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I'm finally sleeping reasonably well, so I can start to put a little effort towards fitness again. I'm feeling pretty uncomfortable with the way my body is right now, but I've been hesitant to work on weight loss. I'm still nursing and I don't want to go too hardcore and lose supply. But... I don't think I need to drink multiple sugary drinks a day or eat huge desserts to keep that up. Once my baby turns about a year old (she's 10 months!!) I'm considering doing intermittent fasting pretty hardcore again because that works amazingly for my body. But until then let's get back to some basics! 1. No added sugar or caloric drinks before lunchtime (which is somewhere between noon and 2 with Mr. Griz, who works nights until like 4). This will help me avoid a sugar spike at the beginning of the day and the allure of 500 extra calories in coffee shop treats and drinks. I will still have a long way to go from there. Yesterday I think I had a mocha, a beer, and a milkshake after lunch. And maybe a chocolate chip banana muffin. 2. The teeniest tiniest intermittent fasting. I'll just push my first meal a little later and do 14:10. Right now I happen to be on about a 12:12 schedule. 3. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday during baby naps, go down to our home gym and do at least one set of anything on the barbell. With just the barbell is fine. I haven't lifted in... Close to two years? Can I even squat anymore? Bonus baby pic!

Changes indeed - I officially went back to work on Monday the 18th, but only have 42 more school days until summer (thankfully, because the sub left one heck of a mess!!), at which point I will go back to grad school and my husband will move into a summer administrative position because holy cow does it pay stupidly well for only 6 weeks worth of work. And then in late July we should both get a short break before transitioning again back into our normal positions. Baby Girl is transitioning to childcare for those 42 days as well - and that has been a challenge in and of itself! But after much angst, a surprise opening appeared in my district’s daycare, which had been our top choice originally except they were full when we tried to enroll her last summer. Whew! It’s a much better environment than the other daycare we were going to settle for, super convenient (only a 4 minute walk from my classroom), very affordably priced, and I can even stop by during the workday to feed or cuddle her if I don’t have class or can beg for a few minutes of coverage So far she’s been happy there, though she’s already showing signs that she’s caught her first cold…sigh, such is the daycare life! The other nice part is that since it is a part of the school district, she can be home with me all summer for free - no paying every week just to hold a spot, and her leave/return schedule will match mine perfectly. With all that said, I tried to set up this challenge to support the most critical immediate needs while remembering that the “real” goals are honestly still a few months off: Quest 1 - Nutrition I have a terrible habit of skipping either breakfast or lunch, but going back to work means I really cannot do that without my milk supply taking a hit, which I super cannot afford (I overproduced with my son, but not so much this time around) - so my first goal is to always have food prepared for both of those meals! And they really need to include a focus on protein as we go through this period of routine growth spurts. It will also help if I make sure to drink enough water - bare minimum 80 ounces a day - though that has been fairly easy to hit most days lately (I’d guess about 4-5 days every week I hit that without specifically trying right now). Quest 2 - Movement I have been cleared for any form of exercise I want, which is a luxury I have not had for nearly a full calendar year! I’m going to start slow though by saying I want to fit in some form of “extra movement” at least once a week. My idea is that this will primarily be neighborhood walks or lake path mini-hikes with Baby Girl in a carrier since we are going on our first camping trip as a family of 4 in early June and we always do at least one hike. My 6 year old has worked his way up to 4.5 miles on an “advanced beginner” trail, so I want to make sure Baby Girl and I are not the ones holding the family back! But since it is still early spring, if it is too cold or rainy, I’ll replace that with something indoors - like maybe a YouTube yoga session? Quest 3 - Family So Baby Girl also deserves a quilt - and I’m finally using the heart pattern I originally picked for my son’s quilt! I got a little bit of a start while on leave but am not very far yet: row 1 is done and rows 2 and 3 are both started (they have to be made together in order for the heart pattern to work) but they’re only about 15 inches long right now and they need to get up to 76.5 inches before I can attach them to row 1. My goal is that by the end of this challenge I can have through row 5 done? That might be pushing it a little too hard but it’s worth a shot, especially since there are 45 rows in total. I’m also going to make a minimum of 1 weekly post on Moment Garden for each kid! It’s basically like a super private Instagram where each kid gets a “garden” page where they or their parents can post photos or short videos that are only visible to the people you invite (all via email addresses, there’s no search option to find a particular kid). I especially like it because every evening it sends me an email showing any entries from that exact date in previous years, which is super fun! And for infants like Baby Girl, it shows photos from 1, 3, or 6 months ago so they can be included too. All 3 grandparents and sole remaining great-grandma have invited accounts, and my son loves it when they ask him about things they saw without him having to share what he’s been up to first But when life gets busy, I often forget to post anything, so this is my reminder to look for those cool things my kiddos are doing and make those posts happen! Quest 4 - (42 days of) Work I do have one major task left for the school year (outside of, you know, finishing teaching and everything): getting my curriculums uploaded for every single prep. Blargh. I have Spanish 2 fully uploaded so my goal for this challenge is to get Spanish 3 and 4 both in. If I have time, I’ll also start on French 1 and 2, but I can push those off until May if necessary. I also need to read more and make extensive reading quizzes for my Spanish classes! Ideally I will expand this into French as well but man, it’s just going to take a huge amount of time. I’m going to try to add a minimum of 15 quizzes this challenge (3 a week) starting with a Magic Treehouse book I already bought, Piratas después del mediodía. And because I’m a glutton for punishment, I also started playing Lingo Legend for Japanese. It’s a gamified language learning app I found while I was trying to stay awake for a late breastfeeding session. I am very much still not convinced this will eventually lead to a third certification or program, no matter what my counseling office wants from me, but it does at least help keep me alert while Baby Girl is eating! I’m going to try to play at least 4 times a week (probably still while feeding Baby Girl)…just in case I do eventually get talked into doing something stupid like running a third language program…

T-11 days and counting... So, first of all, fair warning - I'm going to do an awful job of posting during this challenge. You know, because I'm having a baby in the middle of it! Currently scheduled for a December 11th c-section but have been warned by multiple doctors that I might need to go in earlier, so there's no guarantees. Because of that, I was going to sit this challenge out completely, but I have been finding myself wanting a spot to keep track of everything and, well, why not, right? Of course my goals are not really whole challenge goals, on account of the fact that prepartum and postpartum will have very different needs, but here's where I'm starting: Quest One: Fuel I finally started getting a bit better at this at the end of the last challenge. I need to keep up my water intake (or even increase it) and keep up my weight gain/eating enough. I have been just barely skirting the very, very bottom of the measurements every week for several weeks now. For example, yesterday our goal was that I would weigh at least 177 pounds and I was 176.8. So it's close enough that I'm not getting scolded anymore (well...for that!) but these last few weeks are super important to help the baby pack on body fat to help regulate her own temperature after birth, so I can't get lazy just because we're in the home stretch. Also the water will help ensure that my false labor cramps don't get worse than they have to be, even though my doctor agreed with me yesterday that my contractions are like weirdly between false and real labor (they're not producing any labor progress, but they're matching the pattern of real labor which false labor is not "supposed" to do and common remedies for false labor cramps have all failed to work). And I'll need to increase my water again after the birth if I want to try breastfeeding, so I might as well try to shore up the habit now. Quest Two: Work Prep Of course a major source of stress has been prepping for maternity leave. Here's what I have left to do before the 11th: 1. Semester 1 Finals Week: So far I have 2/5 preps 100% done and ready to go: French 1 and Spanish 2. Spanish 3 and 4 have stuff from last year I can build from. French 2 has nothing, as it has never existed before and I haven't started anything for them yet. 2. French 1 Unit 6*: I have 6/13 lessons complete and 1/4 extras done. Lessons 7 and 8 are both started but need finalizing. I have been starting on video lectures as well but still have a minimum of 3 more planned (will probably add more once more lessons are done too...) and I haven't started on their bellwork prompts either. 3. French 2 Unit 6*: Not started. It will have the same length goals as French 1 though: 13 lessons with 4 extras, complete with video lectures and bellwork. 4. "To Finish Later" List from the summer: Over the summer when I started prepping Spanish 2 in particular, there were a few things I couldn't do yet because the classes weren't set up on our tech at the time (this is all either setting up speaking assignments or making grading keys). It's a short list, but an important one! Without bothering to look right now, I think it has like 7 or 8 things on it. 5. Semester 1 grading: I only have 2 more assignments that have been due so far, but I am accepting late work for credit through tomorrow. Also all my classes are taking writing finals tomorrow and speaking finals next week Tuesday/Wednesday that I will need to get posted. (They are doing the listening and reading finals with the sub, because I can leave answer keys for those modes much more easily!) *Both French units could be shortened if necessary, as this plan gets me prepped through March 27th/the first day of Spring Break and I expect to come back somewhere around March 18th. But it would be nice to not have to worry about prepping classes immediately during that transition back to work, and some buffer for changing dates is always smart. Quest Three: House and Personal Prep We are getting so close! So one of the most important yet difficult things to do is get some rest. This is also a major help with the false labor cramps and also one of the only things that we can do that has any potential medical backing to help with the polyhydramnios situation (for anyone who didn't see my last challenge, I have way too much amniotic fluid, which is likely just bad luck but it does make the delivery more dangerous). I also have just a few things left to do to be ready for her birth: 1. Finish sanitizing plastic stuff: breast pump parts and bottles. I've done two batches so far (because I can't fit that much into my stew pot at once), but there is at least one more left to do and then a whole other bowl of plastics that need to be soaked and washed before they can be sanitized. 2. Set up changing pad area: this is largely done, but I need to add some extra clothes in case of middle-of-the-night blowouts (her clothing is going to be temporarily in my son's room until we can get his new bedroom finished, so I don't want to accidentally wake him up if we need something) and I need to get the trash can/diaper pail situation sorted. 3. Scoot our bed over slightly: this really means "annoy my husband into scooting our bed over a few inches" so the bassinet will fit next to the bed instead of at the foot of the bed, which would be an incredibly obnoxious spot for it to stay. 4. Laundry: this is two fold - I will likely need to wash a few more items of baby clothing and also keep my husband from dumping the clean laundry into the bassinet, which has become a weird makeshift closet between the time we put it together and now. Obviously the baby can't be sleeping in the laundry pile, and gods know we won't want to deal with putting away a giant pile of clothing right after getting home from the hospital! 5. Make a hospital bag: Finally, I still need to get the things we are bringing to the hospital together in one spot! At the very least, get it together enough that we can grab it, throw in a few toiletries, and go - especially if there is a good chance she'll come early and semi-unexpectedly. A lot of this can't be packed too far in advance because we will need those things in the meanwhile, but like a set of pump parts, her first outfit, etc. can definitely be put together now with little impact on our daily lives. ...Not going to lie, seeing all of it written out like that is more terrifying than I thought it would be, but I can definitely dig deep and get this done in time. Right??? Right. Of course I can. Now it's time to drink my daily single cup of coffee and get to work making it happen. ?