Lesson in Parenting #1

The first lesson in parenting, you actually learn about a month before the baby is born. It's called patience! Here I am, pregnant with #4, and I find that I still need a refresher course.
I am so very ready to get this baby born, and get my body back to myself - but baby is happy and comfy right where he is, and he's not budging. Did I mention that I still have over a month to go? I shouldn't even be hoping that he's ready to come yet. So, as I said - patience. That's the key.

Children make you take your time. Late for a doctor's appointment? Too bad! Yelling only creates tears and delays leaving that much more. Tired of reading that same book for bedtime, two weeks in a row? Too bad! Just try 'losing' that book. More tears. Want just one more minute on the phone with a friend, five more minutes to do your hair? Ha! The children have other plans.
This, I think, is why the image of 'mother' is usually one of patience, kindness, a giving nature... etc. We start learning the lessons of parenting long before the husband. It's not built in. Mothering is not inherent. It's pounded in over days, weeks, and yes, even months before the baby is born when your belly is so swollen, there is no room for eating and you are sure your skin is going to pop because there cannot possibly be more give in it, no matter how much 'anti-stretch cream' (read: over-priced lotion) you slather on yourself. While baby is busy upsetting your balance, and playing bongos on your bladder, you learn patience. Because you have to.

But, for all that, there is joy...

Musing

I have in mind a post about healthcare reform, since I've been thinking about that frequently this week. However, tonight I'm just a bit too distracted for such an intellectual posting. That one will have to wait.

Tonight I'm writing my little book project (I've hit 60 pages now... and the ideas are coming fast, it's just finding the time to actually write that is slowing me down.) and relaxing because I'm supposed to run a 5K in the morning.

I'm tired from working too much this week, and wondering why I allow myself to be dragged into work when what I should really do is rest, or play with my kids. Sadly, I think the answer is that it's all about the money. Got to have the money to do the fun things in life. Like eat.

When I have a week like this, it makes me think that the modern world just cannot continue this way. People (like me) are getting torn in too many directions by the things that are deemed 'necessary' to modern life. We have to have a full time job. A full time family. We work until we're exhausted and then come home and do household shores until we fall, exhausted into too short an amount of sleep, only to wake up and do it again the next day. When we finally get to vacation, we take a whirlwind trip somewhere that is usually just as stressful as our everyday life, and come back tired to start it all again.

And for those of us who choose not to work, then in almost every case, money is a big concern.

Modern life is so exhausting. It's no wonder everyone is on antidepressants these days.

I think I'm going to take a nap.

Being in the Healthcare Profession (caution to those with weak stomachs)

makes for a very specific, under-appreciated sense of humor. I'm moved to post today in the honor of the fact that I will be going out to lunch with some colleagues of mine, and it occurred to me to invite my husband who is not yet in the profession. And then I took a moment to think. 3 nurses sitting around a lunch table will not give a second thought to having a very graphic conversation about the time that someone's patient had explosive diarrhea and it shot 6 feet across the room to land in someone's hair. Or the time the we watched some unfortunate soul yank his fully inflated Foley catheter out, and then describe the wine-colored urine that the patient had for a week following said incident. Each story is, of course, punctuated with laughter and interspersed with eating with great appetite. Nursing humor goes way beyond potty humor. So I'm thinking that I won't be inviting my husband after all... He won't appreciate the hilarity. Not yet anyway.
He will soon be joining the ranks of the twisted humor society aka the healthcare professional. In a few weeks he'll be starting EMT classes, and ready to roll by December. He'll soon have his own bodily fluid stories to share. I'm so proud of him. I'm also very glad that I will soon be able to bring home the stories of stool that smells like buttered popcorn and looks like sweetened condensed milk, urine with large black chunks floating in it, and various other disgusting exploits that one encounters when taking care of the very ill.
Hope I didn't actually cause anyone reading this to lose their lunch!