Since it’s the end of the month, let’s do the Monthly Review!
At the end of the month, it’s time for the financial monthly review!
Modify a habit by removing decision making as much as possible!
When my son was ill, this is how I adapted my schedule to still get some stuff done.
Boundaries are not selfish. Mind is blown!
This was William’s birthday cheesecake!
It’s getting cold over here, so we brought tea on our latest hike. I managed to catch this priceless moment 🥰
We got a white board at home. Oh, the joy! Jacob wanted to get it because he thought he’d need it for work. I was trying to hide my enthusiasm as he was ordering it, and I didn’t tell him I’d be taking over it, haha!
We’ve needed something like this for a long time. We do our family planning in our shared google calendar and our shared lists on To Do, but we noticed we needed some sort of visual reminder in our home about some specific home tasks.
We’re also making an effort to spend less time on our phones when we’re having family time in the evenings, so we can’t see reminders on our phones and can’t check our calendar or to do list. Once we’re finished with work and we’re home with William for the evening, our phones go in the Phone Box. We take them out if we actually need them, but then we put them right back in the box. This avoids mindless scrolling on the phone when we could in fact be connecting as a family.
There are two columns on the white board: ‘Tasks J’ and ‘Tasks M.’ We can each put tasks underneath each column, which gives us the ability to assign each other tasks and give each other reminders without nagging–this is key!
For instance, I am in charge of the food menu, so I know what needs to be cooked each day. We also buy lots of frozen foods (meat, fish, fruits, and vegetables) because they tend to be cheaper for the same or even more nutrients than the conventional options. The evening before we’re going to cook something, I think about what needs to be defrosted, and I put it on Jacob’s tasks. (Jacob is in charge of defrosting stuff because he’s very good with packing stuff in the freezer, and he has a special system for what goes where. Clearly, I’m not the only organization nerd in our house.)
Why don’t I just tell Jacob what he needs to defrost, you may ask? Haha. Are you married or living with someone, I’d ask? Often when I tell him to do something, he may not want to do it, he may be in the middle of something else, or he may not even be home from work yet. It’s so much easier to put the reminder or task in an external holding space, so I don’t have to do any reminding or nagging myself.
So when Jacob is home and is ready to deal with the tasks for that evening, he checks the white board and then does them in his own time. The other most common tasks for him on the board are, ‘Empty trash’ and ‘Cook sweet potatoes’ (he’s the sweet potato master!).
Funny enough, he doesn’t write down tasks for me very often. Usually, he apps me a request for something, and I put it on my to do list or on the board. That’s just how it goes. I look forward to the day when he puts a task on my white board list though!
By the way, William also wanted to have his own column for tasks he needs to do. So I made him a column with tasks such as, ‘Play,’ ‘Tidy up,’ and ‘Clean’ (he loves cleaning with a handheld vacuum cleaner). Let’s see how long this fascination lasts.
Naturally, William also loves drawing on the white board, but yesterday he ended up drawing on the wall underneath the white board as well. Clearly, there are drawbacks to using a white board…
Two weeks ago when we found out we’ll be in quarantine at home for at least a month, something clicked for me: We need a routine! As a person who loves putting together routines, I was on fire. I took different daily activities and moved them around in my head, from morning to afternoon, before lunch or after, before our walk or after… Ahhh, the fun!
Since then, I’ve seen many psychologists and other experts online recommend the importance of routines in these otherwise unpredictable and strange times. Every time I see this, I think, “Yesss!!!” Great minds think alike; routines are key.
A routine ensures you have some sense of normalcy in a time when your usual habits have been disrupted. It can be comforting to control what you can control and accept the rest which you cannot control (and that’s a lot).
By having a routine, you also make sure the things you’ve deemed important get done every day or on some regular basis. In this way, fewer things slip through your fingers and you have more choice in how your life goes.
Alas, since we have a young (almost 5-month-old) baby, we cannot stick to a very strict routine. I know, I know, it’s good for me to learn to be flexible… whatever. Instead of planning our day by the hour, I plan it in blocks of activities, as a sequence of which activities get done during which part of the day (approximately).
We wake up whenever William wakes up (usually between 7:00 and 8:00, but today it was 6:30…). We cuddle him, I nurse him, and we change his diaper and then out of his pajamas. Then, Jacob and I have breakfast, while William plays near us. Afterwards, we cuddle him a bit more and put him in bed for a nap. His morning nap usually begins between 8:00 and 9:00.
By the way, every time I put William in bed for a nap and wait for him to fall asleep, Jacob works. That’s how he manages to get stuff done. And in the afternoon and evening, he has longer uninterrupted stretches of time for work.
While William is sleeping, Jacob and I train in our living room. We’ve decided that we’ll get ripped during this quarantine! Nope, not really, but we’ve committed to doing 30-45 minutes of exercise every day in order to get our bodies moving and stay strong. We are fortunate to have kettlebells, elastic bands, a gym ball, a pull up bar, and some other equipment at home, so we can do a pretty good workouts, although I still miss barbells and weight plates.
Usually, William wakes up towards the end of our workout. We put him on his belly for tummy time (it’s important for babies to train their back muscles), so for 10 minutes or so the whole family is exercising! Then, I nurse and change him. After that, one of us plays with him while the other one showers. I also use this time to do things around the house (laundry, kitchen, tidying, etc.). These days the weather has been nice, so Jacob has been taking him out on the grass behind our building for some sun.
Soon, it’s time for William’s lunchtime nap, which usually starts anytime between 12:00 and 13:00. While he sleeps, we eat lunch, and I like to use this time to check and respond to email, messages, etc. The duration of this nap can vary greatly (between 40 minutes and 2 hours), so I may be able to get lots of stuff done or very few.
Around this time, I may write a blog post, read something interesting online, work on putting together our annual photo album, or do a home project. Jacob usually cooks at this time (he cooks 3 times a week now, and I help out sometimes or make an additional fancy meal or sauce).
When William wakes up from his nap, I nurse and change him (are you seeing a pattern here?). We play with him and let him explore the world a bit. Jacob usually works at this time, and I may be able to get something done too. Once William starts getting tired, we put him in the stroller and take him out for a walk. He takes a nap, and we get to walk (usually around 15:00 or 16:00).
We have a nice hour-long route to the park and back that we take every day. Since the weather is really pleasant these days, we chill on the grass in the park for a bit, letting William look around, and then we head back home. Sometimes I go on this walk alone with William if Jacob is busy, or I ask a friend to join us, so we can chat while keeping our 1.5-meter distance.
When we get home, I nurse William and change him (is this getting a bit repetitive? hahaha), and then Jacob and I have an early dinner (around 17:30 or 18:00). We like to call family or friends around this time to catch up and be social virtually.
Around 19:00, we start William’s bedtime routine, so he can be in bed around 19:30. I feed him, we change his diaper and put him in his pajamas, and then I carry him around the room and sing him a lullaby. Then he sleeps, which means PARTY TIME!!!
Okay, it’s not really that late. From about 20:00 until 21:30, it’s PARTY TIME–Jacob usually works, while I read, write, do administrative tasks, or something along those lines as well as have a snack. Sometimes we just talk and spend time together, and we intend to watch a movie one of these days!
At 21:30, I start getting ready for bed and am in bed by 22:00. That’s when William usually wakes up for his first feeding of the night, and after that we sleep. If I’m lucky, he wakes up twice more in the night (around 1:30 and 4:30), and then we wake up refreshed around 7:30. And if I’m unlucky, he wakes up about 4 times in the night and then around 6:30 in the morning (like last night), and then I wake up grumpy. You never know which one it will be.
Ah, it’s so nice to have a routine! Even though it’s never exactly the same and we can’t follow it to the dot, it gives structure and guides our days. We definitely get more done when we have a routine than when everything is up in the air because we know what to do during the different times of day.
How about you? Do you have a routine at this time? If so, what is it and how is it helpful? If no, why not and how does spontaneity work for you?
Caring for a newborn is hard work but not in the way I expected it to. It’s a roller coaster of numerous small, repetitive tasks, and it’s surprisingly difficult to do by oneself or even by a couple. My account of how my husband and I have been taking care of our baby would be terrible incomplete without mentioning all the people who’ve been helping us.
During the first two weeks, things were completely unpredictable. I pretty much had no idea what was going on. Luckily, in the Netherlands they have the wonderful system that for the first week a nurse comes to your house for about 6-8 hours a day and helps you with everything baby- and house-related. She helped me breastfeed, change diapers, take care of the house as well as of the baby. It is so, so great to have someone like that come and help in the first week after a baby is born! It is amazing.
While the nurse was at home, she helped me get a rhythm. She made sure that William fed every 3 hours (he was sleeping a lot of the time, so we may have forgotten to feed him otherwise). She reminded me to eat lunch or take a nap, which were all good ideas.
In the evenings when Jacob and I were taking care of the baby alone, it hit me how we really had no idea what we were doing, and at the same time there wasn’t so much we could get wrong. If he was crying, we’d: 1) try to feed him, 2) change his diaper, 3) cuddle him, so he falls asleep. It all felt so uncertain and strangely new but also strangely simple and repetitive. It was sometimes difficult in the evenings if he got fussy and cried for 10-15 minutes, but soon enough we figured out how to comfort him, so he could sleep.
Fortunately, my mom came to help out during our second week postpartum. That was very helpful because I was now able to take care of the baby a bit more but couldn’t also manage with all the housework. Jacob, my husband, was doing a lot of the housework, but he was also back to work full-time, so any help was highly appreciated.
My mom did all kinds of things such as run a laundry, load and unload the dishwasher, and cook. She also helped me take care of William, figure out how to dress him appropriately for the weather, hold him, so I can take a shower, and really everything else that he needed. It was very helpful and calming to have my mom by my side with my baby.
Recently, in William’s third month, my mom came to visit and help again. How good it is to have someone else help out with taking care of a baby! Not only was I more relaxed because I had more time to rest; I was also a better mom, wife, daughter, and friend (I believe) because I had more time to myself, so then I could be better to my close people. And also, it helps to have someone hold your baby while you’re peeing, so he doesn’t cry. (To be fair, when we’re alone at home, sometimes he just cries while I’m peeing, and it’s not the end of the world.)
From the third week on, Jacob, William, and I were left on our own. At first, I was rather scared! With Jacob at work, how was I going to take care of William for a whole day?! Luckily, once we spent a few days on our own, I realized it wasn’t that bad. We were managing pretty well – after all, the things that really had to be done were that I had to eat and go to the bathroom and he had to eat, get his diaper changed, get cuddled, and sleep. Everything else was optional.
I slowly figured out how to pee before he started crying and shower or eat while he was sleeping. I felt like a pro! We even started taking walks in the stroller when the weather was nice. Jacob, William, and I drove to appointments with the osteopath and chiropractor. On trips out of town, I breastfed in the car! Before each new activity, I felt scared about how we would manage, whether he would cry, etc. But we seemed to make it every time: even if he cried, we managed to calm him down, and things were somehow alright.
Weird note: I greatly enjoy packing William’s diaper bag. That’s something I’ve always looked forward to! Diaper bags are so cool with all their little pockets specifically created for diapers, wet wipes, towels, napkins, bottles, etc. We have a diaper bag for the stroller and a diaper backpack because I love them so much! And yes, we use them both.
Many friends have offered to help, but I haven’t quite taken them up on their offers yet. I have no problem letting other people hold or play with William when they come over, but I can’t quite imagine how friends can take care of my baby for hours on end at this stage.
My dad and my brother also came to visit several times, and that has also been helpful. It’s really convenient to have someone to hand the baby to for 15 minutes or half an hour in order to do something myself. Funny enough, the other person actually enjoys holding the baby, so it’s a win-win situation!
I’d like to thank everybody for their help. William, Jacob, and I are happy to receive so much help and love from the people around us. And if you ever feel like holding a baby for half an hour, let me know 😉
Photo: my dad and William
Photo credit: Yasen Manahov (a.k.a. my brother)
Somewhere I read the following advice: “Once your baby is born, you need to set really low expectations for what you can accomplish in a day. You can expect to get two things done per day, one of which is to take a shower.” Oh, was this true for me!
It was very difficult to get used to such diminished productivity in the usual sense of the word. Of course, in fact my productivity was very high but in a very different way. I had just given birth to a tiny human, my body was recovering, I was learning to breastfeed and to take care of the little new person.
But in terms of usual productivity, I was managing to take a shower and to respond to messages on my phone. That was about it. There were days when I didn’t even manage to respond to my friends. Crazy.
I was fortunate enough to receive help during the first two weeks after my baby was born. But after I felt recovered, I wanted to figure out how to get more things done again.
The trouble was that a newborn’s rhythm is very unpredictable. I didn’t know when my little one would be hungry, sleepy, or require my care, so I couldn’t plan my days in any way.
I quickly came up with a system I called ‘Today’s Want To Do.’ (I called it ‘Want To Do’ because there was no guarantee I’d complete everything on my list on a given day.) I created a simple to do list and added entries on there. There were very few and simple tasks on there usually such as: Shower; Do laundry; Dry laundry; Empty dishwasher; Load dishwasher; Tidy up living room; Read book; Do recovery exercises; Go for a walk; Take a nap. (Note: These would not all get completed in a single day!)
I arranged the entries in order of importance and tackled the thing on top of the list whenever I got a few minutes. This was helpful because once my baby was asleep, I didn’t have to wonder what to tackle but could just glance at my list and get something done. This also ensured I didn’t start doing something random and later realize I forgot something more urgent.
Importantly, I had to be prepared to stop in the middle of the activity if my baby started crying. This was difficult! I don’t like leaving things half-done, but I had to. Once he was calm and/or sleeping again, I could pick up the activity again.
Sometimes I also had to add mealtimes to the list. Especially in the beginning when everything was chaotic, I had to make sure I ate lunch at a reasonable time because otherwise I ended up very tired and didn’t know why–until I realized it was 15:00, and I had only had breakfast so far.
I arranged the tasks in order of importance but also in temporal order, i.e., how I wanted to get things done in time. For instance, laundry would come before going out for a walk because the laundry takes time to be done. Lunch would come around noon (duh!) because if I postponed it too much, I’d end up tired, cranky, and, needless to say, hungry.
This was a very basic approach: a simple to-do list organized by urgency and temporal order. Yet, that’s all I needed at that time. I tried creating a schedule of my and William’s rhythms, but apparently that’s impossible with a newborn. I tried to plan for the upcoming week (e.g., I’ll do laundry on this and this day, I’ll go for a walk on Tuesday afternoon, etc.), but that type of planning for the future didn’t work.
Instead, I had to commit to putting small, simple tasks on a list and getting to them when I had a chance. I have to say, it worked very well probably because I put all my thoughts on paper (or in an app, in my case), so I felt like I was taking care of the things I considered important or urgent or just plain necessary.
Sometimes, going back to basics is the only thing that’s necessary.
A Good Life 