<\/p>\nWe are starting to get the hang of the two-baby thing over here. I’m very glad for that. Now the next project is breaking my hourly chocolate fix. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I’m a firm believer in soothing rituals. Everyone needs a little self-imposed TLC throughout the day. Cigarette breaks, an afternoon shot of espresso, coffee cake in the lunchroom, a walk in the fresh air — everyone needs some ways to take a mental breather.<\/p>\n
p{color:gray}. Photo: Rosie’s already soothed: milk is her fix.<\/p>\n
Before Rosie was born, I had several soothing rituals that I was able to deploy during the day at different times. Here are a few:<\/p>\n
* Reading a parenting magazine “while Lucy looked on with me”:\/news\/2006\/magazine-readers\/. “Lucy, let’s look at pictures of babies!” Often, Lucy would grab a magazine herself and thumb through it on her own.
\n* Listening to an audiobook in the car while running an errand with Lucy. We’re still not quite finished with the “_Little House_”:http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Little_House_on_the_Prairie series.
\n* Going for a walk with Lucy in the “stroller”:\/news\/2007\/cutie-times-nine\/.
\n* Cooking while Lucy played in the “fun room”:\/news\/2007\/dizzy\/ (for short periods).
\n* Taking a break while “Lucy watched a short video”:\/news\/2008\/stagehand\/.
\n* Eating some “chocolate”:\/news\/2006\/fudgy-mexican-brownies\/.<\/p>\n
Since things have gotten more complicated around here, I don’t have quite the same repertoire available to me. Lucy has started talking so much that audiobooks in the car don’t work quite as well, videos are mainly reserved for times that Mama needs to nurse the baby, and the weather has mostly been too cold and yucky to take a newborn out in it for a walk.<\/p>\n
So, there’s one thing that is left: eating chocolate. And, boy, have I been doing my share. Between mini candy bars, frozen confections, and my own baked creations, there has been a lot of sugar consumption. Adding to the compulsiveness of this behavior is the way I sneak these treats when Lucy isn’t watching, since I don’t want her to follow my example and eat sweets all day long. I’ve become the fastest Cookie Monster in Chicago, and I don’t just draw the line at cookies.<\/p>\n
I knew this had to change sometime, and I’ve been giving myself a bit of grace on this front for a few weeks. But Rosie turns four weeks old tomorrow, my voracious post-partum appetite is beginning to slow down, and the sugar-fix isn’t having quite the soothing effect that it did at the beginning. I must find some alternatives! Any ideas? I have a lot of hope that walks in the sunshine will help, once we get some consistently pleasant weather. Until then, I’ll just keep baking cookies and freezing them in a desperate attempt not to eat the whole batch at once!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We are starting to get the hang of the two-baby thing over here. I’m very glad for that. Now the next project is breaking my hourly chocolate fix.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kids"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1750","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1750"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1750\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1750"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1750"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/boydsnest.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1750"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}