the internal conversation right now

This installment of WTF Wednesday is more of an internal dialogue from my own head.
It goes a little something like this: Vanessa, WTF are you doing with your life?!

Now, don't get me wrong. I don't hate my life. (Well, not usually at least.) I am grateful for the life I have. I am grateful for a husband and three beautiful kids that make my life worth living. I have supportive and loving family members. I have my good health - well sort of... (I am giving you the middle finger right now, Diabetes.) I have a roof over my head and food on my table and an amazing bed to sleep in.  And now that I have acknowledged that I do indeed appreciate all the truly positive things in my life, I can move on to what I actually want to say.

Some days I just can't help but feel a little Meh. And some times between cleaning up a diaper explosion and witnessing a fight over a fake carrot (seriously) for the 4th time in 10 minutes, I think to myself,
"This is my life?"

And that's not to say that I didn't want this life, because I did. And still do. I was never 100% positive of what I wanted to be when I grew up. But I always knew I wanted to be a mom. I imagined reading  books and pushing swings and watching my kids play together in the yard while I baked something chocolaty in the kitchen. And there was a husband floating around somewhere in all of this too. I knew I wanted all this, but I needed to add more to the game plan.

So I took our guidance counselor at her word when she said our grades were important if we wanted to get good scholarships for college. Being able to afford college sounded like a good plan, so I worked hard and did well. And when senior year rolled around, I was expected to answer the usual question: what do you want to do with the rest of your life? the rest of your life. Keep in mind, high school seniors are all of like 17 or 18.

Well, I picked nursing. And picked is the right word.
I didn't feel nursing was necessarily my "calling."
I didn't receive a visit from an angel of the Lord bathed in white light, letting me know nursing was the right career path.
I just picked it.
I went to school. Anatomy and physiology almost kicked my ass, but I soldiered on. I transferred schools and found a better fit. I barely passed pathophysiology with a C, along with about 99% of the rest of the class. And while it took a semester longer than expected, I graduated with my Bachelors degree.

I worked for a couple of years on an intensely busy and challenging floor at a large hospital. And while some days it was God-awful, some days it was fabulous. There were times when I was doing something intense and challenging and downright cool, and feeling all empowered I thought to myself, "I'm a nurse, and I'm badass!" I was managing four to five patients a day, pushing Ativan to detoxers like a pro, and safely navigating the occasionally treacherous waters of the CNA-to-RN relationship.

But then Bailey came and things changed. My husband and I looked into daycare, but I couldn't imagine leaving our tiny 3 month-old baby (with a cleft and special feeding needs no less) in the care of someone else. Someone who probably wouldn't love her the way we do. The 12-hour shifts, rotating days and nights, working every other weekend - it wasn't going to work. At least not with both of us doing that. I found a new part-time job, and Jared and I arranged our schedules so that one of us was always at home with Bailey. And when Avery arrived 14 months after her sister, our arrangement didn't need to change.

But then came Graham. And boy did he have his ideas of what would be convenient* for him. (* = Mom's boob, in his mouth, whenever needed, no substitutions.) This guy went on 24+ hour hunger strikes if I left for a day. And even if he would've taken a bottle, 3 kids under 3?  Forget about it! There is no point in working just to pay for daycare.

So here I am.

And while most of the time it is where I want to be, there are those moments when I miss what I did before.
I miss the interaction with patients.
I miss hearing their stories.
I miss IV drips and assessments.
I miss chats (especially the inappropriate ones) with coworkers.
I miss feeling like I am making a difference.
I miss having an identity that is truly my own.

And when someone asks what I do, I truly miss being able to say, "Oh yeah, I work *here*."
Because if we are being honest, the worst thing about being a stay-at-home mom is the body language and the "Ohh... That must be nice" response you get from other people - especially women.
I get the feeling that many are either jealous of you for the "luxury" of being able to stay at home with your children OR they envision you lying on the sofa popping chocolates in your mouth all day.
{Get real - I pop chocolates in my mouth all day while doing the dishes. There's a difference.}
And while I know how hard it is to work and be a mom, it isn't a walk in the freakin' park being with your kids 24/7 either. {Especially in the winter. Please God let my children love the snow so I can throw them in the backyard to buy myself a few minutes of silence.}

It's hard work. Because even as bad as some days were working as a nurse, I got to leave it all behind and go home. Now? Umm... work IS my home. And my office is a toy-strewn living room. If the kids are driving me insane, I can't start counting down the minutes of my shift until I can leave.
Because my shift doesn't end. Ever.
And that is when being a SAHM sucks. I want to actively love them every minute of every day. But I can't. Because I am human. And they are toddlers. And toddlers whine. A lot.

So that is why I get annoyed when a stay-at-home mom says things like, "I stay home with my kids, and I love every single minute of it!"

Oh shut up.

No you don't.

And quit saying that crap just to let everyone know what a wonderful mother and person you must be. Do you love your children and love most of your minutes with them: yes.
But I think you would be hard-pressed to find someone loving those individual minutes when their child throws a colossal tantrum in church or when they find that the dog has crapped on the floor and their 9 month old is playing in it. (No personal experience on that one or anything...)
Admitting that there are times when you want to get in the car and drive far, far away from it all doesn't make you a bad mother.
It makes you human.
And since we are human, we have a limit. And sometimes that limit gets reached more quickly than others, which might be due to those very early mornings - every. single. morning.

And it is in those weak moments when I have those thoughts:
WTF are you doing, Vanessa?!
Seriously?
You busted your ass at college just to spend your morning cleaning up fruit snacks that were ground into the carpet?

It's also in those same moments that I can't help but wonder if I am squandering away my knowledge and the skills I learned while working. I imagine that I will have to start over from the beginning whenever I return to the workforce. How am I going to spin this big ol' gap in my resume into a positive? Yes, working with some health care patients is sort of like dealing with crabby toddlers, although I doubt any future employer is going to appreciate that view being shared in an interview.
Am I going to find a job I like?
Wait...do I even know what I like???

It's just that some days it is harder than I thought it would be, and I already knew it would be hard to begin with.
I try my best to love these regular days as much as I can.
I don't love breaking up fights over a stuffed Elmo and a random slipper, but I do love my kids.
I know it is a gift to be able to be such a huge presence in their little lives - something many, many women would give almost anything to be able to do full-time.

So right now I am trying to focus on the positive aspects of being a stay-at-home mom and not worry so much about the future. I hope to pick up some PRN shifts again one of these days. I pray that one day I am lucky enough to have an outside-of-the-home job I like, not just one I go to for the paycheck. And benefits. And the quiet drive to work.

So I guess the answer to my initial question is

... the best that I can.

Hire me! Buy our house! Something!

I need a job. I am hire-able, right...? Right??!

I have submitted a few applications and have recently called to check in on where they are in the process. Apparently no one is in a real hurry. The last one said, "Yes, the posting has been up on the web for about 6 weeks. We should probably start looking at the applications now."  Really?    Awesome. I interviewed last week for a sub position, thinking even if I got a part-time job, having the ability to say yes or no to days as I please would only be a good thing. After the interview she told me, "We aren't sure yet if we want to hire subs, but we will let you know in a few weeks."  Really?  Great.

I have applied for basically anything that isn't nights or every weekend. I've applied for full-time, part-time, prn/sub positions... Everything. I am just hoping some organization somewhere is hard-up to fill a position and would maybe consider hiring two part-timers instead of one full-time person. There's always a chance, right?

We have been living on one full-time and one part-time income for the past two+ years now. Granted, with Jared now having this state job, we pay nothing for insurance premiums and he actually gets some paid-time off, but still.... My missing income will be noticed, even if it wasn't all that much. It bought groceries and paid for diapers at the very least.

And we still have a mortgage to pay every month. Yes, our house is still for sale. Feel like buying it? (Here it is.)

The good news is that we have actually had a good amount of interest. The bad news is that about 4 people that have wanted to put in an offer have houses of their own to sell first. Right now we have two different sort-of options:

Couple #1 uses our same realtor and has told him point-blank that they want it. We have been waiting for almost 3 weeks now for their extra paperwork to be approved or denied for their VA loan. Ugh, government. Apparently they had a VA loan in the past at which time the husband was injured and honorably discharged from the military, but couldn't make the payments due to his injury. So that makes for a lot of extra paperwork apparently.

Couple #2 wants to buy the house on contract. We have been told by our realtor and their banker that they have good credit and both have good jobs and enough money to buy the house, but that they won't be approved for the full loan amount for another 6-8 months; therefore they want to buy it on contract. ...This gives me nightmares... I can just envision the people trashing the place and us being responsible for the headache that comes with cleaning up that mess  - both figuratively and literally. But the market in the area is becoming more saturated with acreages, so we hate to not at least consider this option, especially since they have a considerable non-refundable down payment on the table along with a full-price offer.

So for now we just sit and wait, like we have been doing for a long time. We are getting good at it. Most days I just pretend like I don't even remember we have a house for sale. It actually works most days. I have learned to embrace the art form known as denial.

I just know that there isn't much we can do at this point. We already reduced the price, and that doesn't seem to be the problem anyway. We have many people who want it at this price, they just have houses to sell. And lowering the price $10,000 or so isn't going to help those people who can't get approved for loans in the first place. In the past 5 years, the house has had upgrades: new roof, new septic, new AC, new furnace; and we have already done as many cosmetic updates as possible. The house shows great, even better now that it is staged with our furniture and void of the extras that come with actually living in a house.

A while back we even caved and bought a St. Joseph statue to bury in the ground outside the house. It hasn't seemed to have helped. But I am not Catholic and don't really buy into the whole praying-to-saints thing, so I am sure St. Joseph could sense my cynicism and slapped a big Suze Orman-style DENIED stamp across my request.

So now all we can do is pray. {And sorry St. Joseph, but I have long-since bypassed you and gone straight to The Big Guy.}

Dear God,

Please help us sell our house to someone who can enjoy it, someone who will love and appreciate it like we did, and (most importantly) someone who has amazing credit so we can get this damn thing sold already! Please help us free up some much needed cash money and decrease the current level on our Stress-O-Meter. Oh, and as You probably already know, I could really use a job, too. Amen.

Moving On Up.... to northwest Iowa

So my last post was titled "March Madness" ...  Yeah, that was a little premature.

And as I hinted about, we are indeed packing boxes. Jared accepted the position that he interviewed for a few short days ago. So now we are moving.

Ughhh....

Not so much ughhh at the thought of being moved, but ughhh at the moving itself. I dislike moving, as I am assuming most (normal) people do. All that packing and lifting and hauling and loading. Then doing it all in reverse to unpack all that crap.

I put in my three weeks notice on Friday. It was kinda weird. Everyone was really understanding and happy for us to be moving on in life. It was just weird because of the fact that The Med Center has become a little home in itself, a place where I see familiar faces in the hallways and a place where I feel comfortable (once I stopped being lost constantly). I will miss it. I made a lot of friends and have lots of great memories {and stories -  hello, I worked on 5West!}.

But we are excited for the weeks to come. We're moving in with my youngest sister Justy, who has a house with an upstairs for us to take over occupy. We will have our own bathroom and bedrooms up there, so there might be some semblance of normalcy for Justina.  We picked out some paint colors and will be painting over the black-and-white 70s era psychedelic wallpaper in every room. {Please, Jesus, let that paint provide adequate coverage...} There are huge walk-in closets in every bedroom, so we will have plenty of space.

The downside is that our house is still on the market. {Want to buy a house??!} Hopefully this spring we will see some serious activity. Two couples are actively interested and have told our realtor they want to buy it, but they are needing to sell their houses too.

Same. old. story.

So right now we are still stuck. The bright side of living with my sister is that we can leave our house  furnished - with the exception of two bedrooms. We will be taking what we need and boxing up a lot of other things. Everything will look clean, organized, and in its proper place. There won't be any more last minute scrambles to try and make the house perfect for a showing (while both children simultaneously undo all I just did). Our wonderful neighbors even offered to mow the lawn for us! Bless them.

Things are seeming to fall into place pretty easily. I like it when that happens. It makes you feel like you made the right choice and takes away some of the stress that comes with change.

So if you're a praying person, I would appreciate a nice prayer that we can keep our sanity during these next three weeks. March 30th is moving day, and it will be here before we know it.

March Madness

It's been a busy couple of days for the Solko household.

But today I have some peace. Bailey is spending a few days at Papa's house. {Aka my mom and dad's house, but they are both "Papa" to Bailey right now.} It was amazing to wake up in the morning on my own - not to the sound of Bailey trying to tackle the baby gate to get out of her room. I had forgotten just how much easier life is with just one child. Avery and I have been spending time reading books and playing together - just the two of us. And I know Bailey is having a good time with Grammy Sherri watching Elmo's World and destroying her house instead of our's.

This week we had Bailey's yearly meeting with her cleft team at Boy's Town. It's really convenient. With just one copay, we see all the specialists that help Bailey with her cleft needs: pediatric dentist/orthodontist, plastic surgeon, ENT, speech pathologist, and audiology. But just because it is convenient doesn't mean it is necessarily easy or anywhere near pleasurable to take her there.  She is borderline skittish of doctors or health care workers in general. (You would be too if you had surgery twice before the age of 9 months.) By the time we had been there a few hours, she was completely over it. When her plastic surgeon Dr. Miller tried to just talk to her, she started hysterically crying.

Yep, that's our girl.

Other than that minor breakdown, she did okay. She is right on track. Her speech is where they expect it to be and we got pointers on how to help her say difficult words better. (But for right now we are completely content to let "frog" sound exactly like a certain 4-letter word...)  She is missing one tooth on her upper right where the cleft was. Our dentist told us most likely that she will be missing the adult one, too. We briefly discussed the future in terms of bone grafts and braces and dental implants, but for now I am just fine putting that out of my mind for the next 4 years or so. Her hearing tested normal and I am still not sure whether she has both tubes left in her ears or just one. And apparently neither was the ENT who is like 75 years old and confusing and didn't know what he was doing - just like every other time we have seen him. Is it any wonder we use a different ENT from the Med Center? 

[And just a side note: We like everyone on the cleft team, but I have ZERO respect for the ENT there. Any doctor that makes his assistant call a parent and tell them over the phone that their child could have brain damage {nevermind the fact that it was completely ridiculous and not even a possibility}, is not a professional in my mind. He also did some other inappropriate things, but I think the "brain damage" phone call story drives the point home. And believe me, it is all Jared can do to stay civil when we have to see this man for ten minutes once a year at cleft clinic.]

After the appointment we went to lunch with Fe. The following photo isn't the best piece of photography, but it is real evidence that Avery let someone else hold her for an extended period of time. A miracle.

After Bailey devoured her meal and Avery got a nice bite out of my bun and sampled a few fries, we got on the road to my parent's house. We headed back to the area because Jared had a job interview for a state nursing job. He felt like it went pretty well, but at least seven other people applied, so you never know. They said they would let him know in the next few days, so now it is just a waiting game. A lot is up in the air right now. If only our house would just sell...!

We got to spend a bit of time with my parents and sister Justy. My mom always hauls all the toys out for Bailey and she quickly explores all the toys we played with as kids. That night we ate at the Pizza Ranch {because Bailey and Avery requested it} with my Grandma Joyce and Grandpa Ronnie. Both of our kids love fried chicken - just like their Papa Jeff. :)

Aunt Justy & Bailey

The rest of the month is sure to fly by.

Next weekend Jared's dad, stepmom, and siblings will be coming to visit. Then the next weekend Justy graduates from massage therapy school and we will be having a party to celebrate. And who knows, we might even be packing a few boxes in there too...

It's just another day here at our house. Nothing exciting to speak of, but boring is good in my book. Excitement can mean drama. And drama is usually something like rocky relationships, crazy family members, money problems, or unruly children and we don't have much of that. (At least usually... But everyone could use some extra padding in the bank account, right?)

Speaking of money, I really had to work for it this weekend. It was my weekend on call. We worked until 12:30 AM both Friday and Saturday nights, with a few hours sleep in between. That added up to 20+ hours of call-in pay. {That more than paid for our Christmas, so thanks Med Center!} They were very long days though. An extra-busy 12 hour shift on the floor doesn't even compare to my day Saturday. Thank God I gave away my Sunday call... But I do find that nothing gives you that second burst of energy like (paid-for) pepperoni pizza and Jimmy John's delivery. Oh, and a nice DMD. Gotta have my Diet Mt. Dew. 

On a sad note, I was speeding just a wee bit on the way home from work at 1 AM on Sunday morning and got pulled over. [Side note: It is extremely easy to speed on a empty, dark road when you are half asleep, zoning out, and just ready to go to bed.] So apparently I was going 74 in a 55. Oops... In all honestly, I had no idea I was going so fast. I told the officer as much and casually mentioned how I was coming home from a long call weekend. {And then I prayed he took note of my tired demeanor and the horrible bags under my eyes and would take pity on me.} And he sortof did. I didn't get a speeding ticket much to my surprise, but a ticket for not putting my new registration sticker - which I got like 4 days ago- on my license plate . The current one wasn't even outdated yet! [It's really hard to put a sticker on when your car is covered in dirty gravel dust and I was going to wait until I washed it, but he apparently didn't understand that logic.] So while that stupid ticket is $80, at least I didn't get the $190 one for speeding. And I guess now with two warnings, I will have to slow my ass down...

Bailey is learning some new phrases. Early Access of Iowa comes to visit Bailey once a month to evaluate her development and speech since she was technically premature (my 7+ pounder preemie, yeah right) and because of her cleft. Our real concern is her speech. She know a lot of words, and she will repeat new ones back to us when we ask her to, but right now she very rarely just says them without prompting. They were asking me if she put words together to make two word phrases or if she walked up to things and named them out loud. I said "Nope, she hasn't been doing that." And like every other time they ask about something and I say no, she started doing it the very next day. She picked up a book, pointed to a ball and said "ball" out loud. I gave her her breakfast and she looked right at me and said "Thank you." {And before you think my child is just so wonderful and well-behaved, she says it so often now, she would probably thank me if I spanked her or something.} She is also on a  kick of saying "toot-toot" every time she farts.  Wouldn't it be nice if us adults could do that and people would just laugh and think it was cute?

Avery is our lazy little lump of cuteness. She is perfectly content to just sit in one spot and not move. And if she were to need something out of reach, she makes no effort to get it herself by moving her body. She just cries until Bailey brings it to her or one of us picks her up. At this age, Bailey was already crawling around the entire house and pulling up on furniture. This one is perfectly content to snuggle up on you and let you serve her every want and need. Why go get it yourself if you can get other people to do it for you? Crawling seems to be a ways off, which I suppose is fine. We're probably not ready for an extra child to help destroy the house just yet.

Jared is working today.  And after two long days alone with the girls and no breaks, I am sure he is fine with that. Since I am still catching up from the weekend, I really should be taking a nap while both girls are napping. But I just like the quiet time in the house so much, I can't bring myself to do it. Maybe it's time to go catch up on my Y&R. Sweet Jesus, please let them find a way to get rid of Patty and create a new storyline. Oh, and some scenes of Cane half-naked would be fine by me, too.