Hey loves,
It’s been a minute I know, I know – and I’m sorry! I’m turning a new leaf this Q2 of 2025 and I’ve decided to start prioritizing my voice in the content space – I know it’s listened to and most importantly it impacts at least one person (me) positively – whenever I go down memory lane of my old blogposts or instagram posts I can see how much I’ve changed and grown over time, sometimes I realize things I used to enjoy that I’ve stopped and ask myself – why did I stop? That is what is happening here, I enjoy content creation and I let a bad experience in 2022 rob me of the joy I derive from it for far too long.
So I’m back!
As a quick catch up:
- I’ve been a mom for 8 months now! Our boy is super delightful, happy, growing speedily and smashing milestones so much I’ve decided to put my paediatric milestones knowledge to bed – this guy started pulling himself to stand at 6 months!! When the chart says he’s supposed to just know how to sit unsupported (he did that at 4 months haha). I’m enjoying every single bit! We started nursery for him a month before I started work as a way to ease into change gradually and wow am I grateful we did that because it’s like he caught everything instantly. The second day he had to be picked up with a fever which turned out to be the flu (which all of us at home caught from him, fun times lol). Then he developed a nappy rash and I had to call out the nursery staff on that because he’s never had it before and I learnt that the Vaseline I gave them to use for each diaper change wasn’t being used. Was quite disappointed because I did what was needed and they messed up but yeah I just put my foot down about it. Then he developed gastroenteritis and was vomiting and having runny stools for a week! It was back to back illnesses and I spent 2 separate nights at urgent care before I finally got medications (by which time he was starting to gradually hold some food down). It was really a baptism of fire but now he’s thriving at nursery – which I’ve now changed to the one that’s a 2 minute walk from our home. It’s multicultural, closer and the fact that it’s cheaper doesn’t hurt either. I trust he’ll love it based off the settling in session we had and because he’s generally a pretty easy going child, he basically never cries! We have schedules that tell us when he needs feeding, changing, playing and set bedtimes – so his needs are always met and doesn’t allow for him having to cry. That and God just knew we needed our first child to be easy going to motivate us to have more haha.
2. Samuel is such an amazing dad! Marriage is different when you throw parenthood into the mix but for us taking care of our boy is now an additional way of showing love to each other. For example Samuel prides himself on being able to get our son to eat 3 pots of yoghurt in one sitting; he cites his excellent feeding skills as the reason lol. This week I gave baby N some pounded yam and he was a huge fan – a true Ondo boy lol. Marriage has gotten sweeter as we grow, my babes has my back and I his. Grateful for the big and small wins we’ve had these last few months; not working for 8 months (minus a few contract roles here and there) was something I was unsure how it would go. We’ve always been a 2 income household so this was a change – but my babes held us down so excellently. He took control of the financial front skillfully and we made it through without lacking anything – God bless my husband!
3. Now I’m a working woman! Yes I have started a new career – lol I have seemingly lived many lives and I love it for me. My latest career move is training to become a general practitioner aka a GP or some people know it as a family doctor. I have had this opportunity for three years now lol but because other roles in public health and medical education that were really interesting came up I kept deferring this job – but now I’m finally doing it! Going into GP training with my experiences is a blessing and so I’m glad it worked out this way, I have more direction as to what I want to get out of training and what type of roles I want to aim for as soon as I qualify, so I can tailor my training to achieve them. I decided to start work full time and see how I feel, I figured it’s better to give myself the opportunity to get it all going than to shortchange myself by limiting myself to working part time and delaying my training completion unnecessarily. To be fully honest; I was going to opt for part time but Samuel asked me why I don’t think I can do it – I’m the same person that balanced doing two masters with full time work after all – so it challenged me to not limit myself – get a partner that pushes you!!
4. I’m working on my health – tbh I’ve lost a lot of the weight I gained in pregnancy – I’m over 14kg lighter than my day 1 post partum weight and he’s only 8 months old! I’ve got a summer of weddings so I’m trying to drop to less than my pre-pregnancy weight by July/August – so I’ve joined an accountability group to do a 75 HARD Challenge! The challenge requires me to:
– eat a balanced healthy diet everyday
– exercise for 45 mins minimum 4 times a week
– walk 10,000 steps a day,
– drink 2L of water a day
– read for 30 minutes a day
– and put one hour towards a skill of interest each day.
Phew! Tbh I already workout, drink only water and eat healthily so that’s not new, and I’ve done a walking challenge before so I just need to get back to that – but the reading and skill development is new and necessary – being a GP trainee means I need to study a lot both for exams and just everyday clinical practice – so this is a necessary habit to develop. For the skill – it’s got to be consistent content creation which includes writing my weekly blogposts again! I’m really excited to see how I get on with this challenge!!
To think I started this saying “quick” catch up haha. Anyways now that I intend to share more regularly, whatever I’ve missed out in this whirlwind post I’ll catch you guys up on eventually! Looking forward to next week’s catch up already!
Till next week,
Dr ETKandi xo
