Higher Education

In 2002 I received my undergraduate degree. It was a big day in my life. In 2004 I received my graduate degree. It was an even bigger day in my life. On January 21, 2010 I received my "mom" degree. This by all means, was the biggest day of my life...

Up until then I was working full time plus a part-time job. I was career woman! Even when pregnant I was plugging away at my career, attending trainings to keep my social work license active, and long hours at work didn't phase me- even during my third trimester when I could no longer see my feet!

And I knew that once Cora was born, I would leave the busy career life behind and trade my DSM-IV in for "What to Expect the First Year." It was our plan. About two months prior to me getting pregnant I had landed a part-time job working just two nights a week doing outpatient counseling for kids. The goal was to one day, when we started a family, that I would work just part time so that I could be mom by day and therapist by night. For once our plan matched up with God's and here we are today living out that exact strategy...

I have to admit, when I first realized that it would be many years, if any, that I would once again return to the working world full-time, I had a bit of an identity crisis. Here I was a motivated young woman, eager to climb to the top in my career to suddenly find myself no longer needing to iron my clothes on Sunday night and no need to post a "TGIF" on FB. Everyday automatically became a "TGIF".

I found myself almost to embarrassed to say "I'm a stay at home mom." I have never once knocked the decision of any woman that was in a position to stay home and raise their kids. I always found it to be admirable.

But admiration seems to escape you when you are living the part. I felt like I lost my identity as a "strong woman" and now was the "little wife." Not that anyone was making me feel this way at all. It all came from me. So I made sure I told people that I work part-time still in my career field so as to validate myself as a "successful woman".

But now, as time goes by, I have fallen in love with this new "degree". I do still work part-time and I would be lying if I said it was only to keep my clinical license up to date. The reality is that it gives me some time away from "mom land" and I can also role model the importance of going forth with an education and career to be successful in the working world for my daughter. My mother did both and I am the person I am today because of her. I want to pass that on...

But what I didn't realize that when I idolized my mom for being a "career woman" an an active mother in my life, I had it backwards the whole time. My mom was a mom first. Her job worked around us. I get it now. Because I am doing it now.

I don't miss the stress of worrying about sick or vacation time. If my kid is sick, it's ok, because I am home. If Hubs gets to go to a conference somewhere awesome, that's awesome cause I have all the vacation time in the world!

I can be the PTA mom, a T-ball coach, car pooling, coupon-clipping, homemaker, and therapist all at the same time. I looked at my husband the other night and for the first time since I left my full-time job, I said with 100% sincerity, "I don't miss it." I love waking up each morning and drinking my coffee from an actual mug instead of a travel mug. PJ's are pretty much dress code until I have to leave the house. I only work 2 nights a week so my "Mondays" are actually Tuesday and my "Fridays" are Wednesdays. My work clothes rotation extends quite a bit now as I only need to get dressed twice a week! And the money I save on gas...

But most of all, I am here for my daughter. Here for her good days and not so good. Here for the milestones and the Dr. appts. Here for her. I am blessed that we are in a position to allow me to stay home. But then again, I know me and Hubs, if we weren't in the position, we would change our lifestyle so that we would be. Think about it, when you were in college, you did whatever you needed to do to try to get into that one class that you absolutely needed. Well, mothering is one hell of a class to sign up for!

So Cora you WILL go to college, it's not an option. And you will learn to support yourself one day. But if your destiny is to marry and have children, I hope that you learn from me what I learned from my mother, that this is a world where you can do both. But to remember your priorities and to keep them straight. And that I make mini-vans look cool.

What I've learned so far....

Ok, so we have been parent's for three months and as any parent knows, you learn A LOT about you, your child, and your marriage in such a short amount of time. So here is a list of what I have learned so far:

1. Newborns are cute and snugly, but boring compared to a 3 month old!
2. The first time your child smiles at you, it's probably gas.
3. The first time your child intentionally smiles at you, it's a natural high (like you huffed gas!).
4. Babies can projectile fluids from BOTH ends.
5. Diapers are the death of your income.
6. Our mothers seem to forget every negative thing about raising a child and are convinced that the times your kid is fussy that there must be something wrong.
7. Babies are fussy. A lot. Nothing is wrong with your child. They just are.
8. Daytime TV sucks.
9. You initially missed being at work, then you began to love grocery shopping on a random Tuesday morning.
10. Your husband amazes you with his "daddy skills."
11. Your dog amazes you with her intuition on protecting the baby.
12. You learned to nurse without having to take your whole shirt off.
13. Diaper bags never seem to be big enough.
14. Both you and baby need wardrobe changes frequently.
15. You can walk around with spit-up on me all day and not even notice.
16. Wiping your own kids nose on your sleeve isn't as gross as you think.
17. You covet that first glass of wine or beer that you can have!
18. Babies don't sleep as often as the books say they should.
19. Babies never do what the books say they should.
20. In an instant, your world changes completely to revolving around the needs and care of the most precious gift possible, and you are willing to do what ever it takes to make her little life as perfect as you can. :O)

Season premier!

Ok so I realize I have not written since November. For one, I was very pregnant by the end of the year and my sausage fingers were not in any condition to type! But I will bring you up to speed on my life. Think of this as a season premier with a recap from what happened last season!

We will start with the arrival of our precious little Orange Seed, now known as Coraline Michele ("Cora") when she entered our world on January 21, 2010...ok here's the back-story:

So two days prior to Cora's debut (1/19) my body started to show some signs that it was preparing for childbirth. However these "signs" (details are not necessary nor appealing!) did not indicate that labor would start within 2 days, it could still have been a week or more away but nonetheless things were starting to change.

The day before I went to the mall to walk around in hopes that I would walk myself into labor. At that time I thought it was an unsuccessful attempt! But did treat myself to some new makeup :O)

Then comes Thursday morning (1/21) and the fastest day of my life! At about 3am Thursday morning I woke up with significant lower back pains. At first I thought I had over done it at the mall so I did not think too much about it. I was hungry (which during those last weeks it was not uncommon for me to grab a 3am bowl of cereal!) so I went downstairs to eat and hung out with Bazil. Still noticing my back pain, I began to pay closer attention and realized that these pains were somewhat rhythmical and that this could very well be labor. I believe that this is the point to which I had an out of body experience and just watched the rest of this wild day from afar as it just did not seem real! :O)

At about 5am I woke John up and told him that I was pretty confident that I was have regular contractions. He popped right up and was elated. I however wanted to strangle him as the pain continued to increase! :O) We decided to hold off on calling the doctor as the contractions were still somewhat irregular (but strong!) and we conveniently had a 930am Drs. appt, So at 6 we got up and showered, I did my makeup (glad I bought that!) figuring that would be the last time in a while that I wold have the chance too, and off we went to the docs.

We go tot the docs early and the receptionist questioned why. I told her that I was pretty sure I was in labor and the whole office erupted in excitement (this apparently doesn't get old for people who deal with this on a daily basis). So we sat in the waiting room waiting for the doc to get there as she was not expecting an early appt. As I sat there the receptionist would keep an eye on me and when I would have a contraction she would ask me and then talk about how much it probably hurt. Thanks lady, like I really wanted to focus on the pain. So instead I channeled my focus to imagining that I was going to punch her instead. It helped!

9:30 FINALLY came and when Doc checked me out I was 4 cm dilated already. She sent me on down the hall to the delivery end and there waiting was my epidural! Wooooo! Don't get me wrong, those that go natural with child birth more power to ya, but I'm not one of them! When I go to a dentist to have my teeth pulled I want Novocaine. When I am about to experience the worst pain of my life, I want the BIG TIME Novocaine! John left the room for the administration of it (understandably as I wouldn't want to watch a giant needle plunging into my spine!).Within minutes relief came and John and I were able to just kick back and watch tv until the big moment....

Which came later that afternoon! At 2:15 I paged the nurse and let her know that I felt like there was pressure that made me want to push. She came in and laughed when she checked me as she had no idea that a first time pregnancy would move so quickly! So she began the process of pushing with me and told me most moms push for the first kid for about 2 hours. 50 mins later at 3:11 our little one was here! It was quite surreal as we were just chatting it up between pushes with the doc (did I mention that I LOVE the epidural?) and I remember lying there thinking, "Umm there's a kid about to pop out of me and here we are talking about random stuff as if we are waiting for our pizza to get here." But instead of a pizza was a 8lb 5.7oz 21inch long baby girl that was plopped onto my lap after John cut the cord. (He by the way was awesome through the whole delivery-encouraging, relaxing and exciting as all heck!).

Now the rest is history. Bazil has adjusted very well to becoming a big sister and she can't get enough of Cora. Hubs and I are loving our role of being parents and it is no doubt what we were meant to do together. And Cora has assumed her role quite well and has provided many entertaining moments! But more about those in upcoming episodes!