The SAHM & The Mid-Life Crisis

I’ve had several of these since the age of about 24.  Yup, that’s right.  I’ve found it’s best for me to recognize them for what they are, rather than get too sucked up in them or try to fight them too badly.

I don’t know what I want to be when I grow up except a mom. I don’t have anyone to bounce ideas off of, except the people in my life, who tell me that 1. I can do anything I want to and 2. Don’t let anyone stop me from acheving my goals.

That’s all fine and dandy, but what about my kids? I wanna be a mom to them most of all. 

But I do have interests and skills I’d like to use.

But I want to be a mom, more.

I’m kind of feeling this funk right now because I haven’t been very successful with staying up late and studying.  I’ve also not been successful at getting up early and studying.  I’ve been trying to study between 2am and 5am.  My day taking care of the kids and other stuff begins at 5-6 am and I don’t have space in my schedule to study any other time without it affecting our kids.  EG- I don’t want my 4 year old to be ignored for 3 hours in the middle of the day (If he went to preschool, I’d still only have 2 hrs to study) I also don’t want to miss my older daughter’s basketball games. I’ve kept up with all my school work, and haven’t missed my kids activities, but I feel like I’m on the precipice of failing. 

I keep wanting to sing the “Life Sucks” song. But, I know it doesn’t.  Today, my DD has an appt related to the abuse her bio-dad is doing to her (physical and mental) at 4:15pm. I asked my DH to leave his autmoatic car here, so I could pick up my sister and she could take DD to her appt and then back to school at 5:15pm. I can’t do it because I have to be at school by 6 and traffic is HORRIBLE, so I’ll probably be late.

Well, DH took the automatic car to work today and left the stick, so my sister won’t be able to help today.

Looking back, I think DH did remember what he did, because this morning he said “I’ll take the Acura to work today”. I forgot about the fact that I needed the Acura today.

I can’t even reach him at work by phone! This is soooo normal for him.

I have to choose between my DD’s appt and going to school on time. This feels like a repeat of college when I was just out of highschool. That won’t work!

I have 2 research papers and 1 quiz due this week. 

I feel overwhelmed,

It’s my 3rd week of school.

I wish I could be the person I want to be  – happy homemaker mom, go to school at night, etc. BUT I CAN’T.

I’ve been living off of grande latte’s in order to do my school work. I have the shakes.  My house is dirty.

F**k.

I feel incongruent. I want to be a mom, but I want to do other stuff, too.  But, I don’t do well with lots of pressure.

I’ll have to pray for God to show me the way!

Weight loss post IVF

I just got on the scale for the first time since my IVF cycle.

It says I weigh 164.6 and my body fat percentage is 38.5.

That’s actually not as bad as I thought.

My story is that I weighed 180 ever since 2001.

In 2007, I lost a bunch of weight and kept my weight around 145-154.

When I started getting close to my IVF cycle date in 2009, I decided to stop dieting.

But I recently decided to get back on the diet wagon and lose the weight.

These may seem like just a few lbs but at 145-154 I fit a size 8. At my current weight, I’m squeezing into 10’s. 12’s are not comfy either.

Wish me good luck!!

Babies

Wow! So I was just iin line at LaBou and I struck up a conversation with the lady next to me. She told me she just has twins 9 months ago.

Of course, I didn’t want to commit the ultimate faux pa (sp?) And ask her whether she did IVF.

So, what I did do is tell her that I love children and that my DH and I just did an IVF cycle, and we thought/hoped we’d end up with twins.

So, she told me that she only did Clomid. I told her we trid that, too but it didn’t work for us. Neither did the IVF cycle.

So, I got to meet another infertile! How cool is that?!

We talked a little bit about how it was difficult having to take care of 2 early babies and how people promise to help, but don’t.

At the end of our conversation, (which ended because it was my turn to order a sandwhich for my BFF who just had a baby yesterday)

I ended up tearing up a little thinking about the additional children I can picture us having and want to have.

Perhaps meeting a person who overcame infertility (wow-powerful words) made me feel like it is possible to have the thing you want most of all.

As I walked back to my minivan, I thought about how moms just might be able to have what they want, that it’s not a myth or a lie. I thought that maybe, just maybe it could be God’s will for me to complete school and have more babies. I may consdier surrendering both to God, while walking on the path he has laid.

Determination

I am determined to get through school while continuing to be an involved, present mom who keeps her home somewhat clean and provides some sort of nutrition for her kids.

But I’m not sure if this’ll work.

Back to School for Mommy

My daughter and I found a new way to bond over Starbucks and studying.  We spent 6 HOURS at Starbucks Saturday from about 6 to about midnight studying.  Not even really talking, just studying and drinking coffee.  We did it again today, Sunday from about 1 to about 6:30pm.

I’m pretty much up to date on my assignments, but I really want to get ahead. I think that I have to sleep less and work in the middle if the night, but I’m such a sleep-hog. 

I’m taking a Psychology class and English class online. I’m trying to add a Chemistry class. I’ll find out Wednesday if I get in. I hope I did. The books for Chemistry cost $142+$92 plus tax plus an optional study manual I purchased.

Chemistry and the Stay at Home Mom

I’m trying to add a Chemistry class, so I have to go and keep up on all the work for 1 1/2 weeks until the professor can determine who gets in.

So, what if I told you I’m enjoying Chemistry???

What if I told you I’m scared of not getting high grades?

What if I told you this is really exciting to me?

I’m not sure I have what it takes to be successful to my own standards.

But I will be so proud of myself if I can dilligently acheive my goals.

My 14 year old and my 11 year old have volunteered to and have been helping me.

Feeling Old

I’m at the local community college waiting to see an advisor. I have 3 basic questions: 1. Is English 1C complete?
2. Is there any way my Bio 10 can substitute as Chem 5, which is the prereq forb Chem 6? At the University, Bio 10 is the prereq for Chem 6. 3. What’s up with my AA/ getting certified to transfer?

My 4 y/o son is next to me wiggling and getting frustrated about being here so long.

We’re number 24 on the list- out of about 45 on the list.

So, what am I doing here?

Taking baby steps toward a degree in Nursing.

I don’t know where this path will lead me. But I’m walking.

It looks like I’ll have to get all A’s in the rest of my classes in order to qualify to get in at the University in a few years.

The community colleges aren’t merit based or competetive, but they are severely impacted.

Plus, I have about 90 credits toward my bachelor’s degree, so I’d rather go for the BSN.

If my grades, test scores, etc aren’t high enough, I just found out about a local private school doesn’t cost too much-30k for 2 years.

Then there’s always LVN programs at community college, too. Once I get that, its easier to bridge to RN and then do an RN to BSN.

That’s what’s going on with me.

And I’m running the new business I started back in May.

Busy, Busy me.

It’s time to move on, at least for a while from IVF thoughts, although our 4 year old still talks about the babies. I’m so through, though! In fact, just now he asked me how many people will there be in our family when we have another baby? Then he drew a picture of that many circles and another picture of the babies in my tummy. So, our son has not moved on, LOL!

I feel too old to be sitting in this waiting room for an advisor.

I also feel like I need to go after what I want before I’m really too old.

I *know* I’m not really old, I’m just 30.

Work at Home Mommy Decisions

Today was a good day in SAHMommyLand. I traveled with my DD’s B-Ball team to an out of town tournament. Not that my DD got to play at all.  She’s a stronger soccer player than a basketball player. 

I spent some time reflecting on my goals. I really would like to go to nursing school. I also really don’t want to miss out on anything going on in my kids lives. I think that I’d work as a nurse either per-diem or at night, which might enable me not to miss anything. 

OTOH, NOTHING is as flexible as working at home in my own business. But, OH the stuff I have to do since I do work at home in my own business. And I AM TIRED OF IT ALL. I’m not, however, tired of the money. But staying in something for the money is a good way to end up hating it (and hating life itself, if my future experiences mean anything) 

I am behind in paying my assistants, for no reason other than not sitting down to do it because I don’t feel like it.

I’m also behind in paying our own bills. I HATE paying bills- it stresses me out….

Also, in my work, I deal with a lot of different personalities and that stresses me out, too.

My paychecks, in part, depend on getting other people to do their jobs-I’m talking about other real estate agents. I’m not sure if these people are incompetent or lazy or are playing games/trying to get the upperhand, or if I’m not smart enough to outsmart them, but 3 of my last non-cash escrows have either went sideways or almost went sideways.

• I saved 1. The buyer’s agent was so grateful for what I, as the sellers’ agent, did to help the buyers that he offered to split his commission with me. I declined and he bought me the biggest box of See’s chocolates I’ve ever seen. That meant a lot to me. I get a lot o satisfaction out of seeing nice families get into homes.
• The 2nd transaction was supposed to close 12-18-09, but the buyer’s loan wasn’t approved-not that he ever bothered to let the seller know this. Now, the buyers agent is acting like it’s not the buyer’s fault their loan wasn’t approved and therefore they should get their earnest money back. WT? He should have cancelled as soon as the buyer’s loan app was rejected – this happened 2-3 times while in escrow. He should have cancelled PRIOR to the contracted close date. Now Dec 28, the seller, a bank, wants to keep his money.
• The 3rd escrow hasn’t gone sideways, yet, but the buyer’s agent won’t respond to my inquiries as to how his loan and escrow is progressing. AUGHHHHHH!!!!!

So, can you see why I want to work on my other business or go back to school? I know in nursing, I’d deal with different personality types, but when I was off, I’d be off. Plus in business, your pay is based upon not pissing people off.  In nursing, I’d only have to do my job and play PC games with my boss and provide customer service to the patients.

I’m leaning away from nursing, even though my heart wants it, though  because I don’t want to spend time away from my kids going to school.

In my online store, I’d only have to deal with customers. In real estate, I get paid by the sellers (banks) but also have to deal with the other agents, who love to say they are going to sue, or call the DRE or call the Board.

I’ll figure this stuff out….

My 4 year old just asked me which one am I on Backyardigans? It’s a game he plays where whenever he watches cartoons, he pretends to be a character and I pretend t be a character. And I almost said “the a**hole”.  I’m not in a foul mood, just a melancholic mood….

I’m starting to feel overwhelmed, just a little bit. I know what to do, reduce my load, make some changes in my lifestyle.

1st Word!

Today I had a breakthrough in homeschooling our 4 year old.  I bought him a lot of educational toys for Christmas. One of the things I bought was a bucket of crayola art supplies. It has markers, paint, dough, crayons, chalk, paper and scissors special invisible rainbow markers. Since I’m practical, I almost didn’t buy it, thinking I can put together my own kit for less than the $19 or so it cost, but then I thought about the fact that I don’t really believe in buying real “toys” so much, so I bought it.

So, today my son and I were watching Yo Gabba Gabba, while I was reading my Under the Dome and he was doing lots of art projects independently and this guy came on Yo Gabba Gabba who draws pictures kind of like that guy used to on channel 6, and so I decided to get some paper out so Kelly and I could follow along and draw along with him.

I remembered what I learned in my early childhood education classes and made sure that the art I made looked like “4 year old art”, so he wouldn’t feel he needed to be perfect.  When we were done, I labeled my page “Pirate” and then, guess what my boy did? He wrote Pirate on his page, too!!!! All by himself. Whoot-Whoot!  I didn’t have to hold his hand in mine, or make him do it or use any dittos! This is the way I think young children should learn. This is the 1^st word he ever wrote.

Day after Christmas

I’m spending the day reading Stephen King’s 1100 page “Under the Dome”, with my 4 year old in my lap.

Feeling a little like there’s a lot to do and I’m not doing it because I don’t want to. I sometimes get anxious like this…

But I am so happy to be with him. We are gluttons in our love. Sent on the Now Network from my Sprint® BlackBerry