And up

The last week and a half back on the island has been wholly good. Awesome even. And - halleluljah - I can't recall a low point.

Most afternoons we've been at the beach. And most days, I either do yoga or walk. Some days, both. That is, walk + yoga + beach. This is HUGE. And impossibly easy. I can't believe we didn't think of it sooner. After K gets home from work, I do a fast walk (with tunes) to the beach - and then maybe a walk on the beach, or maybe yoga. K drives to the beach and babywrangles whilst throwing a line in. (Fishing is his new thing - the beach is his always thing.) We mix it up different ways, some days I do yoga early while the boy sleeps. Whichever way it unfolds, it is brilliance, and we both get what we crave. We have been SO much happier since this little routine evolved. 

And. I have been getting way more stuff done during the day. The boy is sleeping better (read: normally, ie, when he isn't awoken by the need to vomit/me clanging a pot/stupendous heat/etc, etc), and is ever-so-gradually becoming more okay with not being permanently attached to me. Yesterday he was happy to be in his Fantastic Standing Up Machine (an activity station we borrowed which he loves because he can assume a standing up posture and look around) for long enough for me to wash bottles AND make formula. Un. Precedented.

I also 1) rolled my first ever ball of wool to start the long-awaited baby blanket AND almost finished a paper crane mobile I started a year ago, 2) applied for federal monies that go along with having a baby and sussed out a tax issue that had been bugging me, 3) started updating our address details with the gazillion outfits that need to know, 4) placed a bulk order for cloth nappies, 5) bought a new wok, and 6) blogged, edited recipes and wrote emails back and forth to the ABC who invited me to have some recipes featured on the new release of their Foodi iPad app!! Woot! (This news alone did wonders for my general vibe and reminded me I have 'stuff' outside the babyhood.)

[Note: I have been trying for six months to get to most of these jobs. Further note: I probably did even more stuff which escapes me now. Final note: the feeling of momentum with getting stuff done makes me so happy I could pop (or at least stay up way too late to get more stuff done)].

As further illustration of how amazing this is, my days usually go something like this. Wake stupidly early, feed the boy. Put him in his chair while he's happy so I can make coffee/breakfast. Play with him, feed him, get him to sleep. The forty-minute 'stealth ninja' sprint begins and includes as much as possible from the following: get dressed and roughly cleaned up, wash and make bottles, do last night's dishes, keep the perpetual motherlode of laundry churning, try to keep a very large, open-to-the-elements house cleanish tidy liveable, eat lunch, make lists of things I must do but never seem to get to. If he's not sleeping well, the forty-minute sprint becomes a twenty-minute sprint with interruptions to get him back TF to sleep. He has anywhere between two and four sleeps a day. And sometimes I accidentally clang a pot and *bugger shit fuck* wake him.**

Our night time routines have also improved markedly in the past month or so. We are mostly eating dinner together now, which makes a lovely change from the tag-team affair that reigned for a long time after E came home from hospital.

I'm loathe to call it too early, but hey, I'm on a roll. This feels like considerable improvement. 


...

**This is why I haven't called/written to anyone/blogged and have struggled to do any yoga/walking for six months :)