While everyone has been setting New Year's resolutions and starting their “New Year,  New You” programmes I already have a pretty busy month planned and I’m not yet thinking about the remaining 11 months of the year. Change is meant to be easier if you focus on changing one thing at a time, unfortunately life rarely lets that happen. Most of my "resolutions" for this month will happen with or without me being ready, but I’m hoping that if I achieve all ten I’ll be feeling pretty good come February.

This is what I have planned for January:

Gain weight

Yes that’s right the Christmas excess wasn’t enough for me and I would like my weight to go up this month. Not a huge amount, but I ended up losing a small amount of weight in November and December. Normally a cause of celebration, in the third trimester of pregnancy it is a little worrying. I’m fairly sure that I am losing weight and baby is getting bigger, but a reduced appetite and heartburn have meant I’m eating less than normal. That’s less protein and food of the kind the baby needs. 

I really want to make the effort to give the baby what she needs for her remaining time in side.

Do Less

During my last few weeks at work I was trying really hard to get as much done as possible and to handover what I could in a manageable way. This meant working really long hours and sitting down so long my body was in agony. Now I am finished with work for a while I want to look after myself a bit more. I want to have the energy to do my Physio exercises for Pelvic Girdle Pain, do my pelvic floors and sit in a position which encourages baby to engage the correct way (I’m sitting on my birthing ball as I type).

Put the Christmas decorations away and spring clean the house

My current urge to “nest” should help with this one. With my maternity leave starting and M back at nursery I should be able to get some cleaning and sorting done each day without aggravating my PGP. Sorry spiders, but it's time for you to move house.

Write thank you cards

I'm really bad at sending thank you cards (and Christmas cards and birthday cards), but I'm hoping to send a few before I forget who gave what. It’s not just cards, I still have the Christmas presents from 2014 for Uncle Chris and one of my best friends. Maybe I should be adding going to the Post Office to this list?

Have a baby

Pretty big this one. I'm 37 weeks today so there is a good chance baby girl 2 will be coming in January. If she wants to stay in the warm until February that’s ok too (although I’m not ruling out a blog post at the end of the month where I complain that I’ve had enough of pregnancy).

Move house

What do you mean having a baby is enough for one month? A house move won't be any trouble... I'm only moving a couple of miles away, but the timing could be better. I have a whole house to pack up, clean and try to get our deposit back on. Fortunately I think I have more or less persuaded G to get people in to pack for us so if I can just relax and leave them to it it should help me with January resolution 2 (Do Less).

Buy furniture

Moving is slightly complicated by us moving from a furnished house to an unfurnished one. This means a house worth of furniture to buy and assemble. My number one requirement before we move is a bed so that has already been ordered. The bulk of the other essentials will be purchased though an ikea shop and I will be asking for help to get it all together.  Unfortunately I am really bad back seat flat pack assembler and as I am a little too pregnant to do it myself (or usefully help) I am likely to be banished from the house. That seems reasonable given I would like to have a relationship to go with my new furniture.
Choose schools for monkey

M is a September baby so it will finally be time for her to start school this year. She's been ready since most of her friends started last year, but I wasn't ready for her to be so grown up (and neither was the school system which base entry on birth dates). I think by September M and I will both be ready.  The local schools are oversubscribed so it's a complicated formula of putting schools in the order that might give us the best chance of a school and location we are happy with.

Spend quality time with G and M

I have really enjoyed the last 2 weeks where we have all been off work and I have got to spend lots of time with M. I know priorities will change when the baby is here and I’ll be wanting all non baby time to be filled up with sleep, but for now I am making sure we spend some time each day where we connect and fully focus on each other. Hopefully we will still make time for this in the early months with a newborn.

Make friends

Last time I was on maternity leave I was really lucky to have a lot of new mums I met and could meet up with regularly. I am still in touch with a lot of them, but even those who have had additional children won’t have babies the same age as me this time. I will still meet up with other mummy friends, but I want some new friends too who are currently going through the lack of sleep/ inability to function stage. Cuts in government funding means that some of the groups I went to no longer exist so this time it will require a bit more effort, particularly to meet second time mums who have babies, but for this month I am hoping to get my new NCT group meeting up regularly. 

I am still close friends with many of the Mum’s I met when I did NCT classes last time so with G being a first time Dad and me wanting to meet more people I decided to do classes again. They seem like another lovely group and we should be having our first post class meet up this week.