Our New Wild Card Approach to Self Care


Three years of ridiculously bad sleep, a laughable exercise routine, a high dose of economic stress and a solid propensity for weekly binges on either chocolate chip cookies or Annie’s mac and cheese or a basket of tater tots at Dog Almighty……um yeah, I’m not exactly the poster child for Self Care that I strive to be. Yes, I balance my occasional mac and cheese binge with frequent visits to Casa de Luz thanks to a trade my husband worked out with the owner, and I prepare plenty of healthy meals for my family — but all together I haven’t felt great about the big picture of our lifestyle.

Reading my Self Care posts, you may have gotten the impression that I’m the queen at manifesting all things good and healthy for myself and my family. (Ha!) Health and well-being is certainly my number one priority right now. I’ve been striving for it and certainly writing about it a lot — but quite honestly — our diet and exercise routine (or lack thereof) hasn’t come close to what I believe is necessary for disease prevention and longevity. Living through the last month of my entire family so unhappily sick helped me get clear on our need to change something about the way we live.

Our one fabulous bit of progress has been on the sleep front.  Our new approach to the family bed?  Divide and conquer.  Our littlest, now 16 months, has turned a corner and can happily sleep seven or eight hours with her Daddy.  YES! (this “yes” really deserves eighteen exclamation points to give you the full idea of my feelings on the subject). She may wake once or twice, but she immediately falls back to sleep.  And I feel OK about it, because she’s still being responded to with sensitivity and love.  This is a life changer.  Had I continued to sleep with her, she would still be nursing every two to three hours and I would officially be The Crazy Cravotta Lady. So, it’s Daddy and sweet baby in one bed; me and sweet toddler in another.  What about the husband-wife thing, you ask?  We’re working on some creative solutions in that department.

Now. To the truly healthy lifestyle and self-care question. My husband and I have been saying we’ve got to figure out how to work exercise back into our schedule for months and it just hasn’t been happening. And I’ve been worried that when I’m back to work 8-5 and anxious to get home and see my girls, the probability of fitting in exercise could be even more challenging.

Guest BedroomAnd then I got this wild card idea while setting intentions for the New Year. What if we rented out our guest room to someone as a trade? Maybe someone studying to be chef that would love free rent in exchange for grocery shopping, preparing meals for us five days/week and cleaning up the kitchen afterward?  That would free up as much as 2 hours/day for me on those days!  Time that I could take the girls out in the jogging stroller and knock out a run, get some special time with them at the neighborhood park, and come home to a healthy, home-cooked meal.

So we went for it. Posted an ad on Craig’s List earlier this month.  And Voilà!  Would you believe the dream we put out there was a dream come true for someone else? A young, delightful woman who wants to change careers and become a chef moved to Austin last week to pursue her passion for cooking. She told a friend that she really hoped to find a family here that she could live with and cook for to get practice toward her dream profession. And she’s starting cooking school with the Natural Epicurean in May.

She moves in tomorrow.

February 1st, 2010 marks the beginning of a new chapter in our life and our mission to take better care of ourselves while caring for our sweet angels. We hope and give thanks for this little experiment being a positive experience for all of us.  Power of Intention rocks!

Related Posts with Thumbnails

Tags: , , ,

8 Responses to “Our New Wild Card Approach to Self Care”

  1. Mom says:

    Way to go on the Sleep Front! I’m so happy for ALL of you that Izzy is sleeping so long during the night.
    🙂 Mom

  2. I don’t know what your bedroom looks like right now, but have you ever considered putting two beds together on the floor? Then you could all sleep together with you and dad in the middle and a kid on each end. That may help the 16 month old not crawl over to you to nurse in the middle of the night.
    🙂

    • Dionna –
      Thanks for the suggestion! I have contemplated the idea of us all sleeping together….we’ve been doing musical beds for a few years now. It would be nice to settle into one. We could take our queen off the bed frame and sleep on the floor with the twin mattress attached……not sure. For now, as we tackle nightweaning, the separation is probably best on our end. Thanks for reading my blog!!

  3. Barbie says:

    So happy to have seen this in action 🙂 Great meeting you 4, and your new friend. Hope to see y’all soon.

  4. Barbie says:

    And thanks again for dinner and great convo :)))))))))))))

  5. tracey says:

    monica – i just clicked on your blog from facebook and i’m loving it. it’s so good to hear and see some of the things you and your family are up to. and sadie and izzy are two beautiful lil’ ladies! congratulations on this exchange – it sounds like a dream! can’t wait to hear how it all evolves.

  6. Hanh Denney says:

    Hey, I just hopped over to your site via StumbleUpon. Not somthing I would normally read, but I liked your thoughts none the less. Thanks for making something worth reading.

Leave a Reply to Barbie

SUBSCRIBE VIA:




  • Categories




 

 

    Follow Me



 





 

    Places to go


     


Art by Erika Hastings at http://mudspice.wordpress.com/

 

    Add us to your site!


     

Click to get the code!