Sad I've Been Gone?

OK, I’m gonna lay it on the line here. I am a neglectful, absentee blogger. At least recently. Here it is, the middle of June and I haven’t written anything in four months. The gaps just seem to be getting bigger, don’t they? In my defense, I have a full time job, four children under the age of five, and I’m trying to lose weight. If that doesn’t qualify as ‘being busy’ then I don’t believe anything does.

Let me try and fill in this gap of time here. My last post was on Ella’s one week birthday. A few weeks after that I learned that the Board of Education, my employer, was implementing a Reduction In Force due to budget cuts. Some 120 people were going to be laid off. One Friday I got a call from work about my leave and health insurance. I was told that since I would not be receiving a check that month that I needed to come in and pay my insurance out of pocket. Ha! Yeah, right, like I have $450 just laying around unclaimed. So I told them to cancel it. I was then transferred to the administrator of my department. He informed me that as of the new school year, July 1, my position would no longer exist. Did…did I just get RIFed? You sure did! When I got back from maternity leave I would have about a month and a half of work and then that was it.

So this is what my life looked like three months ago. Three kids, new baby, soon to be unemployed, and essentially a single parent. Oh, yeah, I never mentioned that one. Dave moved out right before Christmas. The day of the Sandy Hook shooting in fact. Now I’ll always remember both of those events. 

He was there when I had Ella, though, but that’s a different story altogether. It’s a good one, too, that I will be telling. I think hers is my favorite of all my birth stories.

Sorry, tangent.

Anyway, that was what was going on. So I started trying to figure out what to do. I kinda saw this coming so it wasn’t a total shock. Here I was at a crossroads. What to do? Try to find a job that makes what I make now? Maybe go to school? I decided to draw unemployment and go back to school. The hard part there is go to school for what? I know what I want to do, and while there is a possibility to make very good money at it, it is by no means a guarantee. I need a guarantee.

I had planned to go to school for Public Relations and Journalism, maybe get paid for doing this very thing I’m doing right now. My mother has been suggesting the medical field to me once a week for I don’t know how long. It’s true, you can always find listings for RNs in the paper and online. Could I do that, though? Is that something I would be able to force myself to do?

Full disclosure: I love hospitals. I always have. I know it’s weird to some people, but that’s just me. Dave, for example, doesn’t ever want to go in hospitals and he even has to force himself to when I have a baby. He should not be a nurse. I like hospitals. Does that mean I would be a good candidate? It means that I wouldn’t dread going to work because of the atmosphere, but could I do the actual work?

I finally came to the conclusion that the amount of money I would make would be decent compensation for the things I might have to do. I like people and the helping of them. I have four kids so I’m pretty used to taking care of people. This way I could get paid for it. Is being a nurse my calling in life? No. However, I no longer have the luxury of doing the things that I want to do for myself. I have small children and I would like to be able to buy them shoes before their toes start coming through the ends of the ones they are wearing. Hell, I’d like to be able to buy them shoes AFTER their toes start coming through the ends of the ones they’re wearing. So far writing a blog hasn’t afforded me that, so as much as I like it, it’s just not paying the bills. Being a nurse would. I just can’t think of another occupation that I can achieve within three years of schooling that can pay me as much as an RN will.
Oops, another tangent.

…what was I even saying?

Oh! Anyway, so here I sit at what will be my desk for another two weeks. When I leave on June 28 I will be four days away from having worked here for six years, the longest I’ve ever worked anywhere. I don’t think anyone will notice I’m gone.

School has been out for three weeks and my parents have sacrificingly agreed to watch them all until I get the boot at the end of the month. I appreciate it so very much yet at the same time feel guilty that I have to even ask it. I realize now why parents are always so much more excited than their kids when school starts back. Connor is already asking to go back to school, though. I don’t think that’ll last too many more years. He will be in Kindergarten next year. It doesn’t seem like I should have a kid in Kindergarten. But my oldest nephew just turned fourteen and I kept him two weeks after he was born so that’s not right either.

However, last week I was mistaken for one of the teenagers taking driver’s ed at the Board this year. I think I’m ahead of the curve.

I will briefly touch on the fact that I am something of a single parent right now. There, I think that’ll do. It is what it is, and while it’s nice to have an extra pair of hands at times, the only way I am struggling is financially. Sometimes I hear “I don’t know how you do it!” Thanks and all, but…what are my options?

I am also waging my war on fat yet again. This is not baby weight. This is Easter candy weight. I sabotaged myself this time. True to form, two weeks after having Ella I weighed ten pounds less than I started. It was the consumption of Easter candy that caused this weight gain. I was actually told later that some people thought I looked sick. My body did what it always does and set up me up for a good looking summer but I went and made it go all funhouse mirror on me. I think this time was the hardest it’s ever been to start back dieting. I’ll save that for another post. I will entitle it ‘My Love/Hate Relationship with Cadbury.’

Hopefully, now that I will have ample time on my hands thanks to the Board of Education, I will be writing more. Tell your friends! And then they’ll tell two friends, and they’ll tell two friends… And so on...

Where Was I?

So I noticed today that my last actual blog post was before Christmas. In my defense, a lot has happened since then. But any blogger worth her virtual salt would tell you that just means you had more to write about. Yeah, yeah.

When last we left I was incubating yet another little person. I'm done with that one now and she is a week old. Or will be in about three and a half hours. I totally plan on writing about what happened over the last three months, because it is totally worth reading, but for now I give you Estella Grace.

(This is also my way of proving that I do know how to post pictures when I have the means.)

Are You Retiring Your Uterus?

Have you thought about what it will be like when you are reproductively finished?  Are you at that point already?  Have you retired your uterus?

Every couple comes upon the time when they feel that they are done with the babymaking/having.  They close up shop.  Sperm and egg will no longer converse.  For some it might be something of a relief, a chance to breathe a little easier, a light at the end of a little shorter tunnel.  For others it may not be an easy choice.

It didn’t occur to me that at some point I would have my last child and be done with it.  After I’d had number three, it hit me.  I remember laying on the couch with her asleep on my chest and getting all I could out of it as I thought, this may well be the last time I’ll get to do this.  I made sure to enjoy it as much as I could.  Though I never told my husband, the concept that I was done having babies just was not right yet.  Three kids COULD be enough, but it just didn’t feel like I was done.  He, on the other hand, was done.  He didn’t want any more kids until all of ours were in school or until we could better afford it.

Now that I am pregnant with little number four I know that this is my last child.  It is right and I am ok with it.  It’s not unsettling or even really very sad.  A year ago I thought that when it was official that I was done that I would be really depressed.  I’m not.  Even with all the crazy things going on right now I know that this is the end of the line and that’s how it is supposed to be.

Since I know that this is my last pregnancy I’m trying to appreciate it more than I usually would, but I have to say that things are harder this time.  Not with me or the pregnancy, just with the situation.  This pregnancy is different from my others.  Duh, right?  Every pregnancy is different, blah blah blah.  Mine at least resemble each other.  Not that this one doesn’t resemble the others at all.

I’ve read just about everything that pertains to me and pregnancy on the internet at least a dozen times.  These sites really need new stuff.  I’ve read the very same articles with this baby than I did with my first five years ago.  Splurge for some new material BabyCenter!  Give me the go-ahead and I’ll start writing!  I’ll do it right now!  Anyway, a lot of the things it talks about happening, never happen to me.  It’s like reading about milestones that you wait for that just never seem to happen.

I haven’t gone into labor sooner with any subsequent kid.  I don’t start showing sooner, even despite being a good bit lighter this time around.  I am just shy of 14 weeks and still not showing.  I’ve had three kids!  I know I should look at this in a more positive way and I do try to, I just have to remind myself.  I wanted to take weekly pictures of myself starting from the beginning, but it has yet to happen.  It’s just as well, I guess, nothing’s really changed.  Generally, I don’t allow pictures of me while I’m pregnant.  I realize now how stupid that is and it makes me sad that there are no pictures of me pregnant with really any of my kids except at the very tail end, the requisite maternity pictures two days before birth.  Yeah, I would look back on any pregnancy pictures and comment on what a whale I was but at least there would be some documentation to show my kids that I did once incubate them.

No, I am exception to the pregnancy rule generally.  Nothing happens sooner, or more, or worse.  I just go on about my daily business as though I’m not pregnant because it won’t start getting in the way for about another 15 weeks.  So I will continue to work and work out until I physically am incapable.  Ever seen a pregnant woman do Zumba?  Me neither, but I can’t imagine it’s going to be very pretty.

I seem to have gone off on a tangent.  So to sum up my original thought and topic here; I really thought deciding to not have more kids would make me sad but it didn’t because it’s the right time.

Wow, this could’ve been a much shorter post.

Did putting your eggs out to pasture make you sad?  Is that an odd phrase?