Last week I wrote all about New Year Resolutions past and this week I thought I would write a follow up of what I am actually hoping for in 2014.

My husband’s resolutions seemed to take the form of one personal desire, Presence, and then one work/career desire. Under the over arching desire he brainstormed applicable ways to work towards it. For me, I do small interactive advertising, content management, and social media projects from home for money but I consider my “job” to be raising our 22 month old. Naturally my personal resolutions affect my parenting, the same as my husband’s personal actions affect his parenting and our family, but there were some things that I felt I would like to specifically address in my role as mama for 2014.

Potty

We have been practicing Elimination Communication with T part time for a very long while but this year I want 100% of pees & poos to be in the potty. We are armed with many pairs of underwear and we practice a lot at home but I can’t help but feel we are SO far away, T is not verbal and it is almost impossible to get him to tell us *before* he goes. He also wakes what feels like 8-12 times a night and I have no idea what that means for us when it comes to potty-ing and diapers at night time.  I really want him to be exclusively in underwear this year, but again, I pretty much have no expectations left when it comes to his parenting thing and also know that small children simply can not be forced to do anything. So, one can only hope.

Sleep

I feel like we have absolutely exhausted (no pun intended) this avenue. Co-sleeping, night time nursing, night weaning, his own bed next to ours, his own bed in his own room, talking about it, Daddy comforting, Mama comforting, etc. etc. and the longest he sleeps is cuddled up with me for only 2 hours (or less) at a time. This has to change this year. This is the year that we all sleep more!!!!! We have some travel coming up in January and February and then T’s second birthday is in March. After that it is Mission: Sleep. We are going tackle more sleep, even if it means T’s habits can not or do not change but my husband and I switch off nights on duty so we can at least get a few nights of uninterrupted sleep a week, more sleep is a priority for everyone this year.

Environment & Being The Example

What do I want my household environment to be like, feel like? What kind of energy do I want in my home? I like to ask myself this a few times a day to keep it in the front of my mind. My goal this is year is to practice more of what I envision. I can not expect T to grow up being calm, patient, willing to communicate and express himself if I am not. I can not expect him to be peaceful and loving in all of our interactions if I am not. If what I see for us is a slow paced, loving home in which we share many laughs than I am going to slow down, relax and worry less about things that do not need my immediate attention. If my hopes for T are to be polite than I am going to focus more on always using a polite tone with him and my husband, and so on.

I feel like there is so much more I want to get out of my brain and onto paper, so to speak, so I can assess and reflect on it, but I think the above seems to be a reasonable amount to take on right now without overwhelming myself.  I look forward to updating everyone on our progress over the next few months!

What goals do you have in your professional, home, or mama life this year? Anything daunting that you are looking forward to finally addressing when it comes to your Sweet Peas?