Posted on by cmartinmaas

Update on Life

Welcome back!

I’d like to say that I’m one of those moms that have everything planned out for each day and I have a schedule I stick to for me and my kids. But I’m not and I don’t. I’m winging it. Shit gets done though so I don’t think I’m going to change anything. Sometimes Michael will start on his homework right away in the morning and sometimes we don’t get to it until the afternoon. The day it was really nice out, he didn’t do any homework. Other than being inside to make meals and my classes I needed to be present for, we stayed outside. I loved it.

There are pro’s to being stuck social distancing right now. As much as being stuck inside drives me crazy, especially the days it’s not nice enough to go outside, I’m loving the time I get to spend with my kids. As we were sitting outside whatever day it was(they all blur together at this point) all I could think about was that those memories and moments never would have happened if Michael was in school and I was in school or at work. I get to be there for every new thing Willow learns and every roll she makes. She’s going to be crawling by the time this thing is over and I don’t have to worry about not being there the first time she does. One thing I always hated was that I felt like I was at work more than I was at home with Michael. If I wasn’t working I felt like I was failing him as a mom for not being able to provide for him. During this time it’s still super stressful trying to figure out how I’ll manage things but luckily there are things that can help me get through it and I finally get to spend that quality time with him. All the things that I didn’t get to experience with him when he was a baby, I get to with Willow.

But with every pro there’s a con.. Man I could use a break. Michael is starting to rebel and not want to do is homework or go to bed at night. He thinks he needs to be on his iPad all the time and I HATE when kids spend so much time on electronics. I have never and will never be that mom that shoves a phone in her kids face so she doesn’t have to deal with them whining. Michael can either spend his whole day throwing a fit about it or he can go play with his toys or go outside if the weather is nice enough. Back to the homework topic. I am doing terrible at turning his homework in. Mine is always turned in on time but I never think to get his in. I got a week behind before his teacher finally reached out to me and I forced myself to sit down and get it all sent in. It takes forever though! It’s the slowest process taking pictures of everything and each assignment takes forever to load and then even longer to actually go through. I do not recommend google classroom. As soon as I’m done getting all of his stuff loaded, Willow is usually mad for attention.

So as much as I love getting to watch Willow learn new things and grow, she is getting soooo clingy. Now is the time where it would be best for her to be in daycare so she learns that mom isn’t always around and that she can’t rely on the boob to sooth her all the time. She’s going through her “fifth leap”. I have an app that tells me when she is going through development leaps to know when to expect her to get fussy, TheWonderWeeks, I love it. Right now the leap she is going through is being able to tell that there is distance between objects. Which means now she can tell when mom leaves the room or isn’t two inches from her face. Since she thinks she needs all of the attention, I have yet to start and finish an assignment without having to stop and get her because she’s crying. I’m not complaining though, I knew what I was signing up for when I enrolled for school knowing I’d have a newborn.

Posted on by cmartinmaas

College Life

Welcome and Hello!

Is college as I expected it to be? Not really. I definitely wasn’t expecting a pandemic to happen in the middle of my first semester. What a twist.

I did expect it to be a lot harder, super thankful I was wrong on that one. Or maybe it is but because I waited to know for sure what I wanted to do and that I know I can’t mess up so I’m more determined to succeed. Or maybe the first semester is misleading and I have no idea what’s coming. I also wasn’t expecting to be so bothered by not having a 100% in all of my classes, like is that even possible? You’d think having straight A’s would be good enough but I jump on extra credit opportunities to get as close to a 100% as I can.

I wasn’t expecting to socialize with anyone while in school. I assumed everyone would be way younger than me, which I wasn’t totally wrong about. I don’t think there is anyone is my classes my age or a parent as well. I’m not expecting to leave school with any new friends but there’s a few kids that I don’t mind talking to. Honestly probably still not going to go out of my way to have conversations with anyone though, it’s a little hard to talk to people at a different maturity level than you, I tried.

The instructors have been way cooler than I was expecting too. I didn’t think they would be mean or hard asses like you read about in big fancy college settings but I never thought they would be as laid back as they are. They take school seriously and make sure everyone does what they are supposed to, but they also make sure we enjoy it along the way. Also, they are super understanding, I honestly thought me having to pump would be a problem that I was either going to have to fight or figure out how to manage but everyone went way above and beyond to find me a place and never made me feel like it was an inconvenience. I was also afraid that having my kids at home with me while I do the class meetings would be a problem. Sometimes it is a little hard to stay focused when Michael is constantly asking for things(even though I specifically send him to his room and tell him not to bother me) or Willow is demanding things. I’m still waiting for my luck to run out and have Willow start crying in the middle of me talking or presenting something though. But so far I haven’t been told it’s an issue and I’d like to think if she would start crying in the middle that they would be understanding about it.

I guess I wasn’t sure what to expect from college. Homework, tests, projects, the usual standard stuff that school requires. I haven’t had to write any long papers yet, but I don’t think I’d mind doing one or two, I like typing.

Biggest thing I did not expect out of school. Actually enjoying writing blogs. Somehow it’s therapeutic, mostly because I use it as a journal and I get to talk, well write, about things that I usually don’t get to talk about. I honestly thought it would be something I’d have to force myself to do the bare minimum every week just to say I did it, but now I catch myself looking at insanely long blogs and thinking, damn I need to chill.

College is great, I love being in school and learning new things. I could spend the rest of my life in school, studying, and learning new things and never get sick of it.

Posted on by cmartinmaas

Life since Covid-19

Hello and welcome back!

I kind of went into social distancing in my last blog specifically with my kids so I’ll do a little update on how that’s been going since then and talk about how it’s changed my life with work and school.

To update, since my last post the daycare I work at decided to close for at least the month of April after there was a confirmed case in their county. Part of me was okay with this because it limits my exposure to getting anything, but the other part of me was upset not only because it was my income but also it was my only excuse to socialize. So now I get to figure out unemployment and all that fun stuff with everything else I have going on, fun. It’ll buff though, at least I have the option of unemployment and will still be able to take care of the bills I have without worrying about having to file bankruptcy when this is all done.

Next, kids. If I could, I would still send them to daycare everyday but I decided the best way to avoid any of use from getting sick is to keep us all home, all the time. I did a big grocery trip on Monday and don’t plan on leaving again until absolutely necessary. Which will be easy to do since I hate having to load up both of my kids every time I leave the house. Michael’s dad came in contact with someone who has tested positive so he won’t be going with him anytime soon. Willow’s dad recently lost his job so I thought he would take advantage of that and come see her as much as possible. I was wrong. Visited a little here and there last week and then went completely MIA last Thursday. Perfect timing, right when I needed his help the most with starting online classes. So now I’m trying to get her on a schedule that keeps her sleeping or happy during classes we do video chats on. So far it’s been alright, she slept the whole time today.

Having Michael home more often means I have watched soo much kids TV. Michael’s shows of choice range from Barbie to Highway thru Hell(trucking show). I never wanted to be that mom that lets her kids watch a lot of TV but on days when it’s not nice enough for a recess break I let Michael watch more than usual so he doesn’t get too bored being stuck in the house all day.

Michael and homeschooling. Man. Still not made to be a teacher. I don’t know how they do it, a whole classroom full of kids. I can’t even handle my own. It helped me gain a new level of respect for teachers. Michael can read a word and then on the next page see the exact same word and have no idea what it is. Example: one of his words he had to rhyme last week was light. Today the work light was in his readings and he wouldn’t even try sounding it out. Also I learned he was playing me on his matching assignments. He was asking for my help only because I would read the words for him so he didn’t have to try sounding them out. He wasn’t too happy when I realized it and made him start reading the words himself. Speaking of rhyming light, I tried to help him out by saying “you ‘might’ have to think of a new word” or “we can ‘fight’ about it”, anything I could think of with a word that rhymed without just giving him the answer. It didn’t help at all. So it’s still a learning progress for the both of us. On the bright side, he doesn’t have a lot of homework and hasn’t been fighting me on getting it done.

When it’s nice enough we take breaks outside and he gets to ride his new bike(:

Doing classes online. I’ll admit at first I wasn’t happy about moving online. I prefer to be in a class setting and I didn’t think I would like being online for everything. The biggest reason I wanted to do on-campus was because then I had to sit down and focus on the class and not risk being distracted by my kids. So now I just make sure Michael is upstairs in his room during video sessions because he’s annoyingly nosy and so far Willow has been okay but I’m sure my luck will run out eventually. Also, trying to do homework when I have to help Michael with his own homework, cook meals, do laundry, and feed Willow, it gets hard. I swear Willow knows when I’m doing accounting because it’s when she is the most needy. Accounting is my most time consuming homework and I’m lucky if I get through 3 pages of my working papers before she’s mad that I’m not holding her or nursing her. Breast feeding a baby while flipping through 10 different pages and a book is incredibly difficult, trust me I’ve tried. I succeeded but it wasn’t ideal. To be honest, I don’t really know how I feel about it all. One minute I will be thinking about how hard it can be but then I’ll remember the times I was able to get through stuff without any interruptions. Like today’s class meeting thing, Willow slept the whole time and Michael stayed upstairs, success. I’ve managed to get all of my assignments done on time, some even done early if they are available to do. I have been able to split up my time nicely between my stuff and my kids to everything has been running pretty smoothly here. Overall I don’t absolutely hate being online and if anything it made me realize I could handle an online setting and might see if I can just do all of my classes online from here on out regardless of when the school opens back up.

I really don’t know how I haven’t lost my sanity yet. I thought I would be having a mental break down by now but I’ve actually stayed pretty calm about the whole thing. As much as what’s going on sucks, it’s showing me that no matter what life throws at me, I can handle it and find the best way to get through it.