked me up some flowers and stopped at my favorite bakery for cherry cheesecake and my favorite cookies. So cute, simple, and thoughtful. Steaks cooked in cast iron with baked potatoes and a salad was a delicious dinner, and a much needed departure to have an adult meal together, at a table. (Have you guys done baked potatoes in the instant pot?? If not: try it. It’s so easy, it’s incredible. Baked potatoes in 20 minutes. Yes.)

Today I’m going for a quick ultrasound to finish up the anatomy scan — hopefully this little nugget cooperates. Tomorrow I’m headed into the city to work in the office for the first time this year. Strangely enough, I’m kinda excited to get out of the house, get dressed, and see other adult humans?