Sweet William

Create Your Own

Graduate Gripes

The class that I have this semester is with out a doubt the most boring and difficult class I have had in my MANY years as a graduate student. The prof lectures for three straight hours. Most of that telling us his personal stories and how they apply to what ever theory it is were discussing. This would be nice except they are the same stories week, after week, after week.

The tests are "short answer". His definition of short answer is about a paragraph of memorized regurgitation and 25 questions. That's ALOT of freaking memorization. The worst thing, this class has the potential to be very interesting. It's a class on marital and family counseling. So far here's what I've learned, (besides his life history.)

1. There are 1,000,001 ways to screw up your kids and only one way not to and no one can agree on what that one way is.

2. Either Ben and I are really great at being married because we don't yell and scream at each other or we are both suppressing our anger and are doomed to a life of misery or divorce.

3. My prof had a really screwed up childhood.

Well, I'd better quit griping and get busy. I've got a kid to screw up, suppressed anger to discover, and 3 pages of material to memorize for my test next week. Wish me luck.

Contortionist

The body contortions required to be a mother are mind boggling! I came to this conclusion yesterday while driving home with William after a trip to my school to turn in grades, a trip to Wal-Mart for some groceries, and a third very short trip to buy Ben's birthday present. Needless to say, after all of this excitement little guy was a little grumpy and ready to go home. When we left the last store he was just starting to get hungry so I plugged in the pacifier thinking "This will work until I can get him home because he always sleeps in the car anyway." Wow, how wrong I was.

We were sitting at the light waiting to make our turn onto Main St. when he starts fussing. I knew he'd lost his pacifier and I knew if I didn't get it back in, he'd be in full-on melt down mode by the time we got home (which could take up to 30 minutes in Friday afternoon traffic). This is where the afore mentioned body contortions began. First of all, I don't know how many of you have noticed, but I don't have very long limbs. So I try to reach back into the car seat. Nope, I can barely touch the top of the car seat, can't even touch the baby more or less dig around for a pacifier.

Do you have any idea how difficult it is to drive safely in crazy traffic while planting your feet on the floor, arching your back, lifting your butt up off the seat, and dislocating your shoulder to find the magic plug that will keep your child from completely freaking out? Well, I do. It wasn't easy but I accomplished to get it done and he dutifully sucked on it about four times, fell asleep, and spit it back out. But, that's okay because he did sleep the rest of the way home and about another 30 minutes after we got home giving me time to put away groceries.

There are a few other amazing physical feats that only come with motherhood. Such as the "cradle the phone against your shoulder and change a diaper" feat. Then there's the "dig your keys out of your purse to unlock the car while carrying your purse, a huge diaper bag, and a baby in a carrier" routine. And of course my favorite, the "hold the screaming baby while making a bottle for him and keep dinner from burning" combination.

At this rate, I'll be circus material in no time. (No midget jokes please!)

ABANDONED!

Okay, I know I've been remiss in my posting. It's been almost two weeks since William's birth and I'm sure everyone expects me to post about how wonderful the last two weeks have been. Well, that goes with out saying, so why say it??? Right?!? ;-) Of course my baby is perfect. He's beautiful and he has hands and feet that draw interest everywhere we go. And all though the last two weeks have been wonderful they've also been slightly overwhelming. Everyone tells you how much your life will change when your first baby is born and no matter how many times you hear it, you can't understand it until you live it. Those of you who have children know exactly what I mean.

I am enjoying being a mommy a great deal. I enjoy it more when the sun is up and my baby is awake than I do from 1-3 am when he's so sure it's play time and I can barely hold my eyes open. I have a whole new appreciation for my husband. He's been fantastic since William's birth, doing his fair share of diaper changing, feeding and night time duty. I didn't know just how nice it was until last night. HE LEFT!!! Hubby left yesterday evening to go hunting. William, sensing that his father wasn't here, decided to wreak havoc on mom's sleep schedule. He was down at 8, up at 9. Down at 10, up at 11. Down at 12, up at 1. Stayed up until 3. Down at 3, up at 6. Down at 7:30 and mom had to be up at 8:30 because of my grandparents coming from Abilene to see sweet William. He (of course) slept peacefully until 10:45. My mom was kind enough to hang around after my grandparents visit and give me time to take a little nap.

This evening, other than being awake a few minutes at a time for feeding and changing, he's basically been asleep since 4pm. And while that was really nice because I got a lot of work done on a paper that I have due on Monday, I have a sneaking suspicion that he has evil plans to keep me up again tonight.

That's okay, I've decided that tomorrow night, Ben is on duty all night. He's getting a two for one. I've been on duty alone for the last two nights, and I'm only asking him for one AND he got to go hunting all weekend. That will work right??? Somehow, I doubt it. He has to work on Monday. That dosen't mean I won't try!!!