Student - Employee - Mom

Student - Employee - Mom

 

I am seriously thinking about going back to school. I think I mentioned last year that summer time at work is a little dangerous for me…I am forced to still come to work (June happens to be one of the months that I am being babysat in the main office by HR and getting less sleep than I do during our busiest time of year) but I have nothing to do, so I get to work stupid early to make everyone happy and I surf the web all day and ponder my current career choice and if I am squandering my best working years sitting in an office, not being a scientist. I always come the conclusion that yes, this job is a waste of my talent, but I am always too chicken to do anything other than daydream. Especially now having P, quitting a decent paying job to PAY to go back to school is very scary and daunting.

But here’s the thing: my current job is not a career, and that is a scary thought when you have a family too.  I have benefits, and a retirement account, but there is no ladder here, no long term story of success and achievement.  For my boss (my friend from college, remember?) there is that sense of achievement, he built the division from scratch and is in a position to move onto bigger things from it… but I am where I will be in this job until I decide to do something different, or my boss moves on to his next business venture and I decide if it is something I want to follow him into.  If I had no skills or education, this would not be a bad set-up…..but I have mad skillz and learning! So what to do?

Speaking of squandering my best years…if I could have a do-over for college I would SO take it. My college education was not a bust by any means, but I made some decisions that I could seriously kick myself for.  There are some key classes that I should have done better in, and there was a Clinical Laboratory Science program that I was accepted into after I got my Bachelor’s degree that I passed on because the drive to the campus was about an hour each way. Seriously stupid decision. Incidentally, that is the very same type of program I want to complete now…and my closest option is an hour drive away. I also have been driving almost an hour each way for the job I am wasting my talent on for over three years…so like I said, that was a stupid decision. But hindsight is 20/20 and at the time I thought my logic was sound in passing on the program.

The specific program I want to complete (becoming an ASCP certified MT/CLS) has two basic routes that are realistic options for where we currently reside. The first one is a one-year clinical rotation program at a hospital (an hour away). It is intense and full-time, but upon completion I can take my boards and be on my way.  The basic tuition for the program is manageable, but it becomes very expensive when you consider the cost of the program is actually the tuition plus my annual salary, because I won’t be able to work while I am in school.  In addition, since the program is not a degree-seeking program, it has no financial aid options. I would be on my own financially. Scary stuff. Also, I may not even be a remotely qualified candidate. My degrees have a bit of age on them, and as I mentioned earlier, there are some key classes that I needed to have better grades in to be a really attractive applicant. I am planning to apply anyway and see what happens. The second option available to me will take longer, but may be the only door open to me in this part of the state. That is to seek a second BS degree via a program (an hour away) that feeds into the hospital program mentioned above (the clinical year at the hospital counts as the senior year of the degree program). The HUGE disadvantage is that it will likely take 1-2 years longer to complete and will be significantly more expensive. The advantages are that I will be a more qualified candidate for the clinical year at the hospital (although I am not guaranteed admission to the clinical program at the hospital, that’s a scary thought!), since I would be a degree-seeking student, I can apply for federal student financial aid (although they are loans and I will be incurring more debt), and the campus has daycare options for students with children, which may be a useful tool to help juggle it all. 

I have been looking at this program and ASCP certification routes every summer for the past few years…I keep coming back to it. The thought is very very overwhelming, to go back to school as an ‘oldie’ and try to start a career in my thirties. But it is probably much easier than doing it in my forties or fifties, right?!? December is the deadline to apply to the hospital as an independent student not affiliated with the university.  I also have an advising appointment set up at the college to go over my transcripts and see what the road map looks like to pursue the program by getting another degree. Still gathering information, hopefully a door will open that I won’t shrug off this time around and I can get back in the lab eventually.

One of Those Perfect Days in the Sun

June 25, 2013

So remember I said I was not a beach person and I could take or leave Florida in general? To me the beach = sand and salty sweat.  Well, I am aware that a lot of people are NOT like that, they love the beach.

My mom was somewhere in the middle, she did not care for the heat and humidity of Florida, but she did love the beach and being by the water in general. I think she found her peace there. My best friend and two of my aunts (my dad’s sister and one of my mom’s sisters) are also that way, beach = peace. I get it, there is an energy and a smell at the ocean that is unlike anything else. 

I bring this up because my dad’s sister, who lives in Indiana, was in Florida for the last few weeks and this past weekend was her last weekend in town.  She wanted to spend it with me and P at the beach.  I happily agreed, although I have to be honest, I was not jumping for joy on the inside, but I knew it would make my aunt happy to share that with P since the beach is very special to her. 

We got to Cocoa late in the afternoon on Saturday, so we just swam in the hotel pool and went out to a nice dinner.  P loves the water and my aunt used to be a swim instructor for years, so they really enjoyed the pool time together. Sunday morning we packed all of our gear and headed to the beach.

Wow. Just…wow. I learned very quickly that my child LOVES the beach. We had not even finished putting our bags down and setting up our chairs….he took one look at the waves and the water and ran, just fearlessly ran towards the water and barely got out the entire time until we were ready to leave. He was the only toddler I saw there that kept going back for more.  He got tumbled by the waves a few times (I was right there the whole time to keep him from being scared…or being too brave for his own safety!) and he just laughed and stood up and waited for the next one. Seeing him so happy was the most fun I have ever had at the beach…ever. And maybe I got a little taste of that whole beach = peace thing.

There are moments with P – just day to day things that stop me in my tracks sometimes and make me really miss my mom.  The entire trip to the beach was one of those experiences. I know this will keep happening, P is obviously going to keep growing up and he is going to keep experiencing life and I am going to keep thinking ‘I would have given anything to have my mom here to experience this’. But this day at the beach has been the biggest one so far. Maybe because it was an experience that she would have soaked in with such complete happiness and joy….playing with P in the waves at the beach. I could picture her there in the water with him in such clarity, it almost seemed somehow unfair that I, someone who takes all things beach for granted, got to enjoy that day with him and she did not (I am learning there is no logic in grief).

So I am off to reroute some of my summer weekends to include some beach trips. This will make my best friend happy.

Patience

June 7, 2013

Testing My Parental (and Patience) Skills

 

So when I was pregnant, I was just sure that I would be SO in love with the ‘newborn baby’ phase and that I would not be so in love with the ‘little kid’ phase. Pre-parenthood I was very awkward with children (I am still awkward with children that are not in a similar age bubble or younger than P), so I was pretty sure that once my child wanted to play and have interaction other than the affection and stimulation and one-way conversations required of a newborn baby, that I would exit my parenting comfort zone and J would have to take over the reigns as primary fun person.  Not that P is very far into the kid part of his life yet, he still has two months until he is even 2, but we are definitely not in the baby part anymore, and I am happy to report that I am loving this age as much, if not at times more than when he was squishy baby.

I did love the baby part, I loved it! I was a little surprised at a few things and there were some times where I felt like I was ready for the ‘next step’.  I was never wishing time away, but I remember specifically a moment around the 4 month area where I was like ‘P is awesome, but it will be nice when he has a few more motor skills and can interact a little more’ since newborns are basically little turtles for the first few months. As P has inched out of Babyland and into the treacherous waters of Toddlerworld, I have really really enjoyed seeing him develop his personality and become a little boy.  I do miss the baby part at times, but I am loving this as well.

Can I add one ‘BUT’ though? But…holy moly my easy and laid back child (to this point) can get his feelings hurt and have a meltdown if he doesn’t get his way! It is so sad and frustrating and maddening (and at times embarrassing). I hate to see him cry, his pouty lip and big ‘you crushed my toddler soul’ eyes, it breaks my heart. I am whipping out my toddler parenting books as we speak and trying to be a quick study!

I was briefly discussing this with one of my close friends in MI who just had her first child in March (i.e. not a toddler at all yet). She is a very logical and practical thinker (although I also am most of the time too) and she commented that she knew the toddler phase would be an adjustment to her as well when the time came because when she thinks about it right now, her mental response is ‘No, you cannot have another cookie young child, you must move past this and get over it’. Case closed. I chuckled to myself and responded to her that in my head, I usually have that same response as well…..but it is rarely as simple as ‘no, you can’t have another cookie’ (especially since we don’t really give cookies). It is more like ‘No, P you can’t open the oven when it is on, or help mommy cook on the stove, or vacuum for an hour, or sit in the freezer with the door open, or climb the magazine rack, or play in the toilet, or go outside in the middle of the thunderstorm, or run the dog over with your push toy, or put your hand between your legs when you have a poopy diaper…..’. The list goes on.

I know meltdowns are a natural sign of our little humans progressing and learning and becoming independent thinkers, it is just an adjustment!

Oh Hurricane Season, How I Have Missed Thee

June 6, 2013

Oh Hurricane Season, How I Have Missed Thee

 

Welcome to Florida my friends! June through November is hurricane season in Florida. The time of year where meteorologists get very excited whenever a storm system in the Atlantic or Gulf of Mexico shows even the slightest amount of rotational organization.  When weather that would otherwise be called ‘rain’ gets the titillating label of ‘tropical moisture’….exciting, right?

Today, the weather experts are as excited as can be because we are only 6 days into June and already they have Tropical Storm Andrea! Woo-hoo, I think the local meteorologists were starting to feel left out of all the weather news by the recent tornadoes in OK. 

Listen, I take Mother Nature seriously, you better respect her, because she has NO respect for you….so I am not trying to make light of weather disasters, especially devastating ones like the tornadoes in OK and major hurricanes.  This is not that.  This is rain, heavy at times, and there are tornado warnings (although we get roof, trailer, and tree damaging tornadoes here, not 2 mile wide neighborhood destroying ones like the Midwest). Incidentally, the scariest storms I have been through in Florida were when I was kid and some storms came through our area….in March (not hurricane season) that spun off a few damaging tornadoes and we had no power for a week. 

Not much else to this post.  I was just feeling like….well, like a FL meteorologist, I couldn’t let a perfectly good tropical storm pass by and not make some kind of commentary about it.

37 Things You Didn't Know About Me

May 20, 2013

Getting to Know You – 37 Things You (probably) Didn’t Know About Me (or care to know, whatever)

 

I read on another mommy-blog an idea to do a ‘100 Things You Didn’t Know About Me’ post on the one year anniversary of your blog. It doesn’t seem like the anniversary of this blog since I put it down for the better part of the year…but it is a cute idea and will hopefully put me back on track for some happier posts. So here goes (apologies ahead of time that none of these are going to be super exciting):

1.       I have a Master’s Degree in Forensic Science. Don’t get too impressed, I work in an office right now, no degree required.

2.       I have one son who turns 2 in August.

3.       I have one husband who turns 40 in August.

4.       I was not born in August.

5.       I have two dogs – a Labrador and a Corgi. The shedding at my house is endless. Lucy, my Corgi, thinks that hell has crashed down upon her in the form of my toddler, who loves to hug and squeeze and sit on her.  Sam, our Lab, thinks that heaven has visited our house in the form of my toddler who loves to feed him Cheerios, goldfish, and half of everything else he eats.

6.       I live in Florida, but happiness for me is found in the mountains, I can’t live in this flat humid swamp forever.

7.       Spiders should all die. I logically know they serve a purpose in our ecosystem, circle of life, etc., but I hate them! Charlotte from Charlotte’s Web is the notable exception here, and she was not real.

8.       Despite my girly hatred of spiders, I find a lot of insects very fascinating. I am pretty nerdy sometimes, hopefully this will be a benefit when P gets older and also likes insects (please, please not spiders though). Technically spiders aren’t insects anyway.

9.       I have been involved with horses and ridden hunters/jumpers almost my whole life.  However, I am decently at peace with selling my horse and just taking lessons occasionally. There isn’t enough time in my world to be passionate about parenting and horses, they are both a major time and money suck if you want to do them properly (in my opinion).

10.   I did gymnastics for about 5 years in my early teens.  I had a love/hate relationship with the sport. I knew it was time to leave when I was contemplating the many ways I could get hurt when I was learning new skills.

11.   I was hyper-competitive as a child. My poor parents. Thankfully I have learned to be a fun-having participant and a good sport as I have gotten older. Holy moly though, I hope I can find a balance with P between wanting him to have that drive to be the best and succeed, but also enjoy the activity FOR the activity and be happy for the accomplishments of others too.

12.   I enjoyed indoor rock-climbing when I was in college.  There was a great gym near campus and it was a relatively inexpensive way to stay fit. Ironically, outdoor rock climbing does not appeal to me as much. Go figure.

13.   I HATE working out at a traditional gym. Gym memberships are wasted on me.  I like staying fit through activities, but doing 10 sets of whatever and running on a treadmill are the equivalent of torture by boredom to me.

14.   When I was 16 I spent ten days backpacking on the Appalachian Trail with a group from my high school. I cried about grape juice, ate instant oatmeal dry and went to the bathroom in the woods. It was awesome.

15.   I wish I knew how to cook! I want my family to eat healthier food and I know that home cooked meals would go a long way towards that goal, but I am not a natural ‘throw ingredients together’ person in the kitchen.

16.   I wish I had more mommy friends. Making mommy friends is a lot like dating, and I wasn’t particularly good at that either.

17.   I definitely have an introverted personality.  I am not totally socially dysfunctional, but I do hope P gets some of his daddy’s more outgoing social skills.

18.   If I could be a professional student I would!  I love learning.

19.   I often feel disconnected from ‘popular culture’ and I don’t understand the reality TV craze of celebrating people who act like awful human beings or who contribute nothing useful to society.  It is alarming as a parent that these are some of the societal hurdles we will have to navigate around as P gets older. When is it too soon to teach them ‘smart is sexy’?

20.   I was born in Ohio and I lived about an hour away from Chicago when I was kid.  I have a child’s memory of living where it snows, but I miss it sometimes.

21.   I love gummy bears. I want to eat better and cut out high-fructose everything and scary artificial colors….but every once in a while I NEED gummy bears!

22.   I can touch the tip of my nose with my tongue. My mom used to tease me when I was little by doing it (but remember I was ultra-competitive) until I spent an entire week practicing so I could do it too. Then it became our random mother-daughter talent. Be jealous.

23.   When I was a little girl I wanted to be a veterinarian (original, I know). I discovered I have not the strongest of stomachs when it comes to gory-type stuff….so now when I grow up (whenever that happens, I'll let you know) I want to work in a microbiology lab. Someday.

24.   I love sleep, but I also love staying up late (more that I can’t fall asleep then a ‘love’ of being up late). I actually had a small mourning period when I finished college and realized I would never again have regularly scheduled vacation/sleep time like when I was in school…then parenthood happened and I realized that I was being a total wuss about sleep and free time up to this point in my life!

25.    I played the flute in middle school and part of high school.  Nothing happened at band camp.

26.   I was Valedictorian of my high school class. In hind sight, I would have preferred to have graduated third. No speech to give, but probably the same scholarships.

27.   I still have my pony that I got when I was 8 years old.  She is a very opinionated old lady. 

28.   J and I honeymooned in Quebec. Sort of random, but it was an awesome vacation (and the origination of the term ‘MoFoo’). We did not like the poutine.

29.   My favorite color is probably blue, but my favorite color palette is autumn/fall colors.

30.   I wish I was more knowledgeable about make-up. I am pretty clueless about anything aside from the light-cover natural look. It would be nice if I could attend a wedding or other formal event and not have to pay to have my make-up done (and roll the dice on looking like a hooker). The same goes for hair…and fashion (I suck at being a pretty girl, sorry J).

31.   I dream of being debt-free. J dreams of all the expensive toys he wants to acquire over his lifetime….and I dream of not having payments, ever, on any toys. I will probably never have my dream.

32.   My ‘bucket-list’ vacation is a cruise to Alaska. There are a lot of places I want to go, but that one is a must.

33.   I enjoy parenthood much more than I originally thought I would. I also love seeing P’s personality grow. I thought I would love the ‘baby’ stage and not love the ‘little kid’ stage, but I am pleasantly surprised to find that I am enjoying different parts of all his stages so far.

34.   I wish I had prettier handwriting. I could never be a teacher.

35.   If I could have one superpower, it would be mindreading. A little creepy, I know, but people so rarely say what they mean, and I prefer to just know the facts and not have to dig through the subterfuge.

36.   Margaritas on the rocks with salt are my favorite drink, but I don’t drink very often.

37.   I am pretty sure this list is going to be 37 things, not 100….100 is a lot!

 

Breaking the Antibiotic Seal and Mother's Day

May 9, 2013

Breaking the Antibiotic Seal and Mother’s Day

 

Well, we made it 21 months without any medications.  This is good.  P has had a runny nose and deep cough that has not gone away for the past two weeks…we were just not moving past this toddler cold.  It doesn’t slow him down, but I know he doesn’t feel 100% either. So we went to the pediatrician today and he said P has a bit of a sinus infection, which is a bacterial issue, not a viral one. Bummer.  Two weeks of antibiotics and we should be good to go.  I know that antibiotics have a good and useful place in our world, I have just become so anti-overusing them that I have to remind myself that this is a good and valid reason TO use them!  We are fortunate to have a pediatrician that is well-versed on the immune system and does not jump to prescribing unnecessary medications.  We have had several discussions on letting fevers and viruses run their course and what warning signs to look for and when medication is necessary. This time it is necessary.

Hopefully by the weekend P will be a little less snotty too.  It is totally true that toddlers always have a runny nose…and it is gross. So gross.  P and I are going to visit my mom’s best friend and her daughter on Sunday for Mother’s Day. J and I talked about it and I wanted to be somewhere where I felt close to my mom, and seeing her best friend immediately was my answer.  I think J and I are doing something Saturday to celebrate and he also got new wheels for my car (don’t give me the side-eye….my poor Civic was looking pretty rough with the one missing wheel cover….we went cheap when purchasing this car and real rims and tires are an awesome aesthetic upgrade!). Hopefully J will go see his mom on Sunday and participate in whatever overpriced brunch his sister sets up for them.  I just couldn’t.  J understands I miss my mom, but he doesn’t ‘get it’. I don’t plan on spending every Mother’s Day away from my husband, but L & A (mom’s BFF and daughter) are family too…you have lots of ‘adopted family’ when you are an only child and all of your aunts, uncles and cousins live in the Midwest…so this is what I needed this year. We are going to have a late lunch at an Italian restaurant that we went to with my mom when A was a baby and then go walk the riverside park near where they live. It will be good, and sad, but hopefully mostly good.

On a closing note: Last weekend J and I had THE conversation….again. It was very bipolar….again. However, we did decide to pull the goalie (no more BC pills) for the rest of 2013.  It should be noted that it took over a year to produce a BFP with P, so this conversation will probably be happening again in January, but for now that is the plan.  At least there is a sort-of plan.  It is sort-of exciting.

The Great Sibling Debate

April 29, 2013

The Great Sibling Debate

 

So I am older-ish. For a new parent, at least, maybe older than average (33, I was 31 when I had P). J is older too, he turns the big 4-0 this year (shhh). So we are not spring chickens…at least not in baby making land.  Despite all this age stuff, we seem to keep coming back to the ‘should we have another child’ conversation. A lot lately.

I was an only child, on purpose. My mom had a tubal ligation when I was 2. I feel like I missed out on the true story somewhere….because that just seems like a drastic step to take at 22 years old…but anytime it was discussed, I always got the same explanation. Which was that my parents were very happy and content with me and they could not imagine loving another child as much as they loved me. My parents were young when they had me, money was tight and we had some rocky times as a family, so it was probably a smart decision, but it still seemed like a crazy thing for my mom to do at 22 (there is a cheesy reference to a Taylor Swift song in there somewhere, but it is escaping me right now). However, adult decisions aside, I liked being an only child. For completely selfish reasons, of course, but I was kid, so what can you expect. I went through a phase when I was around 6 where I wanted a sibling (and when I remembered it as an adult I felt like an ass because my mom must have felt so bad when I went on and on about wanting a brother or sister), but other than that I was somewhat aware that life as an only child definitely had its advantages.

J is the oldest of three. He has two younger sisters (he technically had an older brother that was stillborn). He gets along with his sisters, but they are not particularly close. At times, his family is a train wreck. Train wrecks are not pretty. Money was very tight in his family too.  I have asked him a few times what he thought would have been different about his life if he was an only child, obviously it is a moot point, he only knows a childhood that includes his sisters and I only know a childhood that includes friends that go home and just me.

In my mind, when I thought about myself as a parent, I assumed I would also only have one child. I am a perfect example of that person who desperately wants to control the outcome of their life choices, but then ends up tripping over herself trying to make it all perfect only to end up someplace totally different. I still have days with P where I have this perfect clarity of thought and I think ‘I am totally nuts if I change my mind and have another child, our family unit is perfect the way it is’. But more and more I am wanting another baby. I am wanting P to have a sibling, to have more family. I think J has always wanted another baby….but when I throw my anti-baby logic at him (which mostly involves our finances, which, if you looked at them, you would probably question why we had any children at all) he sighs, agrees with me, and puts the conversation down for a while, but I think he senses I am considering changing my opinion on the topic.

When my mom died (she will come up a lot, so just bear with me) I sort of assumed that any small desire I had for another child died too….I could not fathom having a child that would not know her. Like it was somehow unfair to my mom to have another baby after her death (no logic, just how I felt, and still feel quite honestly). But lately I have been contemplating the family that P has left, and I am now starting to feel that if something happens to J and I, we have unfairly left him with very little family (functional family at least).  Does a sibling change that? Maybe. I don’t know. I know that aside from when I was six, I have never wished to have a sibling more than I do now. Just someone who understood losing my mom and understood me (my best friend is a pretty great stand in for a sibling, and she was very close to my mom too….but she has lost both her parents, so something inside me has a hard time lamenting to her and wondering if she cries too when her child learns something new and my mom is not there to share it, because I know it is not the same for her). So while finances, personal experience and some grief are my driving forces for my uterus being ‘one and done’…enjoying being a parent, wanting to provide my child another family member, and also some grief are becoming my driving forces for wanting another baby. I will keep you posted.