Avalinette's MAP

Avalinette

@Olddog, I'd like to freeze some meals but I'm not sure I'll manage...I'm struggling just to cook enough for us to eat now, much less enough for leftovers (yes, I cook big batches, but we eat the leftovers as fast as I make them). H might make some freezer meals. So far, I've managed to freeze 3 portions of soup...but I'm not sure I won't eat them before baby comes...it was so much easier to organise a freezer of meals last time when I didn't have a toddler around.

Avalinette

Last week

• I've done the most important stuff for getting ready for baby, though not as much as I wanted to
• As I recall I managed some tidying every day (some days LO and I were still doing stuff in the living areas when H got home so not perfect) and got the bed made. We had homecooked food every day but one. However, I still cooked all the meals...I now have more leftovers than I expected to have
• I handwashed the most urgent clothes from my handwash basket
• I polished 2 pairs of shoes

So, I did most of each item on my list, but didn't get any of them 100%

This week

• Get some items on my 'to do' list everyday.
  

• Tidy downstairs everyday and tidy LO's bedroom
  

MrsJon

@Avalinette ; Great job on accomplishing your household tasks recently.  You seem to be doing well. 

I hope you are feeling ok as your pregnancy advances. When is Baby due? I am sure it can't be too much longer now.

Keep up the good work, I always look forward to reading your posts.

 

 

 

Avalinette

Thanks @MrsJon‌ ;

I'm increasingly tired as the pregnancy goes on, especially with an energetic toddler to keep up with. I'm trying to find the balance between doing what needs to be done and being kind to myself and getting enough rest. Bub is due in 3 weeks, so officially allowed to be born now and not be considered a premmie. We had a bit of a false alarm last week, so we're relieved he/she didn't make an appearance then.

Avalinette

Last week

• I made some progress on my to do list. I think I did do something from it everyday but some days it was only half a task.
• I did some tidying every day, but didn't finish it every day. I kept LO's room tidy up till about Wed and it's been gone a bit backwards since then. It's still kind of tidy though...(much better than it was before). I also made our bed some days.
• It wasn't officially on our list, but we ate home cooked food something like 4 out of 5 days as I recall (for evenings. LO and I had real food for breakfast everyday).

This week, I don't think I'll make any official monkeys. I'm just taking every day as it comes. I'll keep working through that to do list (which, as usual, grows faster than I can cross things off it) and work to basically keep the house tidy and the family fed on good food.

Avalinette

Last week was exhausting. I'm 'end of pregnancy' tired. I'm spending my mornings looking forward to my nap and my afternoons looking forward to H coming home. I've done a few to do items, but mainly been spending time with friends/playing with LO. I think I cooked twice and we had leftovers the rest of the week with one lot of takeout. I've done some tidying and laundry (enough to survive). H took Tuesday off because it looked like bub was on its way, but bub changed its mind after a night in the hospital...frustrating...though the day off with hubby was kinda nice.

Angeline

Take care! I hope your labor goes smoothly for you.

Avalinette

I hope so too, @Angeline. My mood keeps switching from 'excited to meet the new baby' to 'apprehensive about labor' to 'let's just get it over with, I'm sick of being tired and uncomfortable'.

Avalinette

Time to get back into real life a bit.

My goal for this week is to keep both kids happy and fed during the day and get as much sleep as I can around that.

Stretch goals are:
- Encourage LO to spend some quiet time playing by herself in her room every day
- Help with bathtime, bedtime and evening cleanup
- Help H with laundry and food prep and dishes
- Detangle LO's hair (No one brushed her hair for over 2 weeks and now she's got a big tangle at the back)
- Go out
- Socialise
- Send some emails

Olddog

Avalinette said:

Time to get back into real life a bit.

My goal for this week is to keep both kids happy and fed during the day and get as much sleep as I can around that.

Stretch goals are:
- Encourage LO to spend some quiet time playing by herself in her room every day
- Help with bathtime, bedtime and evening cleanup
- Help H with laundry and food prep and dishes
- Detangle LO's hair (No one brushed her hair for over 2 weeks and now she's got a big tangle at the back)
- Go out
- Socialise
- Send some emails

Does she like books? Read-alongs? Colouring?

Put her in the tub and wet her head, then add tons of conditioner. Get her to swish her head side to side under water, if it's fine some of it may untangle itself. Give her a wide tooth comb and teach her to work from the bottom up. Add more conditioner as necessary and then rinse it all off... You can tidy the bathroom while you watch her. Of if Mr.A watches her than you can tackle one of your tasks.
(Does she have water toys?) 

Avalinette

@Olddog, she loves reading and a current favourite toy of hers is toy blocks and her train set. She generally plays blocks when she does playing alone time. She has some playing alone time in her room every evening before going to sleep and every morning after she wakes up: she's become very good about staying in her room from goodnight (7:30 ish) till 6:30 when she's allowed up even though she only sleeps something like 9pm-5:30am. I've done playing alone time in the middle of the day for her twice this week. She doesn't stay put the whole time so I have to keep reminding her to go back.

She certainly has water toys. I've started taking the toys away if she's resistant about cleaning herself (and she gets them all back once she's clean) but now she's decided having toys confiscated is a fun game and gleefully hands them to me.

As for hair. I used to try spray and detangle, but she dislikes any work on her hair and the spraying was making it take longer. She also resists hair washing somewhat (so I'm not sure the conditioner trick will be welcomed). I find the easiest way is to make it over quickly. I tell her before hand how many strokes I'll do and we count them. So far this week I've done about 4 lots of 20 strokes: we haven't removed the tangle completely but it's smaller every time and her hair looks neat now (for about 10 minutes).

Avalinette

Report on last week


My goal for this week is to keep both kids happy and fed during the day and get as much sleep as I can around that.

Did that

Stretch goals are:
- Encourage LO to spend some quiet time playing by herself in her room every day
Managed it once, maybe twice. She doesn't really want to do it...
- Help with bathtime, bedtime and evening cleanup
Evening chores were close to evenly divided between  H and I, including 2 nights when I got started before H got home
- Help H with laundry and food prep and dishes
I put away 2 lots of laundry, I did an hour or so of food prep on Sat, I cleaned up breakfast and lunch every day and did evening clean up on nights H did bathtime: I think that was once.
- Detangle LO's hair (No one brushed her hair for over 2 weeks and now she's got a big tangle at the back)
It was all detangled (and in pigtails) by church time on Sunday: tangled again now though...
- Go out
Short baby free walk at start of week and a coffee outing with H and kids on Sat
- Socialise
Just phonecalls, no one wanted to socialise with me this week
I did socialise at church though, but nothing in the week
- Send some emails
two emails

Avalinette

Goal for this week
Keeping the kids happy and fed etc during the day
Stretch goals
-change bed sheets: adult bed, baby cot, baby moses basket
-email out some baby photos
-get my phone sorted out
-Go shopping
-Socialise
-Help out with home chores
-make the bed every day
-keep upstairs tidy
-keep downstairs tidy

Avalinette

Thanks @mrs_h (and @olddog). It's good to know that I'm doing well.

Avalinette

Report on last week

Avalinette said: Goal for this week
Keeping the kids happy and fed etc during the day
Did that
Stretch goals
-change bed sheets: adult bed, baby cot, baby moses basket
Only changed one sheet: the dirtiest
-email out some baby photos
no
-get my phone sorted out
done
-Go shopping
Done
-Socialise
Went to mother and baby group. I missed out on having both the oldest and the youngest kid there by half a week.
Also drove out to my parents house for half a day
I spent much of the second half of the week recovering form 2 trips...
-Help out with home chores
I've only helped in the evening. I don't think I got any done during the day while H was out.
-make the bed every day
No, maybe 2/5 nights
-keep upstairs tidy
sort of...had parents room sorta tidy most days. It was tidy enough that H was able to have the whole house done by 7:30 every night.
-keep downstairs tidy
not really. It stayed kind of tidy, but I wasn't strict enough on keeping LO upstairs to keep it perfectly tidy.

This week:
Keep kids happy and fed all week
Get dinners on the table (mostly reheating food H has pre-prepared)

Stretch goals:
Change the sheets
Email the photos
Socialise
Help with home chores (do enough helping that H has time to watch both kids while I have my shower in the morning)
make the bed every night
keep upstairs tidy
keep downstairs tidy

Avalinette

Avalinette said:

Last week:

• I did share my list with H and did my one thing a day through the week
• Housework: did everything but mopping the kitchen floor
• Did all my socialising things

This week has started badly: I had a fall (down stairs), so I'm all sore and stiff and trying to rest and LO is acting up (or responding to me being kinda out of action). This week, I'm just going to try and survive.

@try_red_pill‌, why did you disagree with this?

try_red_pill

Sorry @Avalinette‌, that was unintentional, I have fat thumbs and the mobile site can be a little "fat thumb idiot" unfriendly, MAP on.

Avalinette

Well, it's Friday, so I still have one day to go but I'll update now (because baby is sleeping and LO is sitting still)

Last week's goals:

Keep kids happy and fed all week
did that
Get dinners on the table (mostly reheating food H has pre-prepared)
Made all the dinners except Monday and I've persuaded H that we should go out for fish and chips tonight.
Stretch goals:
Change the sheets
baby conveniently pooped on some of the sheets giving me some impetus to get this done :P so, now it's done
Email the photos
I finally did this. It's been a massive mental block to do it though: constantly second guessing myself, feeling I shouldn't do it, or I'm not doing it right, or I should send out different photos, agonising over what to write in the email. I don't know why because I know it's a really small thing and it doesn't actually matter what I do, but for some reason my mind wouldn't stop agonising over it and procrastinating.
Socialise
No. I didn't try that hard to get anyone to socialise with me though. Mostly we've just been lazing around at home alone. My Mom will come round today though.
Help with home chores (do enough helping that H has time to watch both kids while I have my shower in the morning)
I've done some help, though probably not as much as I'd hoped when I wrote out this goal. I only got my morning shower once in the week.
make the bed every night
Yes. And by every night I mean every afternoon (except Mon when I made it just before I got into it). Bed was made when H got home every day but Mon.
keep upstairs tidy
Tidied the master bedroom every day (all nights but Mon it was done before H got home)
keep downstairs tidy
Well, it wasn't tidy to start with so I couldn't just keep it tidy. Most days we maintained it at about the same level (all the breakfast and lunch stuff cleared up and some toy tidying). I've done a bit more getting LO to help with picking up her toys and this week she's done some tidying without me needing to even be in the room with her ...I may have used bribery...

Avalinette

Thanks for awesoming all my posts @Olddog It helps my motivation.

Goals for this week:

• kids happy and fed

• dinners on the table
• go to physio
• have coffee with my Gran

Stretch goals

• make the bed every day
• keep downstairs tidy. It's tidy now (Sun night) so I want to keep it that way.
• keep upstairs tidy
  
• vacuum upstairs (H did downstairs already )
• help with morning and evening chores
• transfer photos and movies from camcorder to computer
• do kegels every day
  
• 2 emails

Olddog

No problem @Avalinette, I think you are doing amazing (and you have two littles!!!).