Back to School, or How Mama Got Her Groove Back

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I’m freakishly comfortable with school, in spite of the fact that so much of it is actually a pain in the arse. Do I love the busywork? Nope. Do I love homework? Nope. Do I love tests? Nope. Do I love online discussions? Nope. BUT. I love learning. I love information. I love chasing down new skills and knowledge and goals that, when reached, will give me the luxury of continuing to learn and teach and share for the rest of my days. Yep. This is the good stuff.

I’m in the thick of a tough schedule. The courses and information aren’t too taxing, in and of themselves, but as I’ve said before, juggling the assignments and reading and study time is complicated by the whole having-three-kids-and-a-husband-and-bills thing, so it’s very different than my first go ’round in school, and we’re still working out the kinks. But I’m remembering more every day that this… THIS is my wheelhouse. Not just school, but the learning and teaching and yes, even the doing, of new information and skills. The beauty of nursing is that it has learning and teaching and doing built into every. single. day. And midwifery? Well, that’s all kinds of daily learning and teaching… with hopefully not as much doing, since it’s mostly just letting the mama and the baby do their thing while everyone else sits on their hands and waits for something miraculous to unfold. Anywho, all this good stuff I love so much will be rolled together with my passion for birth! And women! And babies! I’ve found it, y’all. Or rather, I’ve finally walked right up to something I found a long time ago, looked it dead in the eye, and said, “It’s time. I’m ready for you now.” 

I’ve been saying for years I’ll be a midlife midwife. I’ll be 38 this Easter. It’s time. I’m ready now. And THIS is my wheelhouse. It’s gonna’ be a bumpy ride, but I’ve got so much groove I’m practically giddy.

A Revolutionary Concept Related to Time Management

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I made a to-do list. Really,  it’s more like a schedule of to-dos, with actual dates and due dates included. I believe some people call it a “calendar.” I’m sure one would assume I’d have done such a thing long before now, but nope, not really. I dislike feeling beholden to a calendar, so I’ve kept one only for actual appointments and events for a while now. However, now that I’m back in school and juggling all the personal and family stuff going on at the same time, it’s very easy to get very behind on my studying and assignments without a stricter form of organization. Looking at the syllabus to check for upcoming assignments just isn’t cutting it. I haven’t missed any due dates or anything, but I’m operating on a deadline-to-deadline basis these days, and since I’m about to add an accelerated stats class to the line-up for the second two-thirds of my semester–why yes, I am insane!, especially since I’ve not had a math class in 20 years<—that’s not hyperbole–I figure I better go old school and return to a more efficient system that doesn’t leave me in a constant state of stress.

Right now, my calendar is a handwritten grid on a legal pad with the current week’s work schedule because I’m an artist and I’m awesome like that. I have a Google calendar that syncs with my various techno-gadgets, but I like to see school-related stuff laid out in front of me on paper so I can make a plan of attack for the reading and study time leading up to the due dates. I may have to break down and go buy a planner. The good news is that I can probably find one on clearance somewhere because it’s February. The bad news is that it’s one more THING to keep track of, in addition to the cell phone, iPad, laptop, books, notebook, etc.

Speaking of the iPad, I never thought I’d be into it, but other than being addicted to it in general, I use it constantly for school. I’ve emailed the lab manuals and all the PowerPoint lecture slides for both of my science classes to my Kindle app, and I use a Martha Stewart app and the swank new stylus I got for Christmas to diagram photos of my slides and dissections. It’s good stuff. I’m sure there’s an awesome productivity app to be had there as well, but you have to open those to see them, so I might just have to keep it simple so the calendar stays in front of me as a reminder of what I should be doing when studying sounds like a less than stellar way to spend a Saturday night. But really, what lame-o doesn’t want to dissect a cat in her kitchen on a Saturday night?

Hiatus much?

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Whoa. It’s been a while. School started. I had a full-time, two-week training that started the same week. My family still needed me (go figure). I had to sleep somewhere in there. Yeah, that about covers it.

I’m back now, at least for a few minutes. I have almost survived Hell Week, and I’m taking a few minutes to breathe before tackling my last two deadlines of the week–both due tonight. Here’s the rundown of just the past four days, a couple of which items I still have ahead of me tonight:

  1. Two quizzes
  2. Two labs and lab reports, including both a dissection and lots of slide prep and microscopy
  3. Writing assignment
  4. Two chapters of science reading/studying/note-taking
  5. State CNA exam (I won’t know for a while; it went mostly OK, but it’s possible I messed up on the easiest part.)
  6. Two nursing school applications
  7. Discovering and researching the second of the two nursing schools… and going through the mental and emotional trauma of deciding whether I wanted to apply at all because it will take longer to finish and seems like a potentially mediocre program, if I’m entirely honest (BUT it could possibly be more manageable for me and for my family, which is no small deal)
  8. Making breakfast burritos as a family to help The Burrito Riders because they are seriously awesome, and I want my children to experience the joy of giving of themselves to others

 

I may as well just put it out there that I haven’t had much in the way of calm these past few weeks, especially the last few days. But I HAVE been making an effort to sneak tiny little slivers of calm into the mix. Most nights, I’ve managed to sit down and eat an actual meal with my family. I still savor the snuggle time with my nursing baby, and last night, I made a point to sit and play with her when she was extra-giggly and sweet. And right now, I’m actually stopping to write this post, in spite of more work to do, and I’m having some chocolate chip muffins and a Coke. Yes, those calm me down, and yes, I’m supposed to try and nix gluten from my diet any day now, but today is not that day, so I’m gonna’ go ahead and finish my caffeine now, thanks.

Sadly, I’ve hardly played with my big kids at all this week, which makes me feel terrible because my oldest was out of school this week, and it would’ve been a great time to reconnect a little bit if not for all the stress of the week. He did learn that mommies are actually quite capable of making paper airplanes, thankyouverymuch, and we had an important talk about how boys and girls can be good at all of the very same things… which was odd because the idea of stuff being “for boys” or “for girls” just isn’t something we’ve ever modeled or taught our children, so I guess he’s picking it up from other kids. Anyway, my point is that the week was rough, but it wasn’t a total bust.

I attended a women’s circle with some new friends a couple of weeks back, and we had a chat about a book we’re reading together and sat around a fire pit and just enjoyed some good energy, conversation, and collective woman power before walking back into our normal lives. That was a really great time for me, and I’m thrilled to say it’s a monthly commitment that I think will do big things for me this year.

I’m also working to learn to let go of some of my Type-A tendencies. My husband made spaghetti the other night because I had 18,387 other things to do and he’s a nice guy like that, and he cooked. the noodles. in. the sauce, y’all. I’ve heard of people who do that, but unless there’s a crock pot or casserole dish involved, that seems just plain wrong to me. Not shockingly, I wasn’t exactly silent through this experiment, but by that point, dinner was about an hour past due and we were all starving, so there were other factors at play beyond the cooking technique, not the least of which being the fact that I was what one of my friends refers to as hangry. I won’t say the spaghetti was perfect, but it was certainly edible enough, and I didn’t have to cook it. Baby steps. I’ll try to keep my mouth shut next time, and he’ll try to figure out how to get it on the table a little earlier. We’re stumbling our way into a new family groove, so we have to cut ourselves some slack along the way.

OK, Hub is home, baby is awake, and I have a lab to do and a report to write and breakfast burritos to make. Back to it.

On Corn Chowder and Vitriol

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There’s a crying baby in my lap. She won’t go to sleep. I kind of want to play/read this for her:

But that would be wrong because she has a cold and probably feels like crap (and because she’s a baby and language and whatever–lighten up already, will you?), so I’m just playing it in my head while I type and let her go through her late-night fit of the overtired grumps with a nearby boob for comfort.

I skipped posting this weekend, but I did experience some calm along the way. I won’t get into all of it.  You’ll just have to take my word for it, though I will say there was a delicious corn chowder recipe involved, with bacon as an ingredient, and it falls firmly into the comfort food category. I know what you’re thinking: you had me at bacon. (And just like that, the baby went to sleep. I bet she heard me typing the word bacon and decided she should dream about it.) Back to the chowder: I can’t share the recipe because I’m pretty sure it’s a copyright infringement, but it’s located on page 72 of Katie Workman’s The Mom 100 Cookbook, which is one of three awesome cookbooks I received for Christmas. My son and my husband liked it, and I loved it. That’s enough to put it into regular rotation around here. My toddler… well, she’s picky as hell, so I can’t even remember whether she liked it because I’m too busy recovering from yet another traumatic meal where she wills herself to gag on foods she loved just a month ago… but it’s a safe bet to say she probably hated it, assuming she actually took a bite. The baby probably would have liked it, but she’s not quite that advanced yet, as I’m trying to narrow down some suspected food allergies with her, so we’re moving very slowly with new foods.

Among our other calm-related efforts this weekend, we started listening last night to the Celebrate Calm CDs (this is not a paid endorsement–in fact, I paid them for the privilege of listening, but I did get them on sale). So far, after hearing only one CD, the ideas make perfect sense, and I’m hopeful we can make some positive shifts in calming down our family interactions, especially with and between the older kiddos. It’s going to take some serious work to break lifelong patterns of yelling speaking passionately, but I’ll be a better parent for it, and my kids will be happier and healthier. This isn’t to say I’m a bad parent now, or that my kids are miserable… but we could all do and be better. Happier. Calmer. (Are you sick of that word yet? If so, you may want to type a new URL into the address bar at the top of your screen.) I’m tired of hearing them speak passionately to/at one another, but I realize this is learned behavior. Want a reality check about your personality flaws and parenting failures? Find a two-year-old to come and live with you, and then just go about your business as usual. On the one hand, she is awesome and spunky and smart and sassy and crazy and funny. So funny. But then there’s the fiery inside bits that come out in waves of moodiness and vitriol, and it’s hard to watch. And to live with. And to be. So we’re both working on being more of that first list and less of the latter.

Humble pie is much less tasty than corn chowder, but I’m going to eat it anyway. <gag> Wonder if it tastes better with bacon?

Thursdays Suck

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Seriously. I hate them. I have for a while now. No matter what I try to do to salvage them, they always go south by mid-afternoon. I think my children are just sick of hearing me talk by this point in the week, and my voice morphs into Charlie Brown’s teacher by the time it reaches their little ears: “Wha wha whuh wha, whuh wha wha wha wha.” It is seriously difficult to stay calm when there are two short people ignoring every. single. thing that comes out of my mouth, particularly when they are conspiring to break all of the few household rules we have. The rules are pretty simple. Don’t be a bully. Don’t destroy things. In fact, to simplify them even further, I’ve stolen a friend’s catch-all rule: “Be respectful, kind, and safe.” It covers all the bases: other people, belongings (yours and theirs), self. I dig it. The kids get it, but like all small children, they need reminders. 837 reminders per day, to be precise. To illustrate what Thursdays do to them and to me, today was more like 892.

I had big plans to combat the standard-issue Thursday frustration today. My son went back to school, and I got to sleep in and have some morning snuggles with the girls. Hooray for that! THAT was awesome. I did dishes twice, for the love of pete. As in, two full loads washed and in the dishwasher (I’m one of those freaks who washes them before they go into the machine that’s supposed to do that for you), all so I could go to bed with an empty kitchen sink, if nothing else. Hub made plans to game with his brother tonight after the older kiddos went to bed (which happened exactly on time!), so he’s lost in some online world I neither pretend nor desire to understand. I figure I’ll get the baby to sleep, make a quick run out to the post office to mail a package using their automated doohickey, then to the grocery for some essentials to get us through the weekend, and then a mad dash to this little dessert place that closes at 10:00 and is a perfect fix on the really rough days when all I want is something chocolate with cream cheese frosting.

There is only one thing wrong with this plan: the baby did not go to sleep. She wanted to party in that crazed way that only a baby in the midst of meeting milestones and having a growth spurt will do.

I finally got fed up with waiting for her to sleep and just put her in the car seat and left. Of course, by this point, it was so late I had to go for dessert first, and they were closed, in spite of the fact that I arrived before their usual closing time. As in, every light in the place was out. I think they must have switched to winter hours or something because I’m the only crazy lady who needs a chocolate fix on a Thursday night in January. Rude, right? So then I drive home, because now the baby is asleep (obviously), and it would be a lot easier to go to the grocery and post office without a sleeping baby. I haul her into the house, leave her in the bucket because I’m afraid to move her, head upstairs to pee before leaving again, and while I’m in the loo, BAM: she wakes up. Is she kidding me with this crap?!?

Long story short: it’s seven minutes before midnight. No post office. No grocery. I ended up making a batch of Martha White strawberry muffins (full of artificial goodness, but they were in the pantry, and I was desperate), and I’m still munching on them. Baby is nursing in my lap as I type, and she’s asleep again, but at some point, I’ll have to move her. I might make it out before I go to bed, but I clearly will NOT be in bed by midnight tonight.

You win some, you lose some, right? Thursday, 1. Me, 0. It’s the first game of the season, though. I’ve got time.

Planning Ahead

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My son goes back to school tomorrow after nearly three weeks of winter break. I have loved having him home everyday, watching as his imagination explodes right in front of me and savoring the sweet, but fleeting moments when he and his younger sister play together without fighting over some silly toy no one cares about until the other one has it. But setting all ooshy-gushy emotions aside, we’re all ready for the return to our normal routine. We don’t have a fenced-in yard, and my kid is a sensory-seeking fool. One of my goals is to follow through on my long-time plan of getting him evaluated for occupational therapy so we can get him on what’s called a “sensory diet,” but for now, he’s c-r-a-z-y. As we’ve neared the end of break, he’s literally been climbing furniture, jumping onto and off of every available surface in the house, wrestling with his much smaller sister (who is pretty scrappy and holds her own, but still), and generally leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. And then there’s the incessant whining because he’s expected to stop jumping on furniture and/or people, and how unfair is that? I am very unreasonable that way.

Also, I. am. over it. It’s past time for him to get outside and burn off some of this energy, and I’m unable to give him much of that at home during week because my two younger children make it a far more daunting task than I’d prefer to tackle on my own. His dad doesn’t get home until after dark during the long days of winter… so when he’s stuck at home, outside play remains a weekend treat. Thankfully, his school is heavy on outdoor time, no matter the weather, and thus, tomorrow promises (the beginning of) a return to sanity for all of us.

Given the seasonal madness in effect at our house, sometimes, the most calm I can manage in a day is planning ahead to make sure the next one isn’t crazier than it has to be. I did a couple of loads of laundry today and managed to get all of his school gear laid out and ready for the morning. This is a ritual I developed when he started school in August, and since I’m a high-level procrastinator by nature, I suspect I only manage it because a) it helps my husband when he’s in the thick of his morning brain fog, and b) there is extra sleep on the line. I’m very fortunate because my husband gets the boy ready and takes him to school before heading to work, so I don’t even have to get out of bed so long as I help ease their morning routine and timeline by getting everything ready the night before. It’s definitely worth the extra effort.

Tomorrow, my first moment of calm will be sleeping in snuggled up with my two girls, if all goes well. Today, I think looking forward to tomorrow is my hint of calm. Plus, I got about three extra hours of sleep last night, which means the fact that I’m not a morning person wasn’t at the front of my mind immediately upon waking. It was a nice change; perhaps I’ll have to try and make getting to bed by midnight one of my go-to strategies for the YoC. Since it’s 11:58, I better get on that.

Night Owl

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I generally go to bed well after midnight. My older children are finally in bed, I have a sleeping baby in my lap, and this is usually my prime time to relax and enjoy a little me-time, often mindlessly whiling away time on Facebook, sometimes reading, rarely knitting, or catching up on Dexter or Grey’s Anatomy and/or binging on cookies or some other delectable delight. All of this instead of catching up on neglected housework, obviously, because when I’ve been chasing and tending to children all day, sitting on my arse and just breathing is pretty damn appealing. The baby usually wakes at least once more and plays in the glorious Land of No Big Kids for a while before fully zonking out for the night, but otherwise, we’re pretty safely in Grown-Upville at this time.

So what the hell is wrong with me that, on the first night of a shiny new year, I’m ready to crash before 10 p.m.?? Perhaps it’s the fact that baby girl spent a huge chunk of last night screaming in pain from teething. Or maybe that the toddler in the house gave us this lovely surprise this morning:

Kitchen mess

Copyright theyearofcalm.com

That’s flour and confectioner’s sugar, if it matters. Or that we had a battle royale over two asked-for-but-uneaten bowls of freaking DELICIOUS pomegranate oatmeal today (and it was organic!). None of these events is especially unusual around here, but I guess the combination did me in. I nixed my plan to cook a more traditional New Year’s Day meal; superstitions be damned, I’ll have a great/prosperous/lucky year even if I did eat leftovers. Maybe it was the ground turkey in those burritos, but I almost fell asleep while tucking in the four-year-old! That just doesn’t happen to me.

So here I sit, blogging as I internally debate the merits of quiet time vs. necessary sleepytime. And I realize that this blogging thing may very well be what brings me the greatest sense of calm this year. I’ve always loved writing, but haven’t made much time for it since having babies. Perhaps unloading my daily stresses with a little writing time will give me the accidental benefit of Calm (with a capital C). I’ll have to report back on the merits of that idea as a long-term hypothesis after I’ve had some time to test it. For now, I’m going to count this entry as my calm (with a little c) moment for Day One, and then maybe I’ll sleep. Maybe.

An Explanation

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You’ll find this same information on my “About” page (linked up there at the top), so if you’ve already read that, then this won’t be new. And if you’re reading this, then no need to click on that page. Got it? Part of being calmer is being efficient and avoiding redundancy wherever I can, yo. At least that’s what I’m telling myself. As promised in this post’s title, here’s what I’m telling you:

Among other roles, I am mother to three children under the age of five: one boy and two girls. In spite of my husband being one of the most mild-mannered people on the planet, two of our children (so far) appear to be sensory seekers and are in the throes of sibling rivalry, and I come from a giant family where it’s tough to get a word in edgewise. All of these factors combined, our home is, in a word, LOUD. It is also very cluttered, as we adults in the house are domestically challenged, and as it turns out, staying on top of things like dishes and laundry and whatnot is more difficult with three small people helping us create messes. And let’s face it: we’d rather play/read/anything-really than tidy up. We don’t live in filth, just disarray.

In 2013, I am returning to school to pursue a second third fourth career in nursing. I’ve been a birth professional for more than six years now, and I’m finally taking steps toward my long-term goal of becoming a nurse-midwife. To do that, I have to earn another bachelor’s degree (after having already been through graduate school), followed by another master’s. I’m finishing my last two prerequisites starting in January, and if I get accepted by my first-choice nursing school, I’ll start an accelerated bachelor’s program in October. The year ahead promises to be an adventure.

Clearly, there is a lot of real and potential chaos in my life. In order to survive it, I’m declaring 2013 The Year of Calm. I will no doubt continue to live with some level of chaos simply because my circumstances and basic personality aren’t changing anytime soon, but I’m committed to finding or creating at least one moment of calm in the midst of every day, and I’m documenting it here to keep a record of my successes and failures and to hold myself accountable, if only to myself. I hope that whatever strategies I employ to achieve this one resolution for the year will grow into habits of calmer living–more than moments, but ways of being. I want to be a calmer person. I want to live in a calmer environment. I want calmer interactions with my family, and perhaps even more importantly, with myself. I want my headspace and heartspace and just my space in general to be calmer, if not entirely calm. That’s it. Not even calm. Just calm-er. I can do that. No big deal, right?

Keep calm and carry on, as they say. It’s not just a meme anymore.