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.

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.

I Shall Call This One “Someday”

Because…..

Someday, I will have time to make a dent in this 6-inch thick GMAT prep book.

Someday, I will have a day off of work.

Someday, Evan will go back to school.

Someday, Zach will start speaking and stop doing the whining/ grunting/ pointing thing.

Someday, this house will be clean. And neat. And organized.

And I will finish the 1000-page book I started reading out of a lapse in my sanity. Because for some reason, aside from GMAT prep, working like a dog, the questionably Aspergian high maintenance oldest child and the terrible-twos toddler, and all of the other shit I have to get done, I thought I would have time to read the damned thing.

Someday, I’ll relax.

Or maybe finish the apps for grad school.

Or maybe eat a dinner that is home cooked because we had time to cook.

Someday, there will not be sheer chaos in this house.

Someday, I will finish the 50 gazillion blog posts I have started about the different things I wanted to tell you all about but have not have the time to finish. On our Christmas. Or our anniversary. Or Evan’s progress and Zach’s delay.

But not now. Because right now, the tv is blaring, Zach is screaming because he doesn’t have the words or ability to tell John he wants apple juice. I am waiting for a phone call from the developmental interventionalist because I am finally worried about Zach’s speech delay to do something about it. And once I get the call, I have to go through the gu-wrenching possibility that my treatment during the pregnancy did something to him just when I thought it was all okay. And it is finally snowing outside, mixed with a bit of rain and freezing temps that are sure to make my commute a living hell.

And right now, I have to go to work. Again.

Fuck.

Just for a Moment

Just for a moment, I got to put my feet up. A brief 5 minutes over the course of 13 hours of work. And as you can tell from the photo, I got to check my blog. Just for a minute, before ventilators started alarming again and patients started to have trouble. It has been an exhausting weekend. Exhausting. And now it is Monday, and I am off of work only to be immersed in papers and presentations and reading for school. And in sticky handprints and peanut butter sandwiches and vacuuming up Golfish crackers that have been ground into a pulp in the carpet.

Sometimes, when you want it all, when you aspire to have everything, that is exacly what you get.

 

Role Transition

So what’s happenin’? Well, A lot and yet not so much.

The NICU stuff is winding down as we get closer to the day where we will start keeping the really sick babies. When you have a baby at my hospital, they warn you to not let anyone without a specially marked badge in to take care of your newborn. OB staff and NICU staff, as well as Peds staff all have these badges. The core NICU respiratory team is o be no different. So today, I had to go and get a new badge. The special marking? A bright pink stripe. Mine used to have a lime green stripe. How did they know pink is my favorite color? Actually, when I got it, I was appalled. my title is written all extra ginormously and the pink is glaring. Proof?

Pink means "Gimme yo' Baby!"

So not a big deal, I know. it’s the little things. I also renewed my NRP–Neonatal Resuscitation Program for those of you not in the know. It’s the fourth time I’ve taken it and it won’t be my last, as it expires every two years. The video for it cracked me up. They actually included RT’s in the scenarios with the rubber babies. As in, “Call Respiratory Therapy STAT.” And the guy who is supposed to be the therapist shows up and says, in utter robot fashion, “I…am..the…resp-ira-tory ther-a-pist. How…can…I…help?” Yeah, whatever, Dude. That is so not how it goes. I don’t wait to be told what to do. I know my role and get to work immediately. I’ll throw elbows if I have to. Same as wih the adults.

I’m sort of nervous about the change in roles. I’ll still be taking care of adults, too. But I will be on my own with the sick preemies and it worries me. I will see what could have been with both of my boys, and I will be crying a lot. Maybe this makes me less fit to care for this patient population. Maybe it makes me more fit. I guess it’s a matter of opinion. But someone saw me fit to be placed on the team. And so I shall do my best for the little ones while I see Zach’s and Evan’s faces the entire time.

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.

The Sound of Laughter

The sound of laughter and carefree days,

of treasures found as children play.

What joy, what fun, in a simple way,

the wonderful sight of a childhood day.

Author: Connie Brockman

Here lately, I’ve noticed one of the lingering effects of bedrest that I never stop to think about. How much I really miss my family. When life started up again for me, the combination of work and classes, it never occurred to me how much I would miss just doing absolutely nothing with my boys. This past week of time off has been just that for me. Time with my babies. Time with my husband. Like this day, for example. I had completed my last paper for the week while we were still in Madisonville at John’s mom’s house, and I had nothing else that needed to be completed that couldn’t wait. And so I loaded Zach into his stroller and made Evan put some decent walking shoes on, and off we went to the neighborhood park. Just the three of us. Except that park has a huge sandbox smack-dab in the middle of it that was roped off with caution tape. Turns out bees took up residence there, and they were swarming. Queen Allergy is highly allergic. And just as we were turning around to leave, Zachy squeals “DaDAAAAA!”, pointing with his little chubby baby finger. I look up to see John walking toward us. He had gotten out of his shower and, instead of chillin’ in front of the tv without a wife and kids to worry about, he came to find us. Because if I am not working, we are always together. I’m not saying this in a bad way. That’s just how we roll. So we loaded up in the car and drove to another area park, where the boys played. Climbing, swinging, crawling. Being boys. And me there in the midst doing absolutely nothing. And it was wonderful. And I was once again reminded of what really matters in my life. And for once, instead of feeling guilty that I was wasting time by not accomplishing some task or other, doing nothing felt like it was exactly what I was supposed to be doing.

30-Day Photo Challenge- Belated Day 2

How much do I suck? Day 2 should have been…well, daysago. But I was sure you all would cut me some slack considering my schedule these days. Day 2 is “What I Wore Today”. Ha. Hahahahaha. Pfft! What do I wear everyday? Sometimes I forget I even own real clothes.

Hi-Ho, Hi-Ho

>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.