To nap, or not to nap. That is the plea.

My kid is basically a no-nonsense nap fighter. He means business. He does not want to nap and he makes sure you know it. He may be exhausted, rubbing his beautiful little eyes, yawning and being generally fussy, but don't let that fool you, he does not want to nap. Logic escapes me, or better yet, escapes Henry, as I wonder why, if he is so tired, he refuses to nap. I try to reason with him, "If you take a nap and get some rest you will feel so much better, and we can play and read and eat and have a great time." 

He takes nothing I say seriously. 

So I write this while watching him on the baby monitor, the sweetest little thing starting to stir after just a half hour of rest. A half hour asleep after what was a 90 minute battle to get him to sleep. I guess I shouldn't say battle when it really was just hanging out with my awesome kid. We bounced and rocked and walked around. We hummed and shushed and sang a song. We laid together and we nursed. Nothing calmed his crying and fighting. Until finally he just went calm. He lay against me in the rocking chair with his eyes wide open, but completely still and calm. My sweet sweet boy. And eventually, time took it's toll and he closed his eyes and went to sleep. 

And then he woke up, 30 quick minutes later. Sigh...

We are very lucky to have such an easy baby. We've known this from day 1. And we hear it quite regularly from people. "He is such a happy baby." "I've never seen such a calm baby just sit there like that." And it's true, we are able to go out to restaurants to eat, we've gone to plenty of Mommy & Me movie showings, we go for walks and run errands. And he is seriously a great little dude, and we love being able to take him out with us. 

All that being said, he still hates napping. 

I'll never understand.

What I would do for a nap...

It's this funny cycle we go through. Fighting naps as infants and toddlers, taking naps again in kindergarten, staying up late once we hit our teen years, taking naps daily in college, no time for naps once you have a job and responsibilities and stuff, and then yearning for naps once you have a child. Sleep. 

I will NEVER EVER take it for granted. 

I know some people think it's a waste of time to sleep more than six hours, and yes, maybe I could get more done if I stayed up super late or got up super early, but I am generally a more tolerable human being if I've gotten some decent sleep.

So for the sake of my family...I will sleep whenever I get the opportunity. 

Blergh, is that really what I look like?

Now that 2013 is nearing (and clearly the world didn't end so there is in fact consequences to being terribly irresponsible with my eating habits), and I've seen some pictures of myself from this holiday season, I realize how incredibly dreadful I feel about how I look. And no, I'm not fat. I don't think I look like a beluga whale or anything. Perhaps a narwhal. But then again, as the old saying goes, "The camera adds 10 lbs." However I've always been skeptical about this much mentioned optical illusion. I think it was something said by an overweight person to make themselves feel better. Or to convince that person on the online dating website that they aren't actually as heavy as they appear in their profile picture and they are worth meeting up with, even with their sizable photo. 

So, given the above circumstances -- a new year approaching and seeing myself in pictures -- I have decided it's time to get healthy and lose some weight. For my own comfort and confidence. And I've also decided my husband will be joining me. But I don't think he will argue, sympathy pregnancy weight gain is no longer applicable, and he has been saying he feels like a walrus. His words not mine. Side note: His mustache smells like magic. Abandoned his kiss to get a wiff and it's like snickerdoodles and christmas tree all mixed together. 

As I was saying, getting healthy [slash] losing weight is one of many things I intend to tackle this next year, some of which I will be posting further about. And if that plan goes like most of my resolutions do, I'll get around to it by spring. Getting healthy and losing weight isn't enough incentive for me to actually get healthy and lose weight, with that in mind, and wanting nothing but to set myself up for success, I'm creating a point system, where we earn points for our exercise and then we can trade in our points for special things. My points will be used for things like "ME" time, a nap --which would be so incredibly glorious-- and a Crumbs cupcake. For my husband, his incentives are things like, an hour playing Starcraft and not having to go exercise. We're the worst. But I assure you, we are the best of the worst. 

I want to lose 10 - 15 lbs. That's ideal. Well 15 lbs is ideal, but I don't even know if I can physically lose 15 lbs, considering each of my boobs weigh like 8 lbs. Which sort of isn't fair. I've lost all of my pregnancy weight, and then some, but my boobs are now kind of huge. But, no excuses or martyrdom or anything. If you see a grumbly lady taking laps at the park, it's probably me, trying to earn my way to a cupcake or a trip to the bathroom in peace and quiet. Because going to the bathroom alone is a treat. Being stared at by a baby in a bouncy chair while taking care of my business has become the new norm. So if I don't earn enough of these points to earn some time to myself, I might just have to get another cavity so that I can spend an hour in the dentist's chair with my feet up. 

Wonderful, wonderfulness.