Epiphanies, plural

Lillian likes to lay like this when I'm reading to her at night.  The doctor says that her hypotonia is no longer detectable, but she's still really floppy and it's hard to tell if she does stuff like this because she can, or because it takes too much core strength to sit upright.

I don't know what I was thinking or hoping, but I think deep down, I thought that because she had grown out of the hypotonia, she might have grown out of the ADHD and maybe picked up some number sense over the summer.  But in the first few weeks of school, she's shown that this is not the case.  In considering my feelings about having a child with learning disabilities, I've realized a few things.

1. I was thinking about how Lillian could really use a full-time math tutor.  Someone to sit with her every night and do math homework; who was good at math and good with kids and could really get Lillian and explain things to her.  I starting thinking about how much that would cost and how much I would have to work to be able to pay for it when I realized that I do that.  Like, that's what a mom does- whatever it takes.   Your kid needs extra math help?  You're a math tutor.  Your kid needs a special diet? You're a chef.  Your kid needs a soft place to land?  You're a pillow.  It's pretty obvious- of course I'm going to be there for my kids, but it was just a moment of clarity that *I* could help solve this problem.

2.  I loved school.  I loved going and taking tests and learning everything.  Test taking is very easy for me; I could probably take a multiple choice test on a subject that I know nothing about and get a decent grade because I have a sense about what correct answers look like.  I liked to think that I was kind to everyone and respected all the kids regardless of scholastic aptitude, but I'm realizing that I looked down on people who weren't as smart as me.  I thought I was better than them.  Now that I have Lillian, I realize that she works way harder than I ever did at math.  She struggles to complete worksheets in class and then has to finish them at home on top of the homework, plus she goes to extra tutoring in the resource room, plus I practice with her every day and on weekends.  And she does it with minimal complaints.

When I got to AP Physics in high school, it was hard for me, and instead of sticking it out, I arranged with UCSB (to which I had already been accepted) to drop out with an F on my transcripts.  I had no coping skills built up to tackle a difficult subject because no subject had been difficult before.  For a long time, I congratulated myself on my clever solution to my problem, but I realize now that it was a total cop out.

3.  I need to be more sensitive about bragging about my kids.  Nora is very smart, and sometimes I get carried away telling people about it.  However, it's totally the pot calling the kettle black because when people brag to me about their Lillian-aged kids, I want to punch them in the face... or just cry.  That's great for you that your 8-year old has read all 7 of the Harry Potter books (Lillian can barely read Magic Treehouse and that's only if I'm sitting next to her to remind her of where she is when she gets distracted) but that doesn't make your child better, or mean that you are a better parent than me.  I'm sure this is just me projecting my insecurities, but I don't want to make other parents feel bad because their 5-year old can't count by 3's (which Nora likes to show off).  IT'S NOTHING I DID, she's just like that.  Its also something I need to remind myself- My parenting can't and shouldn't be measured by the achievements of my children.

Things on my mind at this moment in time

In no particular order

*I'm really glad Evie takes a pacifier.  I think it's cut down on her crying by at least 60%.  Now, if I could just figure out how to get her to go to bed at from 7 to 7 like a normal baby instead of this college co-ed 12 to 12 business, that would be gravy.

*You guys: Lillian's at school and all three of the other kids are sleeping.  I know, it's miracle nap time, so I'm taking this opportunity to write this instead of doing my chores.

*I'm having a quarter-life crisis, I think. Before now, the only people who were my age who were accomplishing things of note were Olympic athletes and child geniuses.  I think we can all agree that the people that make up those two groups are not normal; they are exceptional by birth.  I'm not all that exceptional, so I didn't have to be jealous.  BUT, now, normal people MY AGE are writing books of note, conducting groundbreaking research, starting their own companies, inventing things, making documentaries, presenting at conferences, and all sorts of other things that I'm not doing.

I get that I spent all the time that those other people spent working on their business plans and/or research birthing children and making peanut butter sandwiches.  And, believe me, if I didn't think that birthing and raising decent human beings was a worth-while way to spend my time, I wouldn't have done it four times over.

The kicker is that I haven't been thinking, "I have this awesome business/book/company idea that I'm TOTALLY going to do when my kids are older."  I've mostly just been drowning in cheerios and morning sickness.  This is what makes it a quarter-life crisis: I have no idea where to go from here.  My tentative plan was to go to nurse practitioner school, which I realize I could still do, but do I really WANT to do that?  I don't know.

*I started reading The Happiness Project and the author mentions her One Minute Rule for keeping her house organized- if the task will take less than one minute, do it right now.  Put away the pen, close the cabinet, put the bowl in the dishwasher, file that immunization card, put your makeup back in the bag instead of leaving it out, etc.  I've been trying to do this, and I've found that I'm spending a lot more of my day cleaning.  Up side: I have a cleaner house which puts me in a better mood.  Down side: I spend more time cleaning which puts me in a bad mood.

*We're going to California in a few weeks, and I'm beyond excited about it.

*I got the movie Mongol from the library on my sister Anne's recommendation, and I need to watch it.  I really liked Temple Grandin, her last recommendation.

*I thought it was hilarious when I figured out why Ethan was telling everyone at the grocery store that Evie really likes nickles.  Someone, it might have been me I'm not sure, gave Ethan an anatomy lesson specifically about breastfeeding.  I laughed until my eyes watered.

 

Done, maybe.

Yesterday, I turned in my last undergraduate assignment, and you can bet I'm going to be putting BSN after my signature. After I hit the "Done" button for the last time, I started mentally reviewing the year. Here are some things people have said to me over the past year:

1. "How do you do it?!" Really, I feel like I didn't have a choice. Of course I wanted to finish my degree one day, but when Tyler almost lost his job and I was pouring my heart and soul into finding one and no one would hire me, I felt like I had no other option but to go back and finish. Specifically how I did it was to sneak off and do homework every spare minute I had; I did homework pretty much every night after my kids went to bed from 8 'till 10; and every Wednesday, I did homework for 5 hours while my neighbor had my kids, then I took his kids for the next 5 hours. Also, and this one took a while to get used to, I said no a lot. I'm sorry, I can't go up to DI to volunteer, I've got a paper due. I'd love to be able to come to the service project, but I've got homework. Going to the zoo/pool/children's museum/your house/movies/etc sounds like so much fun, but I've got to do research.
2. "My husband would never let me do something like that, how did you talk Tyler into it?" I'm sorry, what? The first time a woman said this to me, my jaw about hit the floor. Then another woman asked, and then a third. This is very bizarre to me. How did I "talk" Tyler into it? I said, "I applied and got accepted, and I start in July." Maybe they don't really mean it like it sounds. Here's an example of how things work at my house: Tyler plays on various city-league sports teams (without my "permission"). Last Spring, he played soccer on Wednesday nights... after he had Scouts. So he would work all day, come home to eat really fast, go to Scouts, then go play soccer. On one of those long days, I called a friend to save my sanity. She asked why I allowed Tyler to do this if it was so hard for me. Uhhh, because he loves it? Because he's happier in the long run when he exercises? Because then when I tell him that I'm going back to school full time, he has no problem with it?
3. "You look like you do it all, I'm jealous." I had a lot of help. First, I have really great kids. I was on the fence about Ethan for a while, what with the lack of sleeping and the general colickyness that hung around him for like 9 months, but he's turning out OK. Lillian and Nora are really good helpers, not terribly destructive, good at entertaining themselves, and very forgiving when I let them loose in the backyard while I write papers. Second, Tyler never complained. When we had grilled cheese sandwiches multiple times in one week, he didn't say anything. When the floors got sticky or the laundry piled up, he would quietly get out the mop. Sometimes, he would get a little mopey when I worked night after night on the computer instead of spending time with him, and when he found out how much this whole affair actually cost (as opposed to my beginning estimates), he got a little miffed. But that was it. I also had many friends who invited my kids over for playdates, like the afore mentioned John, the kid swapper. I probably couldn't have done it without him.
4. "It sounds like a lot of work, was it worth it?" I now have a full-time job at a magnet hospital, something I've wanted for 7 years. I agonize about leaving my kids to go to work and it breaks my heart when I have to peel a crying Nora off my leg as she is screaming, "MOM DON'T GO!" But now the time we do spend together is so much sweeter. I now know I'm made of much stronger stuff than I previously thought, I'm more organized, I love my kids and husband more, we're more financially stable, and better prepared for the future. Yes, it was harder than anything I've ever done, but it was very worth it.
5. "Woo Hoo! Now you're done forever!" Um... I may have decided to become a family nurse practitioner. Check back in 3 years to see if I actually do it.

Lost and not found

Tyler in the Sahuarita Sun

For one of my classes, I have to make a portfolio of my accomplishments. They want me to include any degrees, certifications, and professional qualifications in addition to any awards, professional thank you notes, scholarships, and grants. I kept all of these things in one box- a purple shirt box. It had my high school diploma; all my scholarship awards and dean's list notifications; my high school swimming, thespian, and physics awards; notes from nursing professors; notable papers I've written that I was especially proud of; etc. I've looked for this box on and off for the last 2 years to no avail. I wasn't ready to accept that it was lost.

On Sunday, I made a systematic effort to find this box and I have to conclude, after 2 hours of looking, that it was lost in the move. I was surprisingly sad about this, given my complete lack of sentimentality. I think it's the whole assignment part of it- I have to prove that I have a life besides my kids, and I can no longer do it. As far as durable accomplishments go, having 3 adorable kids is not bad, but, you know.

Two things that DID turn up in the search: 1. My goggles. 2. The above newspaper clipping of Tyler playing softball. As you can see, the throw was late and he didn't make the play, but that doesn't mean he's not good at softball.

Picture, not pitcher

I'm writing my Personal and Professional Philosophy, which goes under the heading of "Assignments That I Think Are Useless." Maybe they are useful for people who aren't Mormon or religious at all. But, I've been thinking about my Personal and Professional Philosophy in one form or another my entire life. Which makes this thing pretty easy to knock out... except when I outsmart myself.

Here's one of the prompts: "I believe that my personal and professional philosophies are congruent (not congruent) because..."

Did you mentally translate that 'not' to 'as opposed to' and then spend 2 minutes trying to figure out the difference between 'congruent' and 'congruent'? After concluding that they were spelled the same, did you spend a few seconds trying to think of homonyms for congruent? Did you look it up in the dictionary to see if there were words around it that were spelled almost the same but with wildly different meanings to make sure that you wrote about the congruence the professor was looking for? Like maybe, she misspelled the homonym and accidentally just wrote the same word twice. Then, did you read the sentence 4 or 5 more times before you figured out that you needed to put the emphasis on the 'not' instead of the 'congruent' for it to make sense?

I believe that my personal and professional philosophies are congruent (not CONGRUENT)...

I believe that my personal and professional philosophies are congruent (NOT congruent)...

No? You got it the first time? Yeah. Me too.

Affordable Care Act

I'm doing a project on the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare. The more I read and learn about it, the more baffled I am at the white-hot hatred that the Act inspires.

I get that there were many back-room deals made in getting it passed, especially after Obama said that he was not a back-room deal kind of guy... so he lied about that, or well, maybe he was a little idealistic in thinking that this sort of thing could be done without cutting deals.

Yeah, that's irritating. And that whole Nebraska thing is annoying. But that's not enough to cause this burning fury that people have.

When I first looked at the reforms, I thought that most of them were really good ideas. But people were so hopping mad about it, I thought maybe that I was missing something. Or, maybe there was loophole or extra measure buried in the 2,000 pages that I didn't know about. Now that I'm doing this project, however, I kind of think that I'm more educated about this than the average person, and I still think the reforms are pretty good.

Is it an ideological thing? Like, it's not the purpose of government to meddle in healthcare? Did they think that the private insurance companies really were doing a spectacular job and the government is going to screw up a good thing?

I get that the United States has the best facilities and healthcare options available, and we got that way by having a free market, but we continue to rank in the 30's and 40's for all healthcare markers. What good are all those state-of-the-art MRI machines if they are not making us healthier? Why is President Obama such a villain for trying to fix a system that is obviously broken? I don't get it.

To do

To do before midnight, Sunday:

• Create 4-slide presentation on the feasibility of creating a community "victory garden" on the Navajo reservation in partnership with the Indian Diabetic Initiative
• Finish editing paper on providing pictorial-based documents to illiterate diabetics in Tucson
• Finish making what is essentially a power-point scrapbook of "how I spent my semester in my Public Health Nursing class" (I need approximately 10 more slides)
• Write a critical analysis of a mainstream article about Mormonism
• Find a mainstream article about Mormonism to write about
• Contemplate DEEPLY (I loathe my professor's use of caps, and the word "deeply") the issues surrounding how the Church views and treats its history
• Write 200 words about how such views and treatment make it difficult to attract new members (or something).

Also:

• Take care of my children
• Sweep and mop my floors because they are driving me crazy
• Figure out something to cook for the missionaries tomorrow
• Go to the store and buy ingredients for said dinner
• Make some time on Saturday so Tyler can work in the backyard, because I want this thing to get DONE. I'm SOOOooooOOOOooo sick of the dirt.

Best Homemaker in the World?

This week, my Current Issues in Mormonism class and my Home/Community-Based Nursing class have combined in a bizarre way. For my Mormon class, I wrote a short essay on President Beck's Mothers Who Know and why I thought it was so controversial. Here's what I thought, the 30-second version: President Beck lays out a formula that is very black and white: (M=V)=(C=R) where M equals mothers, V equals virtue (as defined by President Beck as leadership, teaching, homemaking (which specifically includes housekeeping), etc.), C equals children, and R equals righteous. Thus, Women who are Virtuous will have Children who are Righteous. Because President Beck made no qualifying statements, women felt that it was implied that the reverse is also true: that if your children are not righteous, you were not a virtuous woman, which is false. Also, women hate the conflation of housework and righteousness, or the implication that if you are a poor housekeeper, you don't love your kids, or something.

But, what if that is sort of true? For my Home/Community-Based Nursing class, we have been studying about environmental health, and I learned that I should be vacuuming and dusting once a week. Once a week? Every week? When I read that, I couldn't remember the last time I had vacuumed. Pickles.

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that regular vacuuming, along with other interventions like non-permeable covers for mattresses SIGNIFICANTLY reduced asthma and allergy problems.

Both the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology and the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America both recommend dusting and vacuuming once OR TWICE a week if you have allergy or asthma sufferers in your house. Which I do.

So I am making this a school project. For the love of your lungs, vacuum and dust once a week!

And, because this is academic, it has to be measurable. Please take a minute to take my survey so I can show that I really changed your perceptions about vacuuming. Or I didn't.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world's leading questionnaire tool.

No (wo)man can serve two masters

How are things? I haven't heard from you in a while. Just calling to see how you are doing. How's school? You haven't updated your blog in a long time, have you been busy?

I have never been this busy in my entire life. The whole thing. Never.

I have two full-time jobs:

My mom job involves taking care of 3 children 4 and under. I get them up in the morning; I make all their meals (except I switched to store-bought baby food for Ethan. Best. Decision. Ever.); I am in charge of all their bathroom needs and I have to monitor the cleanliness of their underwear/diapers; I make sure they get enough naps, that they are engaged and active while awake, that they are learning and growing; I make sure they maintain a good balance between socialization and quiet time; I help them learn how to do chores; I clean all their clothes and wash all their dishes (except the dinner dishes); I pick up toys, dust, vacuum, sweep, mop, and scrub toilets; I plan all their meals and buy all the food they eat, while making sure they eat a variety of fruits, vegetables, and whole grains; I keep them clean and groomed by washing faces, brushing teeth, giving baths, brushing hair, and keeping track of endless hair bows; I am in charge of making sure they are safe by watching them as much as possible to make sure they don't run into the street, get into a stranger's car, eat dishwasher soap, touch the hot stove, sit on each other's faces, etc; etc.

My school job involves reading, reading, and more reading; researching things like how to get college students to increase their condom usage or whether or not educating expectant fathers on breastfeeding techniques will increase exclusive breastfeeding rates at 3 months postpartum; writing 1 or 2 8- to 10-page papers per week; going on "field trips" like going to a rehab facility for prostitutes, visiting an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, or going to a grocery store in a low socioeconomic part of town to research food disparities; watching lectures; making power points; more reading; completing about 5,000 self-study modules put out by the CDC about things like intimate partner violence and arsenic poisoning; watching about 8,000 documentaries on the health-wealth gradient; and more reading.

Now, do them together. Oh yeah, and my baby forgot how to sleep through the night. So, I do all this while sleep deprived.

Also, about 2 weeks ago, my kids were exposed to the neighbor girl who was later diagnosed with RSV. It looked like this for about a week in my house:

Except with more crying and whining, plus a sick baby.

End

Thus ends my separation of Church and school.

Not our usual fare

I'm taking a class called The Art of Nursing. Putting aside how I feel about it, I had an assignment to create my tapestry of influence, seen above. I had to choose the virtues, and then decide who helped me develop that virtue.

I'm supposed to let these people know that they contributed to my development, but some of them I have no idea how to get in touch with, one of them is not a person, and another one, I don't know personally. So, I thought I'd go with public embarrassment acknowledgment.

Feel free to stop reading at any time if you think it's too sappy or long.

Caring: Amy Sanchez. Amy is my sister. She is the oldest of us 7 kids, and she is an amazing lady. She's 10 years older than me, and was more like a super cool aunt than a sister. When I was in my tween years, she had already moved out, but lived close by. Every Saturday morning, she'd pick me up and we'd hang out. We'd go to Target or to the swap meet. She gave me helpful hints on how to move away from childish things toward more grown-up things. Practical hints like how often to shave your legs, what deodorants smell the best, and that you should use the time that it takes to fill up with gas to throw away all the trash in the car; to more nuanced things like how to handle falling outs. It's been 20 years since all that, and she's continued to care for me and everybody she meets.

Resilience: Austin Calder. Austin is my older brother. We are great friends now, but when I was growing up... not so much. He teased me mercilessly. M e r c i l e s s l y. It's all water under the bridge now, so I won't go too much in to it, but it made me stronger and more able to handle the vicissitudes of life.

Enthusiasm: Allison Plummer. Allison is my older sister (I promise I'm not related to the entire square). Allison is 8 years older than me, and much like Amy, she took me under her wing and hung out with me a lot. Allison taught me how to have a zest for life. Here's one memory of hundreds: she had a Simon and Garfunkel tape in her car and we'd dance and sing along to Keep the Customer Satisfied as loudly as possible. The memory brings about a feeling of pure joy and happiness, that I have to smile when I think about it.

Focus: McConnell's Creamery. I worked there in high school, and on week nights, there was just one employee. It was the first time that there wasn't really an "I'll do it later" option. I had to work until all the people got their ice cream, cash drawer put away, ice cream put away, fruit prepped for the next day, marble clean, dishes washed, and the floors swept.

Courage: Scott Callister. Bishop Callister was my bishop once. He knows what he did for me, and I just want to let him know that I'm very grateful and I think about his wise words all the time.

Humor: John Gruver. John was one of my best friends in jr. high and high school. We met on a class trip to Washington D.C. and we got to laughing so hard in the Air and Space Museum that I had tears rolling down my face and I couldn't breathe. He's a funny guy, and he made high school a lot more enjoyable.

Creativity: Myriah Cohen. I love Myriah. If you are in have any influence over hiring at an ad agency in Chicago, you should hire her. She's creative and funny and once, she put gummy bears in brownies. Just so you know, they make little lava-hot pockets of tongue-burning sugar.

Awareness: Dr. Bishop. Dr. Bishop was my high school photography teacher. His introductory speech was about how you have to look around to see things in order to take their picture, i.e. you have to walk with your head up. I was a freshman and in my extreme awkward phase, and after that class as I was walking to my next one, I realized that I did look down at the ground a lot when I walked. After that, I made an effort to keep my head up and look around at the world. I've seen a lot of great things, because I was looking.

Honesty: Charles Pearson. Bishop Pearson was our bishop right after we were married. He also said some wise words to me once that I've never forgotten. Thank you Bishop.

Dependability: Tyler Ball. Tyler is my husband, and he's fantastic. Dependability is one of his many many great qualities, and it's probably the thing that moved him from 'dating material' to 'marriage material.' If he says he'll do it, he will. Before we met, I was probably average dependable, if I said I'd do it, I probably would have, eventually. This went double for school assignments. If I thought the assignment was particularly lame, I'd procrastinate, do a lame job, and then talk my way into a decent grade. Also, I hardly ever went to class. Boring. I became a much, much better student after we got married.

Curiosity: Vivian Thomas. Vivian was my first roommate when I went away to school. I had a suburban childhood and knew very little of the great outdoors. Vivian is from a rural town outside of Fresno and knew tons of ways to have fun outside. We went exploring on the bluffs in Elwood Beach, up mountains, and down into caves. I've loved being outside ever since.

Accountability: Tauscha Johansen. I cleaned Tauscha's house when we were desperately poor college students. Once, I overheard her talking to her daughter, who was a teenager at the time. I guess her daughter was supposed to have cleaned her room, but didn't, and Tauscha, without any anger in her voice, said, "you didn't clean your room as per our agreement, so now you cannot go out." I really liked how she didn't yell and how it was more matter-of-fact, like a business relationship. I suppose this has influenced my parenting more than my professional life (which is pretty non-existent), but being a parent is so much of who I am, I wanted to include it.

Confidence: Barbara Arczynski. Mrs. Arczynski was my sophomore Honors World History teacher. At the end of the year, she handed out pencils for different things like highest grade, best attendance, and the like. At the end, she announced she had a special award for someone who she just knew would do something great with her life, and then she called my name. This came as quite a shock to me as I felt I was possibly just slightly better than average. After this point, I was more confident that I was fantastic, and I've thought about Mrs. Arczynski many times over the years to make sure I wasn't letting her down.

Empathy: Steven Levitt. I've never met Mr. Levitt. He is an economist and co-authored the book Freakonomics. This book was published in 2005 and the chapter on baby names made a big impression on me. My father is a staunch Republican and I can remember him railing against affirmative action, asking why, oh why, should his children suffer and get their spots taken in colleges and jobs when he's worked hard and raised them right and those spot taker's parents are all... well, not exemplary in their parenting skills. (he had a few more choice words to say on the subject). The chapter on baby names talks about how the name one is given can have a big impact on one's prospects in life. It got me thinking about how life is so much more complicated than whether or not you were read to in utero.

Reason: Claire Ashby. Claire is Vivian's sister, and I lived with her after I lived with Vivian. She has the same curiosity and love of the outdoors as Vivian, as well as a love of learning and reasoning (which I'm sure Vivian has as well, I just remember it more in Claire). I loved living with those guys and wish I could see them more often.

Generosity: Marti Shelley. Marti is my mom. If it weren't against the spirit of the assignment, I would have put her name in every single box. She is an amazing lady and I hope I can be like her when I grow up.

Transcend that!

Amanda Ball: "This connectedness transcends physicality as both Judy, Larry, and his mother experience a unity that is beyond death and space-time"

Amanda Ball: why am I paying to read this?

Tyler Ball: sounds like a star trek episode

Tyler Ball: next they'll be sucked through a black hole and have to relive it all over again

Tyler Ball: transcend that!

I am not dead

My mother-in-law emailed me yesterday to find out if I had fallen off the face of the Earth. Also, I skyped Allison yesterday, and she was surprised at what Ethan looked like. I guess I haven't taken any pictures of him.


So, no. I'm still here. Turns out, having 3 kids under 5 and going to school full-time is a lot of work.


Here's a quick rundown:

Tyler plays softball in a city league and is having fun playing with all his new woodworking toys.

Lillian is an excellent big sister and is constantly begging me to let her help. She's learning to write and is really solid on L, H, and A.

Nora is 80% potty trained. She can stay completely dry with a bare bottom, mostly dry with panties and not at all dry while she's sleeping or if someone is not right there to take her. That's right, SHE can tell ME when she needs to go. I like that Lillian sometimes says, "when I was a baby, I had to learn how to use the potty." In my head I answer, "honey, I tried when you were a baby, but you didn't want to do it until 6 months ago."

Ethan is still a crabby baby. He sleeps ok at night, but horribly during the day, which is draining for everyone. He's good sized- the 3-6 months clothes are getting a little snug (he's 2.5 months old), but then again, we only know how to make really fat babies. Aaaaand... he's crying.

Two malapropisms for you:

malapropism: an act or habit of misusing words ridiculously, esp by the confusion of words that are similar in sound.

one

On Saturday, I went to a baptism. For those not familiar with Mormon baptisms (or Mormon meetings in general) we love programs, the physical piece of xeroxed paper. For most every meeting, there are programs printed up, even if they just say who is saying the opening and closing prayers. At the baptism (where I had my program in hand), we sang the opening song, someone offered an opening prayer, and then the man conducting got up an announced, "We have an altercation on our program..."

That would have been awesome.

two

For school, I have to participate in an online discussion board every week with a certain number of required posts. These posts have to be "substantive" in nature, which means, pretty much, we're all just trying to sound smart to make them longer. Earlier this week, I made the point that it is appalling to me that the medicaid system doesn't have a program in place to track expenses or recognize fraud. Ashton (gender unknown) replied, "Amanda, I must conquer; Medicaid is inefficient."

Again, I want to be there when that goes down.

My babies!

For school, we had to create an application packet for a job that we would theoretically want to apply for upon graduation. Considering I've had this assignment about 5 times before, it wasn't too difficult to modify my existing résumé and cover letter to fit this newest job. The only difference was as I was doing it, I started FREAKING OUT.

For ever since I started nursing school, before I had children, I knew that I did not want to work full time. I have very fond memories of my mother being home and eating dinner as a family and learning things at her knee and all of the other adventures that come with having a stay-at-home mother. I felt very strongly that this was the sort of atmosphere I wanted to recreate for my children. But, I wanted to work a little. I felt like nursing would be the perfect career: you can work as much or as little as you want: down to one shift every other week if you want. This sounded good to me, so I went with it.

Then, once I graduated and was attempting to get one of these types of jobs, I found out that the hospitals want you to work full time for a year before moving down to part time. I made my peace with it back then, but then no one would hire me.

As I was typing up how my clinical experience in nursing school prepared me for a job on the floor, I started thinking. Now I'm going back to school in order to get a job. A job that will take me away from my babies. For a year. MY babies. The ones that I birthed, and soothed, and fed, and rocked, and held, and laughed with, and cried over. I started to cry.

I suppose this violent emotional reaction took me completely by surprise (must be the hormones). I mean, I was ready to deal with feeling guilty over going to work, but not ready to not want to do it. Maybe a few more tantrums will change my mind... I think I hear one brewing over the Mr. Potato head.

My first school assignment

I just wrote my first school assignment in two years. Pretty much the only thing I'm freaking out about is the fact that I have to do 16 weeks' worth of work in 4, but other than that, this thing should be cake, right?

The assignment was 300-600 words on "Who are you and why are you in this class?" (the instructor might have phrased it a little nicer than that). Here it is:

My name is Amanda and I am trained as a nurse, but I currently stay at home with my two little girls and little boy on the way. We moved from the central coast of California down to Tucson almost two years ago which, honestly, broke my heart. But, I’m learning to see the beauty of the desert and appreciate all the things that Arizona has to offer.

Since the day that I brought my first baby home from the hospital, there has been a growing disparity between the things that I like to do, and the things that I actually do, but such is the reality of having small children. Gone are the days of week-long backpacking trips, body surfing at the beach, and wandering around just to see what there is to see. Here to stay are the days of wiping noses, reading Where is the Green Sheep? 5,000 times, and making peanut butter sandwiches. Of course, to frame the trade off like that is not fair: along with the peanut butter sandwiches, I get to raise two incredibly cute girls that fill my life with laughter and love and a sense of completeness that I never got from even the most majestic mountain in the Sierra Nevadas.

I’m taking this class as a prerequisite to the RN to BSN program. I became an RN while in California, but between moving to Arizona and having baby number two, I never worked. By the time I was ready to go back to work, the economy crashed and there were no jobs for new grads. The fact that I couldn’t find work was disappointing, but not catastrophic as my husband had a steady job working in the aerospace industry on the Orion project. Then, a few months ago, President Obama announced that the Orion project would be cut from the budget and the steady job looked not so steady. So, we decided I would go back and get a little more education in order to open more job opportunities in case of the worst case scenario.

I love writing and I’m excited that this class will help me learn how to be better at it.

Secret revealed!

What Nora did while Claire helped me write my application essays

I have a secret that so many people know about, it's not really a secret anymore: starting in August, right after the baby is born, I'll be going back to school.

I'm crazy. I know.

This being my third baby, I also know one other thing: from birth, they only get harder and more work until they're about 3, and then it starts going back down. And, babies sleep a lot.

The program is 12 months long and is all online.

You may be thinking, "but Amanda, you're already an RN." This is true, but I only have an associate's degree, even though it took me 4 years to get. As an RN, you are pretty much confined to staff nursing, which is fine and something I want to do until I'm not afraid I'm going to kill someone, but I don't want to do it forever. We're thinking that by the time I'm good and ready to go to work, I'll have my bachelor's degree and (hopefully) that means I'll get paid more so I'll (hopefully) be able to afford to work less. Get it?

I still have yet to be accepted into the actual program, but I'm working on it. Wish me luck.