It’s prime time for New Year’s resolutions, and less than three weeks into 2018, most diet plans, financial goals and new hobbies are still going strong. In the past, I’ve made the typical promises to myself to eat better and work-out more, but after a few weeks of huffing and puffing through a workout DVD, letting produce go bad in my crisper, and cutting a jog short after encountering a large, untethered neighborhood dog, I usually resort back to my old habits.
If I’m being honest, I simply didn’t care enough to break my routine.
Well, this year – for the first time ever – I started January as a mom. It is laughable to think about how little time I thought I had prior to welcoming my daughter into the world. I had oodles of time – literal oodles.
Also, I no longer have a routine. I sleep, sometimes. But I’m just as likely to drift off at 5 in the evening when my daughter is napping as I am to be cheering her on at 4 a.m. when she’s gleefully playing on her baby drum set.

Often, a trip to the grocery store seems unrealistic, so I do make more meals at home – which is supposed to be better for you. And I haven’t had a drop of alcohol in nearly two years, which is definitely a health benefit. I also take a multi-vitamin now, and drink umpteen gallons of milk a week – I’m chalking this up as a resolution win.
As for working out, I carry a 20-plus pound baby almost everywhere. I think my failure to commit to lifting before had to do with not unconditionally loving my free weights. I frequently run across the room to prevent various catastrophes, including bumps on the head and slamming fingers in drawers, and I spend approximately an hour a day, almost every day, dancing to nursery rhymes about little sharks and ice cream shops.
My motivation isn’t a muscular personal trainer yelling encouragements, but rather an adorably chubby little girl who occasionally says, “Mama”.
I’m becoming more culturally well-rounded, as well. I’m reading multiple books a night on a variety of topics, including animals, shapes and colors, listening to music well outside the realm of radio, and learning to appreciate abstract (finger) paintings.
In my free time, I further enrich my mind through research of various diseases, vaccines and minor maladies.
Finally, I’m more sympathetic to the world’s problems, after all, my daughter has to grow up here, and we were all babies once.
I feel like I’m starting 2018 more ahead, albeit exhausted, then I ever have before, and I wouldn’t change it for the world.