Well look who's blogging again :)

Well lookie here…I’m blogging again! Aren’t you so excited?? I know I am!! I can’t believe it has been almost a month since my last super fun, super cool blog entry. The kids and I are getting ready to go to Arizona to visit my family very soon. We can’t wait! My mom is flying out on Tuesday and we are making the drive out some time after that.

The kids are going to take swim lessons in Arizona. That should be a fun experience- they have always taken them at the city pool, and they have always done really well with them. It will be fun to see how things are different out there in the Wild Wild West! We are also hoping to take a trip or two up the mountain and camp a little bit. My version of camping is to stow the seats (gotta love stow and go!) and sleep in the car. I am scared of bears, so every time we camp in the wild outdoors I wake up whenever a twig cracks or a skunk snorts. It makes for some really long nights.

I cannot believe that my baby boy is finished with Kindergarten. Next year three of my four children will be in school. I honestly don’t know where the time went. It seems like just yesterday, I had three kids in diapers, demanding sippy cups of chocolate milk (warmed in the microwave, not shaken, and with lots of mix, respectively), and wanting just one more story read to them before bed time, one more hug before mommy leaves for school, and to “help” me with my homework. Now they are turning into independent little PEOPLE with their own ideas on everything. It is amazing to watch :-)

I am so glad my husband and I have spent this time, while our children are young, pursuing our educations and working for a brighter future for our little family. When I was working on my degree, I remember so many mornings dropping the kids off at daycare, staring at their empty carseats on the way home, and wondering what the hell I was doing. Would this degree ever be finished? After Caitlyn was born, I almost quit. Like many moms, I was struggling with the idea of having my children in daycare, and felt like by having them in daycare, I wasn’t being a “real” mom. Luckily, I had a really awesome mentor who urged me to push through and finish. On rough days, I spent so much time in her office talking about my kids and how I felt that I was cheating them out of a mother by being in school. She said that she also felt that way when she returned to graduate school. We shared war stories about everything from psycho professors to trying to find a decent place to pump in academia (and both agreed that the handicapped stall does NOT count as a decent place to pump!). She always told me that no matter what, my kids would love me, and that they would be happy as long as I was happy. After meeting her children and seeing how happy and well-adjusted they are, I believed her. Now that I see my own children and see how happy and well-adjusted they are I know she was right. Thanks Dr. H!!