A Quote, A List, A Paragraph on Sleep

You always have time for the things you put first.

~Cynthia Gavin
And probably others, as I've seen this quote floating around recently.

• I read this quote a few weeks ago and it has stuck with me. I realized I hadn't been putting Bible reading very high on my priority list, so I started up reading through the Bible in a year. I use the She Reads Truth app and their reading plan which I really, really like. They divide each day's reading into some of the Old Testament and some of the New, and then thrown in occasionally are a few Psalms. It's my favorite of all read-through-the-Bible plans I've ever tried. As I read through this time, I'm on the hunt for the word "compassion" and how many times it's mentioned.                                                                                                                                                                   Now that I'm getting my daily Bible reading in, I'm moving on to other things. At least, trying. I have projects that don't get started or finished because I'm too often putting insignificant things ahead of them. So instead of turning to Instagram when I sit down to nurse Lincoln, I'm picking up a book. And I'm reminding myself that I have a whole host of cute projects pinned and if I don't START them, they'll never be reality. One can wish all one wants, but that doesn't get the knitted baby pants knitted, or the wall art hung. 

• With that in mind, it's still a good thing to realize that I don't have to do everything. One of my favorite bloggers recently had a post on doing less and the real life fact that no one does it all. Shelley came up with a "Don't-Do-List" after listening to a podcast on the subject. Here's my "Don't Do List": 

1. Breakfast
Daniel started fixing breakfast for us when Natasha was born so I could sleep in, and he hasn't stopped. Hallelujah. That means I only plan menus for supper and I always try to make enough to have leftovers for the next day's lunch. That way I'm not scrambling for a whole new meal come noon the next day.

2. Cloth Diaper
I did with Natasha, (even made my own cloth diapers) but this time...I'm embracing disposables and not fretting over it. Maybe when Lincoln is older I'll do it again, but not now. It's not that I don't want to cloth diaper and be able to save money; it's that I don't want to deal with leaking diapers and honestly, I dealt with a fair amount of that. I really, really don't like wet onesies. It's too stressful for me. And, little boys fill diapers differently than little girls (if ya know what I mean) and I don't feel like dealing with that learning curve right now.

3. Clean the showers
Now, don't take this wrong-they're not that grimy. We have soft water now and they simply don't get that dirty compared to having hard, orange, rust colored water in our previous rental house. So, I just wipe them down occasionally and let it go.

4. Edit blog pictures
I used to try to be semi-professional and use Light Room to edit pictures, but no more. I'm not a professional and aside from occasionally adjusting some fill-light or brightness, you get them how they were snapped. It makes my life simpler.

• Our little man is not sleeping through the night. I know, I know, not all babies do and I'm not expecting perfection here. Natasha didn't till she was around 18 months old and I probably could have stopped that one nightly nursing session a lot sooner than I did. But I digress. I had hoped to try some sleep training of some kind with our second baby but it's harder than it sounds. Night-weaning is actually what I want since Lincoln goes to sleep fine during the day for his naps all by himself. Ideally I'd like as little crying involved as possible, but I'm learning maybe it isn't possible. I tried holding him when he woke up and just not nursing him, but he only gets MAD when I don't nurse him. So...there has been some crying the last week or so, but we have gone down to about 2 feedings at night versus 4. I take that as progress...?