Coulda, shoulda, woulda, maybe still will.

The picture above was taken 10 years ago – January 2005 – when Mark was finishing up his Bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering and I was starting my second Bachelor’s degree in nursing. When I got my first Bachelor’s in Business Management, I chose business because I didn’t know what else to do and I figured it would go well with whatever else I wanted to do later on in life.  That much is true – it does and it will.  But business isn’t necessarily fulfilling to me.  I have no clue why nursing wasn’t on my radar at all when I went to college after high school.  I don’t think I ever seriously considered getting a BSN.  However, now it’s about all I think about.

January 2005 

I have one year of a nursing degree done – probably more than one year if you take all my business degree classes into consideration also.  But I only finished one year when I went back to school because I met Mark, and I decided to quit school and move across the country with Mark when he commissioned into the military instead of being separated from him for 3 years while I finished my BSN.  I do not regret that decision one bit and wouldn’t trade my life with Mark for anything in the world.  But I REALLY wish I had my nursing degree.

February 2005

Oddly enough, spending the night in the hospital just fed my desire to finish my BSN even more.  My dream is to someday be an L&D nurse (labor and delivery).  I have a few friends that are nurses – some of them are in L&D – and I’ve heard it’s hard to get into because everyone wants to do L&D and once you’re in L&D you typically don’t leave until you retire.  One of my friends went back and got a BSN.  She has 3 kiddos and went to school full time through an accelerated BSN program and got her degree in a year.  They had to pay a bunch for a nanny for her 3 kids but she loves working now and is glad she did it.

  

February 2005 

My main hang up is my kids.  I don’t want someone else raising my kids when they’re little.  After they’re a year or two old, I’m fine with putting them into daycare, but neither of my kids has ever been in daycare full time.  Abbie went to preschool full time when she was 4, and loved it, and we’ll probably do something similar with Ben when he’s 4.  Right now he goes 0-3 times per week depending on my work schedule for 3-6 hours per day and I’m fine with that.  But I’m not fine with putting my 3 month old into a childcare situation.  So that pretty much limits my ability to go back to school, especially if we want four kids after everything is said and done.  #3 is due in 3.5 months and we’ll probably start trying for #4 when #3 is around a year old.  So the EARLIEST I could technically go back to school to get a BSN with the time restraints I put on myself would be four years from now -  and that’s if we magically get pregnant right away and don’t miscarry and have to start over again.  So I will be at least 38 years old, probably closer to 40, when I could go back to school.  Is it worth it to go back to school that late in life and start a new career?  Would people even want to hire me at that age with no experience?

Brenda and I were roommates for a little bit and met in the nursing program at MSOE

I’ve also considered just getting a lactation consultant certification.  I don’t think that would take more than a year or two and the classes aren’t too expensive and I would still get to help new moms figure things out.  But I think most hospitals hire nurses that are also LC’s, not LC with no nursing experience.  It’s an option, but I’m not sure if it’s a good one.

Spring Break trip to Disney World 2005

This is all just stuff I’ve been thinking about recently.  I really wish I already had my nursing degree.  Not that I’d be using it currently, so maybe it is better if I get it later on and then go right into a nursing career vs getting my degree and then taking 8-10 years off to raise babies and then go back.  I’m not really sure.  Maybe some day I’ll finally figure out what I want to be when I grow up…

May 2005

 

On a total side note, I was looking back at all of these pictures when Mark and I were in college together and I found these two.  Little did Mark know that he’d be flying both of the planes that we took pictures next to 10 years ago and now he’s teaching others to fly one of them!  Seems like these times were just yesterday because I still remember the early stages of our relationship very vividly, but in actuality they were almost 10 years, 6 moves, 3 dogs and 2.5 kids ago.  I can’t believe how time flies sometimes..  Below, the one on the left is Mark next to an F-16 and the one on the right is us next to a T-38, which he flew in 2007-2009.

3’s a crowd?

When we were in Alabama in 2012, we went to church at a pretty contemporary Methodist church.  They had an amazing child care program, so Mark and I felt comfortable leaving our kids in the child care there during the services.  One Sunday, we sat down behind a family that had 3 older kids, probably ranging from middle school to high school and I remember thinking, that’s what I want.  From then on, I’ve kind of had the idea in my head of having at least three kids, which means 2 down, one to go.  (Before friends and family read any further, no, I’m not pregnant.  This is purely just my thoughts.)

I love both of my kids although some days I would give almost anything to have a relaxing day at home by myself to do whatever I wanted.  Or to be able to clean my house and have it actually stay clean for more than 35 seconds after the kids get up.  Or to not have to repeat myself 14 times before my 4 year old decides to listen.  Or to actually be able to talk to my husband during meals, instead of telling kids to eat, or listening to made up stories.  All of that would be nice, but if the truth is told, I wouldn’t trade this, what I have right now, for the world.  I think parenting goes in waves – some months you love it, some months you don’t exactly love it – but all the thankless duties you do as a parent are always worth it in the end.  Ben just started giving kisses.  Big, wet, open-mouthed, sloppy kisses.  They just make all the “not-so-good” times seem pretty insignificant.

But thinking of having another kid scares me too.  Kids are EXPENSIVE.  Maybe not as babies since we still have all of our baby things and furniture and clothes from the first two.  But then they get in to preschool and all of a sudden you’re paying $450/month for preschool and $60/month for dance lessons and $70/month for swimming lessons and $100+/month for babysitters, and I know it’s only going to get more expensive from here!  School sports, and cars, and college educations and weddings!  And buying bigger cars because the ones we have no longer comfortably fit 5 and buying/renting bigger houses and paying more for vacations because of more people.  These are the things that I think about and that are a little scary to me!

On top of the money, I wonder if I’m pushing my luck sometimes too.  I have two perfect, healthy children.  What if my luck runs out in that department and our third child is not perfectly healthy?  Then what?  I know we’d deal with it like any other family with a special needs child does, but it does worry me.  What if I have more issues during pregnancy?  The last part of my pregnancy with Ben wasn’t exactly fun with doing NST’s twice a week and have gestational diabetes and having to take my blood sugars all the time.  Sure, I’d be willing to go through all of that again for another one, but what if things are more complicated this time around?

All in all, the benefits of trying for a third child far outweigh the risks, and I would love to have another baby, but I am a little nervous.  Three of my best friends are currently pregnant.  I am so excited and happy for them.  And I know as soon as I get one sniff of any of their babies, I’m going to want another one!

The 2 year itch

No, I’m not referring to my marriage; I am referring to my urge to move.

Mark and I have been together for 7 years, and in that 7 years, we’ve moved 5 times.  Sometimes I think I was made for the military lifestyle because I seriously love moving.  I love the thrill of looking at houses, touring them, imagining how we’re going to put all our stuff into them.  I love exploring new areas and having easy access to new day-trips.  I love meeting new people and making new friends, and the fact that I’m pretty darn good at keeping in touch with my old friends makes it a little bit easier to leave them when we move, although goodbyes are never fun.  I love all the new opportunities that moving to a new place opens up.  All that being said, we’ve been in Italy for 2 years now, the longest we’ve ever lived anywhere, and I’m feeling antsy.

This isn’t helped at ALL by the fact that we’re back in the States now for a short time, and I have been glued to HGTV full time (with a little Food Network sprinkled in).  I dream about owning our own home someday, and I’m hoping at our next base, we will be able to buy a house, instead of rent.  I would say the majority of people my age and in my phase of life spend lots of time browsing Pinterest.  I spend most of my spare time looking at houses for sale in places we could possibly be stationed next, figuring out our budget and what we could get for the money we want to spend.  I absolutely love dreaming about it.  When I was younger I would buy those floor plan magazines that were at the check outs of the home warehouse stores and spend HOURS looking at all the floor plans and deciding what was my favorite and trying to imagine what it would be like if I lived in that house.  I wouldn’t be too surprised if some day I got involved in real estate somehow, because I truly do love it.

I will say, it would be a lot easier to dream if I had any clue of where we’d be stationed next, but I don’t.  I’m fairly certain that we’ll end up back in the States (I hope), but as to where we’ll be, I don’t know, and probably won’t for at least 9 months, if not more.  Asking people to extend seems to be a pretty popular thing to do in Italy right now, so there’s the possibility that we’ll get asked to stay in Italy a little longer.  That might be a little disappointing since I’m excited to move, but it wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing because it would give us longer to save up for more of a down payment on a house, and it would also give Mark more time to get things done for the career path he wants to take with the Air Force.

So our next move is at least a year away.  In the meantime I’ll just continue my dreaming.