Second Week

I’ve finished my second week of parental leave and in all honesty, I feel like this has been a much slower week than the one before it. Let’s have a quick run-down of what I’ve done…

Gym

I managed to keep up with my gym schedule - going every other day. I’m feeling great about going to the gym (I love it) and am experimenting a little with my workouts. Typically I’ve done a ‘starting strength’/powerlifting workout, with deadlift, squats and bench press on every workout (3 sets of 5 reps, and lots of rest time)…but I’ve always been aware that I should probably explore other options.

Last workout I tried to do a bit more pulling (Romanian deadlifts, low and high seated rows) and more sets/reps (4x8). I nearly killed myself doing squats, absolutely maxing myself out and while it felt sort of good, it meant all my other exercises afterwards were compromised. I feel like work is like that sometimes - intellectually I can throw myself deep deep deep into a piece of work, but it means I’m mentally shot for the rest of the day/week. Claude’s advice for exercise was to take it a little easier, and always leave something in the tank so as to not compromise later activities. I think the same is probably true of work.

Health

I also kept up my aim of regularly taking the supplements that nearly everybody should take, but that I haven’t been. Vitamin D, Omega 3 and Magnesium. I was horrified to find out that it can take up to 4 months of regular supplementation in order to reach a healthy steady state of Vitamin D and Omega 3. As always, the best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.

Parenting

It’s been a pretty busy week on the parenting front. I’ve done school runs a-plenty, I think I went to gymnastics with the four-year-old, I definitely did some pedal-bike practice. I’ve had wonderful mornings singing and feeding and wrestling with our baby. I’ve done trips to Thirsk with the six-year-old, going to the Greggs and the opticians, and headed to TaeKwonDo together and generally had a lot of nice time.

It’s half-term now, so for the next week I’ll be doing even more parenting than usual. Let’s see how that goes!

Travel

I’m in Scotland now - seeing in-laws and visiting Edinburgh. I love Edinburgh, and it’s going to be great to share that with the children. On the drive up we got an awful lot of snow, which was nice. The children love seeing their grandparents, auntie and uncle, and particularly their cousins. It’s fun to watch them interact with other people, and see how they’re the same and how they’re different.

Week 2 Conclusion

Less of a busy week, but still plenty of stuff getting done. Week 2 hasn’t been all sunshine and daisies (I’ll share more about problems later on) but the fact that I kept up my gym and supplement regime basically makes me feel like I’ve got carte blanche to not achieve anything else. If I only spend this parental leave getting into shape and parenting…well, it’ll be hard to call that a failure, I think.

Bring on week 3 - with a city break, in-laws, and a viking melee planned!