Hello again!

I never imagined I would voluntarily put myself into a situation where I was juggling so many different things at once and yet I find myself in the busiest time of my life all by choice. Having kids, going to school, working, breastfeeding, cloth diapering, and so much more and I wouldn’t change any of it. It gets stressful trying to find time for everything but when I remind myself that everything I am doing has a purpose and that it will be worth it in the end. I don’t get a lot of help from my kids dads. The biggest push to going to school was so I can get a stable job that pays good so I never have to worry about keeping a roof over my kids head or being able to feed them again.

To start with there’s my oldest, Michael James. He’s pretty easy to keep up with since he’s old enough to be in school all day but young enough to not have a lot of demanding homework. His only responsibility is to read a book every night and I love hearing how much progress he makes on a daily basis. It’s also easy to keep doing whatever homework I have while listening to him read. He gets himself ready for bed and usually doesn’t put up a fight when I tell him it’s time to. The biggest struggle I have with him is that I can’t really take him anywhere or do a lot of things with him now that Willow is here while she’s so young. He wants nothing more than to be outside playing in the snow right now but I can’t bring Willow out and I’m way to paranoid of something happening to him to let him go outside by himself.

Next is Willow Ann, to say she takes up the biggest chunk of my time is an understatement. As much as I love cloth diapering and am trying my hardest to stay on top of it, I end up getting behind in laundry and don’t have the time to get to it as often as I should. A lot of the time I end up doing it through out the night since I end up awake so often with her. I know all of the benefits of breastfeeding and I love the connection I have with her because of it, but it’s hard not to think about how much easier things could be if I gave up on it. I can’t remember a single assignment I have been able to complete without having to stop to feed her or to pump when shes not with me. Luckily pumping and doing homework is a lot easier than nursing while doing homework. I’ll take doing reading while nursing over trying to do accounting again any day. With the breastfeeding comes being woken up a million times a night, I can’t remember the last time I slept more than 3 hours straight and to be honest I’m not sure how I’m functioning anymore. Of course as soon as I get accustomed to my sleep schedule Willow got sick and now I spend most of my nights listening to her breath. I even spent $300 on an owlet sock to give me peace of mind, yet I am still so paranoid I can’t sleep.

I am impressed with my determination to still do as good as I can in all of my classes, I get as much done as I can in class unless I need to go home to pump. The two people that make juggling of it the hardest are the two people who drive me to getting up and going to class and getting my work done. I love that Michael can see his mom working hard on homework and feeling proud of the homework he does, he thinks it’s cool that we are both in school. Everyday we get to ask each other the same questions about how school was and what we learned that day. I feel proud of the grades that I have considering there were many times I questioned if going to school was a good idea and not thinking I could manage it was why I put it off for so long. I think it’s because I wanted until I knew it was absolutely something I wanted and needed to do that helps with the determination.

Now I just need that determination to be a good mom and good student to transfer over to being determined to keep my house clean. I need one of those signs to hang on my door about laundry piles meaning my kids have clothes to wear and dishes in the sink means they are fed. I personally things that upkeep on the house is the least important thing I have to worry about though.

Work is pretty easy to handle, I work at a daycare so I get to bring Willow with me everyday and on Fridays Michael doesn’t have school I get to bring him too. I love working with kids and I don’t know how I’ll say bye to them when I get a job here in Watertown. The only thing I don’t like about working on Friday is that it would be a perfect day for me to get homework and house work done while Michael is at school and Willow is at daycare.

It makes me think of one of the options for the blogs about a humble brag. I personally wouldn’t go on social media bragging about how well I’m doing in school and balancing being a single mom of two while I’m at it. There’s actually a pretty small group of friends and family that even know I’m enrolled, but it definitely doesn’t suck when those who do know about it say they are proud of me or believe in me.

Made it all the way to the end before Willow woke up and started demanding my attention. And I wouldn’t trade it for anything.