New Year Resolutions: FAIL (already).

I've never been one to jump on the "New Year Resolutions" bandwagon. When I need to make a change, I usually just do it.

This year, however, I thought that the beginning of 2011 would be a good date to use as a starting point for some modifications that need to be made. I had three particular things in mind.

The first, was to get Reagan potty trained. I read the Potty Training in One Day book. I knew it took longer than a day. Coincidentally, Nick had a 4 day weekend (starting Jan. 1); and I thought it'd be an ideal time to start. I made all of the preparations for the big day, and on the morning of the New Year I made my attempt. Reagan would do a little tinkle on the potty, I'd take her off; congratulate her and give her a treat. But EVERY SINGLE TIME, about 60 seconds after she was off the toilet, she'd wet her pants in a BIG way. I tried keeping her on the toilet for extended amounts of time; but it didn't work. We went through 8 pairs of panties in under 3 hours.

I was convinced that Reagan was ready to potty train, but this was mainly due to the fact that I am so tired of changing two sets of diapers every day. Once I was honest with myself, I realized that she isn't. She still takes milk in her sippy to bed with her, for both naps and bedtime. She is never dry when she wakes up.

Before we went to Seattle (back in November), I had Reagan totally "off" the sippy cup before bed. But then she got sick, we were out of town.... Every parent knows what a slippery slope that is. We got back in the habit of the sippy.

Square One, it's nice to see you again. I'm back. The potty training will be postponed for a month or two, and I've started taking away the sippy at bedtime, again (hopefully this will help with the dryness factor).

We have had successful potty trips in the BM department. I'm going to keep that up because it is easy. Reagan is SO obvious when she has to poop. Thank Goodness for little miracles, right?!

Number two: Someone needs to lose some weight:

No, not her. Ha Ha.

I just adore her "rolls". I wanted to capture them in pictures so that I can remember my chunky-ish baby, years down the road.

No, I need to lose some weight. I really took for granted the ease with which I lost the baby weight after Reagan. I expected it to happen after Elsa too.

I gained a lot more weight when I was pregnant with Reagan, than I did with Elsa. At the doctor's office, the day before I had Reagan, I weighed in at OVER "two bills", so to speak. With Elsa I didn't see the 200 mark.

With Reagan, I was at my pre-pregnancy weight 4 months after delivery. Elsa will be 5 months old in less than a week and I am 15 lbs. away from from my pre-pregnancy weight. I saw myself in the hairdressers full-length mirror earlier this week and it was scary!

I could blame it on a lot of things. Such as: my countertop overflowing with Christmas goodies from neighbors (Nick isn't a sweet eater, so guess who has been consuming most of these delights? mmmm hmmmm.). My thyroid is the main culprit. When it is "out of whack" it makes it that much more difficult to lose weight. It is a double-edged sword, because I need to work out that much harder to take the "heft" off, but I don't have the energy to do it.

The bottom line is that I just need to do it. I can make excuses all day long, but that isn't going to get me anywhere. There is an aerobics class on M,W, &F mornings, located mere steps away from my house, and it is free. My biggest hurdle is that it starts at 5:30AM. Even if I can find a way to get out of that, it doesn't excuse the fact that we have a perfectly good treadmill gathering dust in our basement.

I'm hoping that, by putting this in writing, I will do away with all excuses; and I'll get my bum in gear.

Lastly, (I gave this one a great deal of thought prior to making it a resolution) was to go on a "spending fast" during 2011. More than a resolution, this is a lifestyle change I need to make. I have a budget, that I do a pretty good job of sticking to. Nick and I don't have any excessive debt. But I realized that I could do a whole lot better at reigning in my expenditures. I need to stop buying unnecessary items (no matter how necessary I think they might be at the moment. Impulse Buy, thy name is all too familiar to my vocabulary).

So, I decided the best thing to do was go "cold turkey". I set Jan. 1 as my start date. Already, this has been harder than I thought it would be!

On Dec. 28th, 2010 I was grocery shopping. The store I was patronizing had a whole section of Christmas Clearance. I dumped a bunch of the after-Christmas "deals" in to my cart. I soon realized that I didn't have enough room in my shopping cart for both my groceries and the junk. So, I put a few of the Christmas-y things back on the shelf. In particular: I ended up not purchasing Christmas door wreath and two sets of twin-size flannel sheets.

A few days later, my Mom called and needed me to take her to the store. It was after the beginning of the year, and my first thought was; "oh good! I can buy the things that didn't fit in my cart earlier this week!".

I had to catch myself, and I had one of those "internal conversations". I already have enough Christmas decorations. And once I thought about it I realized that I currently have 6 sets of twin-size sheets. None of them are flannel, but I knew that I needed to draw the line somewhere.

So, I mentally prepared ahead of time, and was successful at not purchasing any of the crap I had been so eager to buy.

I guess this can be counted as one success. Yay! for not being a total failure.

But now I need to keep it up for another 360 days.