Some success stories!

Well! As expected, I haven't updated the blog much. But now I have an update, so we'll just say it's because I didn't before.

I had been slipping on the no phone from 10p to 8a thing, and I didn't do great with that yesterday either, BUT last week at the beach I really did use my phone MUCH less. I left it in my bag, or even at the house, and went whole days without taking pictures to post instantly, and instead I engaged with my kids and family and finished two books on my kindle. AND the week or so before that I was using my phone less too, which I mostly credit to a third book I was reading that was very, very long and got quite exciting for the last third.

SO! Bored and Brilliant challenge-cum-lifestyle-change is going ok, and I have more books both Kindle and physical to distract me, AND I have a new non-electronic distraction: Paul is bringing home copies of the New York Times from school for me, and today I completed my very first crossword puzzle. Plus both KenKens, but those I've been doing for ages. So yeah, my new strategy is NYT crossword puzzles.

The new semester started yesterday, and along with it a new, earlier schedule. We got to bed annually early on Sunday night, so Monday morning went pretty smoothly, but then last night we were back to midnight, and this morning was a bit miserable. SO tonight, back to 10p bed time! I hope. That is my current top goal: to get to sleep before 11p consistently so I can get into work early so I can be home early.

The whole bedtime thing will be easier when Max gets back to sleeping longer. He was down to one wake-up for a few days before we left on vacation, but went back to 3 wake-ups a night as soon as we were elsewhere, and has kept up that unfortunate habit so far for the 3 nights we've now spent at home. Tonight I will try to encourage cluster feeding.

And finally, a new goal: plan our meals for the week so that lunches are easier to pack, eating out is less tempting, and grocery shopping is less frequent. Paul does the overwhelming majority of cooking and grocery shopping, so another part of this is increasing my contribution a bit, maybe so I'm preparing one dinner a week? It's not that I'm a bad cook; Paul is just home, and also much, much more efficient in the kitchen.

Hey, in other news, we no longer have to buy pull-ups! Because PJ is fully daytime potty trained!! FINALLY. She made the switch at almost exactly 3.5 years old, and just like my mom told me, it was pretty much overnight. She didn't even have a single accident at the beach, and she's already doing most peeing totally on her own, by herself in the bathroom, even away from home with no stool. "I need my pwivacy," PJ says!

And so, as promised, tonight we will be taking a family trip to the pet store to get PJ a beta fish. I hope she's not disappointed when she realizes she can't actually play with it.