Shit. Guys. Only one month left of Ellen being a baby. Shit.

I was about to write that I have “so many feelings” about being thisclose to having a toddler and (probably) never having a baby again. But that’s not actually true. I don’t have so many feelings. I have one feeling: Sad.

I’m destroyed! Ellen isn’t going to be a baby much longer, and I can’t cope! I know it is a cliche, but it is just going too fast. I want to lay on the ground and throw a fit, screaming, “IT’S NOT FAIR!”

Enough of my despair about Ellen getting older. Let’s push that aside and look at the baby herself… because I also only have one feeling about her – PROUD.

My god! I’m so proud of Ellen! She’s my favorite little girl and she has all kinds of new tricks this month.

She has a small handful of words (dada, book, mama, whoa, and I swear she tried to say “cheese” the other day). If you give her a cell phone, she’ll hold it up to her ear and say something that sounds like “hello”. SO CUTE!

She is crawling, cruising, walking around with a walker toy, getting into everything, and eating anything she can get her hands on, except blueberries (favorites = cheese and pasta).

We’ve been introducing a variety of sippy cups with water or formula in them, getting ready for her big girl transition away from bottles and boobs. She thinks they’re so fun, and I can’t wait until I can give her cow milk. I think she’s going to love it!

Sleep has been mostly good! What a lovely thing to be able to say! A “bad” night with Ellen now is one where she wakes up 1 time. I remember how recently that was considered a “good” night, so you won’t catch me complaining!

We are having a stretch of “bad” nights right now, I suspect due to teeth. She just popped her 4th tooth the other day, and I can’t see where the next one is coming, but she is definitely acting like she did with her left top front tooth, so I am keeping an eye on the right top front…

I did an unofficial weigh-in for Ellen the other day at home, and she was 23.6 lbs. Still a big girl, but very little weight gain in recent months. She has lost a lot of her arm rolls as she just gets longer. I can’t wait to see where she comes in at her next doctor’s appointment in a month. My prediction? A huge drop on the weight percentile, but still in the upper 90’s for height. We’ll see!

I haven’t written recently about my own body. Mostly because there isn’t a lot to say! I finally dropped into the 170’s, which means I have less than 10lbs to go to pre-Ellen weight. That was a really satisfying accomplishment, but it hasn’t changed much since then. I’m putting in a little effort, but not a lot, and the progress is proportionate to that effort.

With only 1 month to go until Ellen’s birthday, I don’t think I’ll be hitting my goal of getting to pre-Ellen weight by the time she’s 1. But I’m going to be pretty close! On bad days, I beat myself up over my lack of self-control and excessive laziness. But on good days, I’m able to choose to celebrate the fact that I have already lost 53+ lbs in the last 11 months. That’s nothing to sneeze at!

I also had a realization the other day when I was feeling panicked about not meeting my goal – there isn’t an expiration date on when I can lose the weight. The goal I set was made up by me. There’s no penalty for not meeting the goal. And just because I don’t quite get there by a specific date, it doesn’t mean I’m done and it doesn’t mean I failed. The challenge for that time period is over, but life goes on!

Plus, I’m not gaining weight. The little effort I’m putting in is still easing the scale the right direction, it’s just slow! So I’m going to lose it, and I just need to stop my relentless mental beat-down!

So, ultimate goal is to get to pre-Lewis weight. 19 lbs to go. When do I want to accomplish that? Tomorrow! When will I do it? In my own time. As long as I’m trending the right direction and not backsliding, I’m going to cut myself some slack. Wow… what freedom.