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My One Word for 2010- How I'm Doing

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It’s mid-year and I’m revisiting my One Word for 2010 to see how well I’m living that word out.

If you didn’t catch it from the graphic over there, my word for the year is NURTURE.

With that word, I described five ways I’d try to nurture in 2010. So how am I going? Well, here’s my update for the first half of the year:

Nurture my newborn… through breastfeeding longer this time around.

Score! I’m VERY proud to say that this one exceeded even MY wildest expectations. With Big Roo, I suffered through mastitis, stabbing pain and engorgement. I made it until about 2 months and then switched him over to formula during that third month. I just couldn’t do it any longer.

This time around, it’s more like I envisioned breastfeeding would be. In fact, I wrote a post about why I thought it was easier at the Triangle Mamas blog. I’m four months in and going strong. My goal was six months but I’m going to knock it out the park and shoot for a year. And I actually ENJOY it, something I didn’t have the pleasure of experiencing the first time around. So lucky.

Nurture my family… with both patience and attention.

To be honest, I’m not where I want to be with this one. Having two kids flipped our routine inside out, backwards and upside down. And hence, my patience gets lost in the middle of dinner preparation, baby feeding and preschooler antics. I’m patient on some days – not so much on others. I’ve tried to give Big Roo some one-on-one attention when the baby is sleeping but I know I can do better. I find myself saying “just a minute” to him a lot and I’m making an effort of epic proportions to stop saying it so much.

As for the hubs… date night? Huh? Unfortunately, we have no money for date night. We HAVE managed to sneak away to a movie a couple of times while a grandparent was visiting (or we were visiting the g-parents). We’ve been decent at watching movies at home though and just chatting. However, on my summer bucket list is to watch a movie WITHOUT our computers in front of us. Sad, but true. I also wanna challenge Daddy Roo to a game of swordfighting in Wii Sports Resort because I ROCK AT IT.

Nurture my creativity… through scrapbooking our life stories and building my blog.

On the scrapbooking front, let’s just say my supplies are mostly collecting dust. I’ve managed to scrapbook FOUR pages in six months. Four, people! Luckily, I’ve been good at taking pictures and documenting our life. I record milestone dates, firsts and funny sayings from Big Roo (gems like “are you scared of my pee pee?”). And next week (or the next), I plan to capture “A week in the life” of us… pictures of the everyday so we remember what things were like at this point of our lives.

As for my blog, I’ve grown and then grown some more. I’ve written in a way I haven’t done in years of being in the corporate world. And I’ve made connections- so many connections it’s hard to wrap my head around. So, I’d say I nailed this bit of “nurture.” My only challenge is that I don’t get so engrossed it in that I neglect the nurturing of family.

Nurture my body… through more frequent exercise.

Bueller? Bueller?

What can I say? I work part-time and have a newborn and a three year old. I’m lucky to shower on the days I don’t work. I’ve done SOME exercise like walking, the occasional aerobic video and of course some easy hikes.

However, I’m crazily jumping into a pool of ice water with this one. If you didn’t know, I’ve been a group exercise instructor for 10 years. I called up my coordinator last week and said I’m ready to get my class back (I teach kickboxing every other week). I go back in August. It’s a start and I’d better be in kick butt shape by then to, well, kick butt. How’s that for motivating myself?

Nurture my career… through networking and social media.

Can I say “Bueller” again on this one? I’ve gotten just about no where with this one. I’m not sweating it though. I’m only four months into juggling the extra responsibilities that come with having a baby in the house again. My job is paying the bills but I’m not going gangbusters with trying to network and build connections. Oh and that Poken I mentioned in my original post? Possibly the dumbest thing I purchased last year.

Luckily, some of my local bloggy friends ARE marketers so how’s THAT for multi-tasking? They are awesome ladies and we have three things in common right off the bat- we blog, we have kids and we love marketing. Quite the trifecta.

So, do you remember the resolutions or commitments you made to yourself at the beginning of the year? Where are you succeeding? What needs work?

My One Word for 2010

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The past few years I’ve resisted much in the way of New Year’s Resolutions. I always felt mine were so trite, like I just HAD to have some resolutions that by March were in the crapper anyway.

So this year, I’m taking a different approach. In my day job, I’m a marketer and one of my fave blogs is Chris Brogan’s. He talks about having three words to guide your efforts through the year and help set goals.

I love the concept but got to thinking… why couldn’t I just have one word? One single word that will embody what I strive for in 2010. I like the idea of one word that could stick in my head. One word I could hone in on as a reminder of my year’s “goals.” So for 2010 I chose the word…

NURTURE

It’s quite fitting since I’m currently growing a human that’s due in about 9 weeks! And it extends even further than that too. Here are the ways I plan to center around the word “nurture” throughout 2010:

Nurture my newborn… through breastfeeding longer this time around.
Little Roo is planning his debut this March and I’m strangely calm about it. Oh wait, maybe that’s just denial. Denial of the inevitable sleepless nights, jealous first child, whacked out hormones and lots of baby poop. Yep, that sounds about right.

Seriously though, I will be the mother to a newborn all over again and with that comes a great deal of nurturing. The area I really want to focus is breastfeeding longer than I did with Big Roo.

With Big Roo, my intention was to breastfeed exclusively for at least 6 months. I have nothing against feeding my child formula but breastfeeding was something I really wanted to do. But (boys, you may want to cover your eyes) after mastitis with a 102 degree fever my first week post-partum, pumping milk tainted with blood and feeling little knives stabbing me every time he nursed, I only hung on through 2 months before I started converting him to formula. I admit it had started to get easier, but by then I was headed back to work full-time and I used going back to work as an excuse for not sticking with it.

For some reason, I just think it’s gonna be easier this time. And if not, I’ll hire a lactation consultant before I relent. I’m hoping to make it to at least the six-month mark.

Nurture my family.. with both patience and attention.
2010 is going to be a BIG adjustment with a newborn in the house again. I worry how Big Roo will handle all the attention I’ll need to give the wee one. I worry that I’ll get too snippy with wonderful Daddy Roo. I also worry that my patience will be even more thin than usual.

So, I plan to nurture my relationship with Big Roo through some devoted one-on-one time. Patience is one of my vices so I’m hoping to remember to center myself, take a deep breath and calm down when things get deliriously hectic. With Daddy Roo, I hope to continue the monthly date nights we just started back up late last year and to make sure we spend time together other than sitting tandem on our laptops. In fact, we just finished some awesome duel in Wii Resort so I plan to make sure that game isn’t collecting dust by spring.

Nurture my creativity… through scrapbooking our life stories and building my blog
2009 was the year of the insanely busy me. I started freelancing on top of my full-time job, became Chair of the local MS Society’s PR & Marketing Committee, took on role as Craft Day Planner for my mom’s group and a bunch of other little commitments I got myself into. After Big Roo went to bed, evenings weren’t for me anymore – they were for everyone else. So, I’ve let go of some of my commitments and hope to have more time to nurture that creative spitfire in me. This means two specific things:

– Spend more time developing this blog: writing consistently about the things that I don’t get to write about in my day job: the outdoors, my family and being a mama

– Spend more time scrapbooking: I used to be an avid scrapbooker. But then I started freelancing for a well-known scrapbooker and the time I had to spend on it went downhill. Scrapbooking is about bringing out the graphic designer and writer in me to capture our life stories. And while some may think it’s cheesy, I enjoy the creative outlet.

Nurture my body… through more frequent exercise.
My body is headed through the ringer this year. I’m 30-weeks pregnant and am already sore and uncomfortable. By March, I’ll be healing from delivering Little Roo (rather it ends up being another C-section or VBAC) so I’ll be nurturing lots of soreness in places I’ll spare you from mentioning. Once I’m on the mend, I’m anxious to get back to working out.

I’ve been an aerobics instructor for 10 years now (I stopped teaching about mid-way through this pregnancy though). After Big Roo grew more and more active, I got less and less. By the time he turned one, most weeks the only workout I was getting was the one class I taught (and an occasional hike).

This year, I want to be more active. I’d like to teach at least one class a week, workout at least 2-3 other times and hike once or twice a month. I think that’s more realistic than sadistically signing up for a marathon or something nutty like that. Baby steps, Mel, baby steps.

Nurture my career… through networking and social media.
When Little Roo comes, I’ll be going down to part-time at my Marketing Director job at a small software company. It’s a great set-up– working from home, still get benefits, etc. BUT the job doesn’t challenge me creatively like previous jobs have nor do I have an awesome team of marketing creatives to work with (it’s just me and the tech guys).

My gig on the MS Society’s PR & Marketing Committee and the people I’ve met on Twitter and at marketing events have given me some of the connection that I’m craving but I want even more. Especially since I’ll be quarantined in a house all week either working or taking care of the Roos. So, I’ll dig deeper into networking and try to develop some lasting relationships… someone I can call on for creative advice when I’m stuck on something at work. And someone to have lunch with every so often on the days that I work. I even got a silly Poken for Christmas to get me started.

Dang, if you read all the way through, kudos to you! I just wanted to get my rambling thoughts down on “paper” so I can reference them later. Choosing one word is cloaked as a simple concept, but as you can see, there’s a lot you can delve into based on that single word.

I’ll revisit my word NURTURE every month and see where I’m at in regards to my goals. And post about it too of course (though I promise the posts will be shorter than this). I’m truly curious to see what happens.

Do you have any resolutions, goals or whatever you call them? What is your word for 2010?