2nd Day Confusion...

I admit that it has been hard for me to let Allan go. I keep thinking that I know I cannot just walk him to class every day, but at the same time; how do I just drop him off at the door and let him walk into the school all alone and take himself to class? I realize this makes me sound like a crazy person, but it has been on my mind. Rich walked him to class yesterday for his 2nd day of school because he wanted to meet his teacher and see his classroom. Allan showed him that he knew exactly where to go and that we would not have to worry anymore. It made me feel better about it all.
The day dragged on forever, even though we had a lot of things to do to get our bills paid. We went to pick up Rich's check, went to the bank, paid our van payment, took Aaron out for lunch and then did our shopping. I still had almost two hours before it was time to go pick him up. Aaron took his nap and I ended up leaving ten minutes before I had to for us to walk and get Allan lol. We had to wait 15 minutes outside the school. Then it was 3:20 before Allan's class ever came out! I saw his teacher finally and like 7 or so kids in the line, but no Allan.
She asked who I was there to pick up and I told her. She looked and realized he was not in the line. She said "Oh no! I bet he went in the bus riders line!" She turned to go in the school to find him. Just as she did this, he came out the door. She asked him what happened and he told her he did not know where she was. She told him how important it was for him to pay attention and to be in the right line and always watch to see where she is and know where to go. Then she told him he gave her and his mommy a heart attack! The whole incident was maybe like two or three minutes. I was relieved that he came right out and everything was fine.
I have had a talk with him again about how important it is to pay attention to his teacher and to do what she tells him to. He said he was just in the classroom I guess and did not realize everyone left. I just think it is crazy how worried I was about him finding his classroom that I never thought there would be a possibility that he did not come out when he was supposed to! I realize it was just a mix up and that it was only the 2nd day. It will be better once he gets into the routine and knows what to expect while at school. I am just glad I did not overreact at all or get upset. I did get worried for that split second before he walked out the door but I really did not think he would have gotten on a bus.

My kindergartener!

Today was Allan's first day of kindergarten! I was really proud of him this morning. He woke right up when the alarm went off and did everything I asked him to do to get ready for school. He was so excited about packing his lunch. He even let me take a picture of him without getting mad at me lol. I did offer him a piece of gum for letting me do it. The kid hates pictures!
Here is my kindergartener getting ready to walk to school:


Aaron did not want to be left out:

I went with him for the first hour. It was mostly the kids coloring while the parents all had to fill out a bunch of paperwork. His teacher's name is Mrs. Pierron. She read the kids a story and then they did a little hand print activity with the parents. Then it was time for parents to leave. At first Allan looked a little sad but then he heard the teacher say they were going to go on a tour of the school and then play outside. He gave me a huge hug, a million kisses and then I walked out the door. I was pretty sad about it. Especially because there was another boy in there crying when his mom left.

On another note, I started back to school too. I think I'm going to do well in my first class. Time will tell!

Learning Teams!

My academic adviser told me that it would be smart to take a couple workshops this week before starting in on my class next week. I agreed, so I am taking two of them.
Each one is only 3 days long. One is basically understanding the similarities between going for an Associate's Degree and a Bachelor's Degree. The other is about Learning Teams.
I'm starting to be a little nervous about working with a Learning Team. Basically, I will be working with 2-4 other students in each class to complete assignments. Of course there will be work I have to do on my own, but there will be quite a bit that I have to do with the Learning Team. It counts for 30% of my grade. Basically, the work I do in the class can potentially affect 30% of someone else's grade in that class, and that 30% of my grade will be based on work someone else will do in the class. That is quite a bit of responsibility! It will also take a lot of effective communication and trust in total strangers with whom I only communicate with online to do well in each class.
It is overwhelming to think about but I think it might get better once I am actually in the class and actually involved in the team work. Pretty much I have a case of fear of the unknown right now lol.

Back to college I go!

Next Tuesday I will be back in school. One week before Allan starts kindergarten. In a way, I'm looking forward to going back because it will give me something productive to do during Aaron's nap time. At the same time, I remember how stressful it was the first time. For my bachelor's degree I'm going for Human Resource Development. I will only have to take one class at a time instead of two and each class will be 5 weeks instead of 9.
With there only being a week before my class starts I was hoping it would show up on my student website by now. I'd like to get a glimpse of what I'm getting into so that I can prepare for it. I'm a little nervous about working with learning teams though because I have heard both good and bad things about it. Basically I will be working on projects with a group of other students and if one person does not do their part it affects the entire team's grade. For my Associate's degree I never had to work with learning teams. I realize a big thing about it is communication and the best way to be good at communication is to be in a situation where you have to rely on other people and work as a team. I'm just a little nervous about it.
I'm sure I'll be a little stressed next week trying to get back in the swing of things but I know that no matter what, everything will work out.
I've always done well in school and even though college is a lot harder than high school was, I still got good grades and did really well. I think it is a little more difficult to do online college than it would be to go to a campus. Mainly the fact that it is up to me to do what I have to do. I have to be motivated to get my work done and do it on time. There is no one there to tell me what to do. It is all up to me to get online, do the reading and follow my course syllabus.
Some nights I remember just sitting here staring at the computer screen knowing how tired I was but that I needed to get my work done. To be successful in an online college a person has to have motivation to stick with it and do what needs to bed done. If I didn't know that I'd stick with it and give 100% to my work than I never would have went in debt for the tuition lol. I feel really good about how far I've come.

PCOS

I posted before about starting to take Zoloft for my anxiety. I actually think in the week I have been on it that I am starting to notice a difference. I'm not so nervous at night and I do not jump at every little noise. I go to bed and do not toss and turn as much and worry about all the "what ifs" that can happen in the middle of the night.
As much as I hate having to take medicine, I realize that I need to and that if I want to be a normal person I'm going to just have to deal with the fact that I need help. I cannot control my anxiety/depression on my own as much as I want to. Being so afraid and nervous all the time was causing me to go into a depression and until I've noticed a change in myself the last few days, I did not realize I even had depression.
Today I got really down again though. After all the thoughts I had last night about being a mom and everything it has taken for me to have my babies I still had some sadness left over this morning. When I got the mail there was a letter from my doctor. I have been told in the past that there is a possibility that I have PCOS, poly-cystic ovarian syndrome. I was never really tested for it, but I pretty much thought it is what I had after researching about it.
The letter today confirmed it for sure. Now I have to start taking another medicine every day. All my tests were completely normal except for my insulin levels. It is due to my PCOS. Now after hating the idea of being on medicine at all I am going to have to take a total of three pills a day. The Metformin they gave me has to be taken twice a day.
I really don't know what the big deal is to me about taking medicine. I just don't like having to I guess. I'm going to do what I need to though to get myself healthy. I need to do this not only for myself, but for my kids. They deserve a mom who can give them 100% and if I'm letting my anxiety control my life and not doing something about my other health problems, than I am not doing what I need to for them.
I didn't really mean for these past few blog posts to be all down and negative. It just helps me to get my thoughts down. Tomorrow is a new day, it is also payday. I have a fun weekend planned and hopefully I can put all this negativity away for now and enjoy my time.

Don't know where this came from...

This is something that I have not really talked to Rich about. Not that I don't think he would be supportive, because I know he would. It is just something I have kept to myself. If people read it, or even if he does, that is fine because I can better explain myself by writing anyway. It's not like I'm trying to keep it a secret, I just don't want people to tell me "not to let things get to me."
Most people that know me knows I had to take fertility drugs to get pregnant with Allan. Rich and I tried for two years and I could not get pregnant. I did not ovulate. My first, 2nd and 3rd ultrasounds showed twins. Rich and I got to hear two separate heartbeats and dream of what it would be like to have two babies. That third time I went in for my ultrasound, one twin was much bigger than the other. I asked the U/S tech if that was normal and why it would be that way. She told me she was sorry but there was no longer a heartbeat for my other baby.
That took me a lot longer to get over than I think anyone actually realized. Of course Rich and my family were all upset too, but it affected me for a long time. I hated people telling me "At least you still have one baby." The does not make losing my other baby any easier. My pregnancy was considered high risk after that. I was told there was a chance I could lose Allan too. Allan also had heart arrhythmia. Luckily he outgrew it a few weeks before he was born.
When Allan was a year and a half I got back on fertility medicine. Rich and I wanted another baby. It did not work this time. Even after seeing a specialist I was told I would not be able to have anymore babies. What a surprise when I found out almost a year later that I had gotten pregnant again! I consider Aaron a true miracle. I had no fertility treatments or anything. It happened naturally.
All those years of not being able to have a baby, losing a baby, then having a baby, and then being told I never would have another and finally having another was a major up and down roller coaster ride for me. I'm sure it was for Rich also, but he does not express his feelings the way I do. We had many many discussions about whether I should get my tubes tied or not. I felt like I should because of everything we had been through. I did not want to have to go through it anymore. I did not ever want to have a C-Section again. I felt like financially it was a good choice to make as well. It is not cheap to raise a child! LOL. I also felt that it would be better to only have two children to divide my attention between. There were many many reasons Rich and I made our decision and I know we made the right one.
Even after all of this, there are times when it just hits me out of nowhere that I will never be pregnant again. I'll never have another baby. Aaron is already almost 2, Allan is 5. Of course they still need me, but for the most part they are pretty independent. I just have times where I get really sad about the idea of not having anymore kids. Do I regret getting my tubes tied? No, absolutely not. I still stand by all of those reasons I made my decision. If I could go back in time, I would still have done the same thing. I know I made the right choice.
I still get sad over it sometimes though. It just hits me sometimes that as much as I wanted to be a mom before I was one, as hurt as I felt when I had such trouble and as much as I grieved over losing Allan's twin; I still made the choice to never have a baby again. Maybe no one really understands how I can say I'm sad about a choice I made that I don't regret making. It is hard for me to even understand or explain. This is why I'm letting it all out here instead of trying to explain it to someone else.
Tonight was just a tough night for me emotionally. I babysat for Lilly and after she and both my boys went to sleep I just had too much time on my hands to think.

Mommy brag!

I'm the kind of mom who makes a big deal out of all the cute things my kids do. I can't help it, it's just who I am. I've probably blown up the news feed on facebook more than I should about posts about my kids, but I don't care.
Today I was drawing with Allan and Aaron and Aaron was scribbling like a crazy man. So I took his hand and showed him how to make a circle. I showed him a few times and instead of scribbling back and forth like he had been, he scribbled circles all over the paper.
I just really thought it was neat :) Here are Aaron's circles :