The To Do List

At Zack's family's house over Christmas, we talked a bit about New Year's Resolutions. I felt at the time like this was not a year for resolutions for me. With a new daughter (according to our recent ultrasound) coming in May, I've some changes coming my way, and it seems like a bad idea to set a whole bunch of new goals. Instead of resolutions, I have a to do list this year. The list is topped with preparations for the new baby, but there's also the usual clutter of things that keep slipping down to the bottom as new things pop up.
We started off the year right by letting Ela take a short vacation with the grandparents. Zack and I arrived in DC on our own, and we got straight to work rearranging. Our dining room table was a hand me down that has survived many generations of less-than-gentle use. It was time for a new one, so we bought one (and chairs to go with it, which are still on order), and put that up in our dining area. That was the easy check off the list.
Then there was the bigger task of rearranging for the baby. The room that used to be my office (which I never used because Ela would destroy it) is now Ela's room. We packed up the books, moved my desk out of there, and then moved her bed and a new dresser in, as well as a toy chest and enough stuffed animals to drown Dory. The room that used to be Ela's is now the nursery/reading room. It contains my desk, the baby's dresser, most of the kid's books a few of my books, and we'll move some toys up there for Ela to play with while I'm doing baby stuff up there. Mom brought Ela back up shortly after New Years, and brought lots of baby clothes to put into the dresser and the crib which we had been storing in her attic. She ran through the house like a whirlwind and cleaned things that haven't been cleaned since we arrived, packed up the stuff that we couldn't keep upstairs anymore, and now our house is under control.
So that's several major checks off my personal to do list for the time between now and May, but the list is still quite long.
Under the category "Things for Ela" I have a birthday party to plan (for March), and the hefty task of convincing her to sleep all night every night in her own room. We've been working on that for the last year with very limited success. As it currently stands, she naps in her own bed (or in her car seat), and goes to sleep in her own bed, but wakes up sometime in the middle of the night and joins us in our room where she thrashes and kicks and keeps us all awake for the rest of the night on a bad night, and only half the night on a good night. Clearly, we need to get her out of there sooner rather than later, but it's hard to see it that way when you're listening to her scream from her own room for hours at a time in the middle of the night. My goal is to push back the time that she enters our room a little each week until she sleeps all night in her own room. This is for my own training as much as hers. I can only spend so many hours taking her back to bed or listening to her pound on the door in one night before I lose my marbles. Beyond these tasks, I've got the usual daily or weekly tasks involving keeping her fed, clothed, healthy, learning, and so on. I'd like to sign her up for a dance or music or yoga class after she turns two (note I said "or" not "and"), but that will depend a great deal on how I'm feeling when the new kiddo arrives. So Ela alone could keep me very busy for the year.
Under the category "Things for The New Baby" I have a slightly smaller list. We need to assemble her crib, finish putting away her clothes, buy a double stroller (advice on this welcome), and pick a name (probably the most important on the list, right?). We seem to be having a little trouble agreeing on a name we both like, so that could take some time, but we've got time, so I'm not worried... yet. After May, the new baby's list will of course be growing signifcantly, but for now, it's managable.
Under the category "Things for Me," the list gets much more vague. I just want to be able to sleep once in awhile. I'd like to have time to write a little every day, too. And, of course, I want to continue to practice relatively healthy eating and exercise habits. The "Things for Me" on my to do list tend to get shuffled down to the bottom awfully fast, so I don't really focus on them much. This should probably change, but I feel pretty good about me right now, so I'm allowing my focus to stay elsewhere.
There's also a few things under the category, "Miscelaneous" but those tend to sort themselves out. These are the chores that make up my usual routine. Some adjusting will obviously be necessary after May, but I'm not really putting a lot of effort into sorting that out yet. I need to get to May first.
So we're starting the year with a push to the finish line with the baby stuff. We're very excited about our new arrival, and I'm sure the time will fly!