Changing Tides

We have had an enormous change here in the Bitchypants household. Mr. Bitchypants, who has been unemployed for six years, went to work yesterday.

It’s been a long time. His unemployment started out by choice when the line he worked at in a hospital-equipment company moved to Mexico. Thanks, NAFTA. Anyhow, he was having a hard time finding a position to replace his earnings. Evan was in half-day kindergarten and we were paying full price for him to go half-days, and another $50 per week for the school bus to take him to school from the daycare in the small, rural community in which we lived. Instead of him just taking any job with a paycheck and paying $1000 per month for that arrangement, it made more sense for him to just stay home. Yes, I said it.

That is when it all started. Having him home was….different. First of all, while I am a feminist of sorts, my husband is the Man’s Man. USMC veteran. Country Boy. His wife supporting him while he stays home? Ummm, it didn’t sit well. Not with him, not with his family, not with society. Regardless of how progressive we think we have become, there are some deep-seated traditionalist views we all have. I had no problem with it, but the world in which we live had big problems, and I could see it everywhere we turned. I found myself defending our lifestyle. If the roles were reversed, and a man had an infinitely larger earning potential than his wife, and it cost the wife almost as much in childcare as she was earning by working out of the home, we would not bat an eye at her choice to stay home.

Make that woman a man. That wife a husband, That mother a father. Replace the vagina with a penis. Does the arrangement make any less sense?

Regardless of the rationality of our choices, we faced mud-slinging from everywhere. To my colleagues, my husband was constantly a “bum”. To our debtors, there was disbelief that he didn’t work. They wanted to put everything in his name, and he would tell them that his wife was the breadwinner, much to their shock. His parents would lecture him to get a job, that he would have no retirement when the time came. Of course, this was coming from his mother, who was living on her husband’s pension, with none of her own because she retired too soon. And the other objection: “What if Andrea leaves you, John?” Well, “Andrea” has been here for almost 12 years. Through homelessness, hunger, illness, poverty. And when the going got tough, I am the one who pulled myself up by the bootstraps, got a higher education and pulled my family out of that situation. And what of all of those stay-at-home moms? Does anybody ask them what they would do if the husband left them? So yeah, we heard it.

A couple of years ago, with the introduction of Zachary into our family, we really could use the extra income of John’s work. He began looking for work. The arrangement no longer made sense with diapers to buy and another mouth to feed. But with my establishment as the breadwinner for so many years, he couldn’t just take any job. We needed something that would A) not conflict with my odd schedule, or B) pay enough to compensate us for putting 2 children in childcare. And if one child was expensive in rural Indiana approximately 4 years earlier, the cost of 2 kids full-time in Cincinnati was damned near prohibitive. So John had trouble just finding positions for which to apply, let alone accept a position.

Enter the tension.

With two kids, we began bickering and fighting. I would come home from working God-awful hours to a house that was trashed. I would get ready to go somewhere and have no clean clothes. You see, John never was much of a housekeeper and I’m a little obsessive-compulsive. So we would fight. I would be upset that, while I was working my ass off to make ends meet, he was showing flagrant disregard by allowing our house to get trashed. I remember a particularly awful day where I found some of the boys’ expensive designer clothes molded because hey were under a wet towel in the basement laundry room for God knows how long. I began to try anything to get him to understand my point of view.  That is where I made my near-fatal mistake. Since he is a hard worker when he is getting a paycheck, I thought it would motivate him to do better by presenting it as if he was getting paid. With food and shelter and medical benefits, all provided by me.

How awful of me. I didn’t mean to hurt his self-image. I did not mean to completely emasculate him. I just wanted clean laundry and felt that I deserved it.

And with the pressure I was dishing, John issued his own counter-pressure. He wanted a job. Desperately. But he was still limited on the types of positions he could take. Then when he would find one that could work, he had to explain a years-long period of unemployment. Society still just could not handle that from a man. “You were a what? A stay-at-home-dad? What’s that?” So even if he made it through to an interview from the piles of applications, he never got an offer. In the meantime, I wanted him to find work. If I was going to clean the house anyway, at least he could bring home some money so I could maybe stop working all of the overtime. But nobody would give John a chance. And in John’s eyes, it was all my fault. I am the one who said, all those years ago, that he should just stay home. That it made more sense. And now, he couldn’t find work.

The man who served his country. The man who is such a hard worker. The man who, despite his own desires for his own life, put everything on hold to meet the needs of his family when the time came for it.

Well, yesterday, the phone rang. He was backing out of the driveway to go and put in yet another application, and I had to flag him down. It was a job offer, but the employer really needed someone. They wanted him to start then and there. So he left. The pay is only a quarter of what I make, but it is enough to compensate for childcare for Zachary one day a week. The only time we will need it is on Friday so I can sleep a little before going into work. Evan is old enough to play on the computer or watch a couple of movies while I nap, and he knows to wake me if he needs something. And we found a center that will do just one day a week without charging us for full-time care. In the fall, when I start my MBA program, they also allow flexible scheduling so I can pay by the hour while I am in class three afternoons a week. John’s schedule is 8-5, Monday through Friday, no weekends. In other words, perfect.

So the tides have shifted. Because while he may not have been a great housekeeper, I never had to worry about the kids destroying the house while I take a simple shower. If I mentioned that I wanted coffee, he would brew it for me before I even thought of moving. When I had to get ready for work, he would have my clean scrubs waiting for me. When we were hungry, he would cook…

I never realized just how much he did.

So while, with my career now and my future MBA, I will always be the breadwinner, John’s new job has done something monumental in our little family. I have a newfound appreciation for the partner I have had in John. I have taken him for granted. And with the first day of work, I have seen a change in him. He smiled all night last night. He was slower to lose patience with the boys last night. He seemed….fulfilled. And I had to realize that working is so much more than a paycheck. Being as into my career as I am, as motivated and driven as I am, I should have realized this all along.

Benefits to a job include medical, dental, vision, life insurance, vacation time, 401K. They also include self-esteem, self-worth, dignity. I feel like I have robbed John of that. I said it was all about the math, but I was so wrong. It’s more than math. It’s more than a Women’s Rights Statement and a big middle finger to the “establishment”. I’m still the breadwinner. I am stil the tough woman who will take the male-dominated world by storm one day. But this way, we all get what we need. Most of all, John.

If This is Sexism…

There is a photo I posted on Facebook a couple of days ago. It is the screen shot of my new schedule of my first MBA semester. The comment I put along with it was, “Can I just say how totally kick-ass I think it is that all of my professors for my first semester of my MBA are women?” I think most people got it. Some did not, and one of the comments I got was from the girlfriend of my father-in-law, who prides herself on being more progressive. She asked why this would matter and stated that, to her, I sounded sexist.

Hmmm.

I remember when we moved after I had finished school. We had actually been homeless for a month before hand. We needed money. And somehow, after one of my first job interviews, I had a job making real money for the first time in my life. Complete with a sign-on bonus, relocation assistance, and other benefits. We went from sleeping in a fleabag motel with most of our posessions in storage to moving into a upscale, expensive rental. I did that. John didn’t have a job. But I studied my ass off as a nontraditional student in order to get straight-A’s, a list of professional contacts, and more, to set me apart from all of the other new grads in my field and land a good job. I was so proud. And when I called to get utilities turned on at our new, nice house, what happened? They didn’t want to turn them on, and told me to have my husband call back. I remember my response to this day: “Ma’am, I would be glad to have my Master call back, but when it comes time for a bill to generate and you expect to be paid, you will have to deal with me, as my husband doesn’t work. I am the head of this household.”

But it did something to me. That, along with my upbringing, have shaped me.

My mother raised seven children. Seven of the most ungrateful children in the world. She was married to my father all of her life. And she never had a job outside of the home. She did a good job, as we never wanted for a thing. I grew up with elaborate meals prepared three times a day. I never did laundry or dishes because my mother never wanted us to. Mom made our world go ’round and Dad footed the bill. But then Mom started to get sick. And by the time I was a senior in high school, she was too ill to take care of herself, let alone any of us. What did we do? We got her signed up for Meals on Wheels and a home health nurse. I was just a kid, still in school, but the next child in line from me was eight years’ my senior. And she lived right around the corner with her husband, didn’t work, and her children were in school. Interestingly enough, nobody had time for the woman who had raised them, who had surrendered her entire life to doing right by us. While I was at school, nobody could even be bothered to bring her lunch. She would be hospitalized and in the ICU, and nobody would come and see her. I would try to leave school, but by then I was a freshman in college and prohibited from having a car on campus, so I was reliant on family to get me home when the situation called for it. The night she finally died, however, they all remembered their way to the house to raid her jewelry box of the diamonds and emeralds (her favorite and her birthstone) that Dad had bought her in their 35 years of marriage. One sister even had her 4ct. solitaire into a jeweler for appraisal and sizing the very next morning. And what about Mom’s last days? She would cry because her kids didn’t come to see her. She was miserable because, once she had no more to give, they lost interest.

Never in a million years would I allow that to be my life. I don’t want it. She wouldn’t have wanted it for me, and I refuse to let her down. I am bound and determined to shirk the traditional gender roles and live my life how I see fit. You could call this selfish of me, but then I would remind you that I make my living helping people breathe when they cannot do so for themselves. And while this is most decidedly not a commentary on being a homemaker, it is a testament to the fact that, while my mother may have had limited choices, I do not. And I have made my choice. I will never buy into the idea that my ownership of a  vajayjay means there is a damned thing that I cannot do in this world.

So life has taken me down many paths. I’ve had many plans, some of which have worked and some of which have not. Sometimes I have had to backtrack to where the road forked and take the other path. This is the case with business. I came into the world of business because my life took a turn when I was surprised with a pregnancy right before applying to medical school. Sometimes, I mourn that, but Zachary is amazing and I do not regret the path one bit. I surprised myself with an aptitude for this subject: business. I believe I can reach the top of my game. But if I do, I will be in limited company.

Let’s crunch some numbers:

15.4%= The percentage of female corporate officers in Fortune 500 companies, as of 2011.

14.8%= the number of board seats held by women in the same.

2.4%= The percentage of female CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.

22= the number of female CEOs in  the Fortune 1000 companies.

Out of a thousand companies, only 22 have female CEOs.

(Source: Susan Gunelius @ www.womenonbusiness.com.)

With all of this in mind, I can say that it is “kick-ass” that all of my professors are female for my first semester of my MBA program. At a program that is competitive, nationally-ranked, and highly revered, at least in local business circles, these women are full professors, at the top of their game. I could say that there is a sparkling, crystal-clear ceiling made of glass that I would love to shatter, but these women have done it for me. For my mother, who died feeling like her life had no purpose. It is women like these who will ensure that my sons will grow up in a world where they do not believe that their gender makes them superior or inferior, but equal to their female counterparts. It is women like these who will change those God-awful statistics I just cited. And then there is the richness of the idea that, while women are so outnumbered in top business positions, they can make careeers of educating the men that edge them out for the top spots at these companies.

I thought the definition of sexism was believing in the superiority of one gender over the other, not the equality of the two. Am I wrong? Is it sexist to want more for your life? To have the personality that translates to the desire to challenge yourself and not stagnate? To expect that your gender will not hold you back and be happy when you find evidence that it will not? Is it sexist to believe that, because I have worked my ass off to improve the lives of my loved ones, I can do even more?

If this is sexism, sign me up.

We Do Not Beat Our Children, Schedules are Meant for Rearranging, and More Discoveries

We’re all about discoveries here in the Bitchypants household. Here are a few new ones.

We are finding the need to defend ourselves as parents. Not that anyone has accused me of anything. But still. Zach is into, well, EVERYFUCKINGTHING. He climbs up, crawls over and under, dives off of any surface he can find. And more and more, he is getting the little bumps and bruises of toddlerhood. And when you go out in public and your baby has a big bruise, you feel like you have to tell the story of how to everyone. He climbed up on a rolling toy…..he dove off of the arm of the sofa….he slipped and fell. This last one was a little harder to expalin. John was getting him out of bed in the morning and Zach was doing his usual game of “Catch me, Bitch” when John reached for him and Zachy head-butted John’s hand. Only John’s finger made contact with a little toddler eye. Yeah. Zachy go his first black eye. Insert big frowny face here. The evidence:

See! Even in the photo, he is climbing on a toy, reaching onto my desk. Seriously, kid!

Schedules are meant to be rearranged. Fo’ reals, yo! But here is the most awesome picture of the past week:

See that? No conditions there. Just my admission packet. For my MBA program. I am officially in. No ” You should be fine.” No “conditional admission”. Just……in. IN. IN!!!

So I made an appointment to schedule my classes for October and the shit got tricky. I only have three courses left to take of my first-year MBA program. What they call the foundation courses. And those are offered in intensive half-semesters. I finish the BSBA in September, so I could start the second half of the MBA session in October. Except none of my classes are offered then. They’re all offerred in August. They were going to make an exception and let me start while simultaneously finishing my last month of my BSBA, but ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME???? I have a job. And kids. And I do not have a death wish. Especially considering that my first semester of the MBA will be full of financial accounting, macroecon, microecon, and one of the 700-level courses. No. So the solution? This summer, while John is off of his classes, I am going to triple my BSBA courses so I will finish August 15th and can start the MBA the following week. So I learned that where there is a will, there truly is a way.

Evan is a Con Artist. Seriously.

All of this time, we have been fighting him over homework. He made a confession to his therapist. Since he gets perfect test scores, he can pass without completing his homework, so in his mind, why should he do it? So on the nights when he fights and has meltdowns, we try and try before finally giving up and sending a note to his teacher. The next day, she keeps him in at recess to do what he didn’t do the night before. But it got to be too much. And so she changed it up. Now, he gets a zero like everybody else. And the result? He’s doing his homework. And scoring even higher on tests.

The proof is in his science test from this past week. My kid has been conning us all. Little booger.

Zachy started speech and is making strides every day. And he is getting it. Proof? Yesterday in the car, John missed his exit on the interstate, and responded with a “DAMN!!!” And from the backseat, crystal clear, we hear this baby voice say, “Damn!” The other day Zachy was playing outside and he was getting close to the infamous snake sighting of 2010. And I exclaimed, “Zachy, no, SNAKES!” To which he exclaimed, “SAKES!!!!” N left out intentionally. We say “Bus”, “WalMart”, “Evan” or “Bubby”, “Eat”, “SpongeBob”. He signs for “more”, “please”, “help”, “all done”, “eat”, and “drink”.  And e has the  cutest, throaty baby voice that melts my heart. I realized this is the first time I am really hearing it.

I was thinking about the next month or so when I realized that I never requested off for Zach’s second birthday. I was assuming it would fall on Saturday this year since it was  Friday last year. But it is Sunday. It’s Mother’s Day. His second birthday. The 13th. Mom’s birthday used to fall on Mother’s Day sometimes, too. And I hate Mother’s Day. And this year, we really can celebrate. Npw more than ever, I think Mom sent Zach to me. And P.S.–how in the hell is he already going to be turning TWO????

I think that about sums it up. For now. I’m sure there will be more as drama unfolds. We always have some of that.

Conditionally

So, if you read my last post, you now that my experience with the GMAT was painful. And that the powers that be decided I had to take the damned thing. Yeah, whatevs. What you do not know, unless you delved into the comments, is that I found a big pair of lady balls and called the MBA Advisor at my first-choice school. And told her the story. About how I meet every single requirement but the damned score breakdown. So her words? Basically she told me it had to be a fluke, that either I got some really difficult questions in the beginning and that psyched me out, or my math section was abnormally hard—Basically, that there had to be a reason that the math score didn’t match up with my academic record or the remainder of my GMAT score. She’s right. We started talking about the courses I have taken and my performance in them. Corporate Finance. Financial Accounting. Stats. Calc I and II. A. A, A, A, A. I even got an A in that damned corporate finance class and am thanking my lucky stars that I do not have to take it again at a 600 level lest I kill myself. Seriously. So wtf gives with the GMAT math? Because the GMAT is an asshole of epic proportions. But…She told me to NOT SCHEDULE THAT TEST UNTIL I HEAR BACK FROM  HER. She said she was taking it to the dean.

So anyway, she had me fax my unofficial score report to her. I got no response, so I gave her a day or so and called to see if she got it, which is when she asked for my resume. By now they have received my app, my resume, my unofficial GMAT score, and my official transcripts. All that was left were my letters of recommendation, cover letter, and hard copy of my resume. I mentioned as much in my email and that I was sending those in this week. I was waiing for a phone call from her when a funny thing happened.

I decided to empty my email inbox of spam. There were so many emails where I had been out of the loop recently that I was about to just declare email bankruptcy when I spotted it. She had replied.

“Andrea, with your existing GMAT score, your excellent GPA, and the resume you sent, you are fine for conditional admission. Do NOT retake the GMAT.”

Oh. Ok. Yeah, no more of that GMAT shit. And then I stopped to think about what she said. By then I had closed the email. So I reopened it. And got hung up on the word “conditional”. Until I remembered that my BSBA will not be completed until September and they cannot grant me full admission into the MBA program until that is finished. So what did she really tell me?

She told me I’m getting in. To one of the top B-schools in the whole friggin’ country. Not only that, but to the most competitive program at one of the top B-schools in the country, since it means they will basically be waiving all of the first year MBA courses for me and I will finish the degree in a year. Basically, because of this, you have to have your shit together to even avoid them not throwing your app in the garbage immediately upon receipt.

She told me that I fucking did it.

And then I started crying. And I picked Evan up and swung him around. And Zachy and I danced around the room. And I anxiously waited for John to come home from class so I could tell him. But I didn’t get to tell him because, as soon as he pulled into the driveway, Evan was running toward the car, shouting, “Daddy, Mommy did it!!! She did it!”

I did it.

I really did.

Conditionally.

The Great Cabbage Patch Controversy

My name is Andrea, and I bought my son a doll. There, I said it. You would’ve thought I bought him a machine gun. Wait. Perhaps that would be more acceptable, more masculine.

The Offender

Zach plays with his stuffed animals by cradling them and hugging them as if they are babies, but yet when he gets close to a human, he swats and bats at faces, inflicting pain. I thought about it, and thought perhaps a doll that looked more like a baby would help him. He could do some role play and learn to be gentle and nurturing.

I knew his dad would hate the idea, so I knew better than to buy him a doll that was dressed in a frilly pink outfit or had bows in her hair. That really would have been pushing the envelope. What I needed was a masculine-looking doll. A doll that looked like a boy, was dressed like a boy. A less girly doll. Yeah. Have you ever tried to find anything that has anything to do with traditionl domestic role play that is not pink and frilly and…..grrrrrrr. Toy vaccuums, shopping carts, kitchens. Toy mops and brooms, dishes. All of them. Why? My real vaccuum isn’t pink. My dishes aren’t, either. My stove, refrigerator….none of it is pink. Why in the hell are we doing this to our children?

So  after scouring the internet and finding nothing, I gave up on the doll. Until last week. We were at Toys ‘R’Us when I saw a boy Cabbage Patch Kid. I had been looking at the dolls, reliving memories of my childhood. I had been the first on my block to get one when they first came out. Parents were getting in fist fights over the dolls, and my mom was right in the middle of that. The limit to buy was 10, and she bought all 10 to give to the girls in the family as Christmas presents. But not me. I got one of mine that day. I’ll never forget it. His name was Earl. He had on a blue cuorduroy outfit, was bald with big blue eyes. I was remembering all of this and thinking if I knew a little girl who would want one. As I moved the boxes around, looking at the different dolls, I saw the boy way in the back. A doll. No pink. Big blue eyes like Zachy’s.

And I bought it. The boy doll I had been looking for all of that time. We brought him home and I took him out of the box. His name is Kelton. And I handed him to Zachy, who promptly hugged him and put the doll next to him on the seat of his Cozy Coupe. Success.

Until I absentmindedly posted something on Facebook about, “Yay! I found the boy doll I was looking for for Zachy.”

I started getting e-mails. The phone rang a few times. People, who shall remain nameless and were too cowardly to post anything publically on Facebook, have a serious problem with this. Finally, John, who was with me when I bought it and had no protest then, is making snide comments when Zach so much as looks at the doll. I am going to confuse Zach. I am going to upset the balance. I am going to —GASP!—TURN HIM GAY!!!!! (These aren’t John’s words, but some of the comments I got from others.)

Zach and Evan are growing up in a family where the mom is the breadwinner and has the career, is on the fast track to an MBA. Their dad does the laundry, the cleaning. He runs the vacuum about three times a day (don’t ever get chocolate-brown area rugs, people–they show every speck of lint!) and washes the dishes. We split the cooking. He is the one to taxi Ev to and from school. To the point that one time, we went to a school function and one of the other mothers mentioned that she thought we were divorced because she never sees Evan’s Mommy. I believe there are inherent diferences between men and women. Some of it is put upon us by society. Some of it is hard-wired by biology. Both nature and nurture win. A prime example? I love pink. I like smelling like flowers. I hate getting dirty. You would never catch me fishing because I will not handle a fish. I hate most sports, other than college football. I watch chick flicks and cry when the situation calls for it. My husband can bench press a lot more than I can. But I am driven, aggressive, down-to-business. If you piss me off, I will let you know. If you are wrong, I’ll let you know that, too. I hate bullshit and will not allow you to dish it to me. I multi-task with the best of them.

Do not ever make the mistake of telling me something is not my job because I am a woman. Other than peeing while standing, I doubt there is anything I could not learn to do. Hell, if I were willing and had some practice, I could probably even manage that one. And if there is nothing I cannot do, and it is unacceptable to place me in a little stereotypical box, then it is certainly unacceptable to do so to either of my children at a time when they are growing and developing and learning who they are. At some point, they will choose the paths they want to take. They may be gay or straight. They may  choose to play in dirt or stay indoors and bake cupcakes. They may be construction workers, chefs, teachers, doctors, lawyers. Presidents of the United States. Or they could choose to stay home and be caregivers to their children while supporting their significant other so he or she can go out and kick ass in the world.

Just like I can do whatever I want, so can they. And whatever they choose, it will have not one damned thing to do with a doll I bought them while they were a toddler.

Moving Forward

I’m not sure what it was. Was it the crushed aspirations of becoming a doctor? Was it the fact that it was so unbelievable? Whatever it was, I felt the overwhelming urge to snap a photo with my phone. A photo that says, “I really was here.”

The Williams College of Business at Xavier University. Number 14 business school in the nation, all around.

I met with them yesterday. I met with them at a point when I was feeling bedraggled and seriously doubting myself after a week of GMAT Prep-Hell. I had some questions, as I was trying to determine which of their programs is right for me. I took a printed copy of my unofficial transcript with me. I spoke with the admissions advisor at length. I’ll hit the highlights:

I mentioned that I still need to submit my personal statement. She told me not to botherd, that the level of my work speaks for itself.

I mentioned my nervousness, my trepidation at the GMAT, and she told me it is normal as she smiled and told me there is no way my score would be low enough to bar admission.

I spoke to her about the fact that my resume will reflect all healthcare. She said it absolutely does not matter, but raher shows I have worked and managed a career while keeping that academic record–her emphasis, not mine. And my completion of an undergrad business degree will be business experience enough.

And my favorite? As I was leaving, she explained how those with experience in the business world come into an MBA program and try to intimidate those of us coming from a different background. And she told me not to let them, that I will be great and she wants me to put them in their place.

I left there with a bigger spring in my step. Feeling charged and ready. And thrilled with the thought that, if all goes as planned, I only have 8 classes to take to get my MBA.

No Rest For the Wicked

I swear, everybody, that this next comment is going to make me seem like a braggart. I’m not. I’m really, really not. But some people have to really work at academics. I am not one of those people. From grade school, I have handled school work with ease. My business classes have been a cakewalk other than the demands on my time and the volume of work to be done. It isn’t that the work is demanding–it’s just overwhelming for my current schedule.

I am currently in a statistics course. It seems like common sense, and I have an A in the course with only two more assignments to be graded before winter break. But I swear, some of the assignments have been insanely difficult. Maybe it is because it is difficult to learn the intricacies of these complex mathematical formulas online with no face time with my professor. I can do the work but it is actually taking a certain amount of effort. Monday, for example, I had to complete a project that involved a 250 sample size, including organizing the data, computing solutions for problems regarding the data, and presenting it all in spreadsheet form along with an APA-formatted paper analyzing and interpreting the meaning of the information I extrapolated from the data. All of this was done after working all weekend and not sleeping. I literlly came home from work on Monday morning and sat at my desk at 7:30 AM and not completing it until 1AM Monday night/ Tuesday morning. At one point, whether it was from exhaustion, stress, being overwhelmed, or whatever, I actually broke down into tears. In the process, John kept looking over my shoulder, shaking his head and exclaiming how no human could possibly understand the stuff I was being asked to do for the project. He brewed me 5 pots of coffee throughout the day. And then, once completed, I had to hurry and finish the 46-slide PowerPoint presentation on the organizational effectiveness of my current employer. By the end of the night, I was nauseous, my fingers were swollen from feverishly typing, my back/ neck/ head ached. I was still sore the next morning, and didn’t want to even see typeface for a while. No Kindle, no blogs or blogging, no reading.

I am almost finished. I will be on winter break from Monday through January 8th, when I will return to a whirlwind of classes before I can move on to the MBA. As a matter of fact, I will have 6 more 5.5-week sessions, back to back, with 2 classes each session. For the immediate period of time, I am working every hour that is available. I have 3 days off between now and January 4th, and none of those are holidays.

And now starts my countdown for my GMAT and working on grad school applications. I have put in for vacation for the last 2 weeks of January–time to wrap up exam prep and actually take the exam, hopefully with a few days left over to do nothing work- or school-related. To maybe kick back and celebrate what I have done just a little bit. On a side note, I actually got some interest from M.I.T, which actually hurt a little bit. I cannot pick up my entire family and move like that, though their interest is beyond flattering.  I mean, this is the number  3 MBA program in the country! For me, when just this time last year, I was on track to med school. Maybe in a different time and place. But for now, I have my top three choices and a couple of “safety” schools picked out, and we’ll leave it at that.

In the meantime, I am going to try to spend some downtime here in the Blogosphere over he net three weeks. Please be patient with me and don’t lose interest.

I’m not a huge country fan, though I love me some Kenny Chesney. His music just reminds me of my John. But anyway, he has this song that sums it up pretty well, and I leave you with the key line from it:

“Hey, I wanted it all and that’s what I got.”

Bitchypants, Out.

A Million and One Different Directions

Yep, that’s my life. I’ve been pulled in a million and one directions this past week.

First of all, there’s work. Work has been crazy. Exhausting. Busy. Every night that I’ve worked, we’ve been cut down to 4 therapists at night instead of 5, which means we all run our asses off. And so I come home cranky and tired and ready to just sleep and chill, in that order. But I don’t get to do either.

Because then there is school. I’m still in my Operations Management and Corporate Finance courses. I’m not sure what’s up, but never before have 2 classes thrown me for a loop like these two. Each course has the standard 3 papers per week, plus 2 hours of either live or recorded lecture, plus about 150 to 300 pages of reading, But the corporate finance papers are hard. Don’t get me wrong: I have 2 papers left in each class and I still have A’s in both courses, but those A’s have taken work. I usually work Thursday through Sunday which leaves me Monday through Wednesday to complete all of my school work. But there’s a catch.

Because John started classes. Which means on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, I may be off of work and have all of the time in the world, but on those days, Zachary roams the house with abandon. We started by me trying to do both: school work and  be Mom Extraordinaire. It didn’t work. What really happened? I would type a sentence and get up and intervene in impending disaster. And feel horribly guilty that my time with Zach should be with Zach, not doing school work. And watch him destroy something with the mindset that, so long as it isn’t harmful to him, its okay. He tore an entire pack of flourescent pink index cards to bits and was working on the orange ones when I finally gave this up. So the new pla n is to not bank on getting anything done while John is class, which means my school work is now arranged around 2 schedules. And then came the NICU…

There was one day last week where I got 3 calls, and each one was regarding something else I have to do to get ready for the opening of our new Level III NICU at work. A ventilator inservice here. A mandatory class there. Licensing requirements. Drug screen, immunizations. It’s a liitle bit crazy. Because I have no time, this cuts into time I have alotted for other stuff. And then there’s Evan.

To get Evan treated and to make a full diagnosis, we have to do a million things. Tests, evaluations. Therapy appointments. Waiting on psychiatry referrals so the specialists can manage meds instead of our family doctor. Children’s is a one-stop shop, but there are a gajillion people there that all do something different. The Division of Developmental Disorders and Behavioral Psychology handles all Asperger’s evals, diagnoses, and treatment plans. And then the therapist handles his bi-weekly therapy. Now we are waiting for a referral to go through for psychiatry so we can get some medication management. This in and of itself is turning into a full-time job. A job, I might add, that is not well-managed by someone as disorganized as John. Which leaves me. I’ll do it. I won’t complain because I am grateful that Children’s is a stone’s throw away. If anyone is ever going to have something go wrong with their child, this would be where they want to be. In fact, there are people who fly in from other countries to have their child’s life-saving surgery done here. Yeah, I am that lucky, and I know it. But there is more to this, and it is another post altogether.

Zach? Well, Zach is the most laid-back, non-demanding person in this family right now. Yeah, how sad is that? That a toddler is the lowest maintenance? Pfft. But I keep trucking away. I somehow get it all done. I have no idea how. I used to be one of this smug people who would tell you that it is all in time management. But time management is only as good as the amount of time you have. I manage 150 hours worth of crap in 100 hours of time—not an exact figure, just an example. And it sucks. I know where my priorities are at: work–because I have to provide for the family and Evan needs my health coverage now more than ever, Evan’s treatment–well, just because, and my family. If I have to drop classes, I can. If I have to tell my boss I cannot do the NICU, I can. If John has to drop his classes, he won’t handle it well, but he can. I’m just trying not to have to do any of those things.

One day, I swear, I will be able to relax. I just hope it sin’t when I’m dead.

Mommy Secrets

My mom made these meatballs when I was growing up, and they were fricken awesome. As a matter of fact, I was reduced to tears by the craving for Mom’s meatballs during each of my pregnancies. They weren’t of the Swedish or Italian varieties. They were in this rich tomato sauce. As in orange, not red. And had bread crumbs. And enough onion to barely taste. And she would make them in this huge crockpot. Nobody can do it. I’ve tried. I can’t either. Becuase there was a secret involved. I wasn’t permitted behind the curtain of the secret, but rather stumbled and landed behind it as I overheard Mom on the phone one day.

Mom’s meatballs? Fuckin’ meatloaf. Rolled into balls. And called meatballs. Because her “girls” wouldn’t eat meatloaf, but would eat “meatballs”. Meaning me and my equally bitchy sisters. We were duped. Clever, clever woman she was.

I thought of that day when I learned her secret today, as I was getting some ground meat out of the freezer to thaw for dinner. We switched to ground turkey in place of ground beef a long time ago. I use it for tacos, enchiladas, pasta sauces, and more. Evan insists he doesn’t like turkey, so I mainly am limited to using it in dishes where he can’t tell the difference. But John and his big mouth! Mentioned getting turkey out of the freeer, and Evan’s ears pricked up and he insisted that he isn’t going to eat dinner. I had to fake swapping out the turkey for beef in order to make him think it is now safe for him to eat dinner. This was relatively easy, since I transfer all of the meat into portions for meals in separate freezer bags upon returning from the grocery store. But that’s not all I have to do. Since I am making enchiladas for dinner tonight, and Evan insists he doesn’t like them, I will take the same exact mixture of enchilada innards and bake it on a flat tortilla and call it a “quesadilla” for Evan so he will eat the same thing we will for dinner and I won’t have to make something special for him. (I know, I know…What I make should be what he eats and that is that! But as a side effect of his ADHD meds, he has a very limited appetite, and so I do what he can to get him to eat and not lose weight.)

I have other secrets, too.

Ev loves penne and rigotoni, but claims he hates lasagna. Despite my protesting that they are the same friggin’ thing, he won’t eat lasagna. So I make a lasagna by layering a pasta he will eat like I do lasagna. Every once in a while, I’ll make it with traditional lasagna noodles and just boil a serving of the other stuff to top with sauce for him. He hasn’t figured out my trick.

While I can make awesome homemade mac & cheese, I don’t do it often. Instead, I use Kraft Deluxe Reduced Fat. But I throw it in a pan and bake it like it’s mine, and we tell Evan it is homemade because he insists he doesn’t like boxed mac & cheese.

Those muffins I bake from time to time? Ground up squash and zucchini in them. Shhhh.

The apple juice he loves? Well, I really buy the kind with veggie juice added. When I get home, I pour it into a washed-out bottle with the plain apple juice label. Otherwise, the kid would never eat any veggies at all.

Those orange fries? They aren’t “seasoned” like curly fries. They’re strips of sweet potato baked in the oven.

Yeah, I have my own tricks up my sleeve.

Somebody out there is going to shake their head that I lie to my kid. That honesty is the best policy. Bullshit. They haven’t juggled career and family and education while trying to ensure that their kid gets nutritious meals.

And I will lie my head off in order to get Evan to go along with what I think is best for him, so long as it will work.

Except we are choosing to not  call them lies. They’re Mommy Secrets.

>Going Back

>

My name is Andrea, and I’m a student.

Again.

Barring any complications, I head back to class on April 3rd to begin the completion of my business degree. Since everything else is good to go, all I have to do to get a Bachelors o Science in Business Admin. with an emphasis on healthcare administration is to take the actual business courses. My stuff from my other degree exempts me from the rest.

It sounds so strange. Me. A business major.

Life does funny things to us sometimes. I never saw myself doing anything other than medicine. Never wanting to do anything else. Strange how having Zachy changed me that much. But not one for stagnation, I want to ensure that I have the needed degrees to take my current career as far as I want. Years from now, I don’t want to be limited because I didn’t take the time to get the degrees while I had the chance.

I’m doing a program that will have it all finished within 18 months so I can hurry up and move onto my MBA in healthcare management. I’m nervous and excited. I usually perform very well academically, and you cannot convince me that these courses will be any more of a challenge, or even as much of a challenge, as graduate-level human genetics, where I actually extracted and mapped DNA, or senior-level o.chem, which just about killed me, I swear. And I did all of thesre while working 70 hours per week, while being Mom Extraordinare, John’s keeper, and keeping straight A’s. Can you tell I’m trying to give myself a pep talk?

Because I have officially been out of school for a year. And now I have 2 kids, one of which is a baby who wants to wreak havoc on my laptop each and everytime I open it up.

I can do this, right?

I’m both excited and nervous. The less I am doing, the more bored and stressed I get. I’m the weird one for which happiness means a bursting schedule and a to-do list as long as I am tall. So on that note, I’m ready to go back. It’s just that doing so means the end of this chapter: the chapter of my pregnancy, Zach’s birth, and Zach’s first year of life. I gave him as much of myself as I could for this past year. We both needed it. Now it time for me to do something for myself once again.

Let the juggling begin.