Thankfully, A Bit of a Breather

Nothing lasts forever, and luckily that includes situations that are causing massive amounts of stress on your family. After over a month of practically killing ourselves with our work schedules we hit a breaking point and Mark quit. Some of the decision was motivated by how utterly exhausted and nonfunctional we were, and realizing that not only was this situation not sustainable, it was definitely not worth it to have some extra money. If we're going to be stressed, at least we can be more well-rested while we're at it. Also, while I realize (and remember from personal experience) that working as a CNA in a care center is certainly no cake walk, this place was particularly bad. As in, on at least a few occasions Mark was the only CNA for the entire facility with about 60 patients. And then having the administration force the CNAs to sign papers that stated that should anything untoward happen during a shift the blame was all on the aides - definitely not a good sign when administration isn't supportive of its employees. Mark was working graveyards but not getting any sort of shift differential. The straw that broke the camel's back was Mark getting accused of stealing some old lady's belongings. While everyone knew this was absolute bullcrap (especially considering one of objects Mark was accused of stealing was a 2-foot-tall porcelain doll and the "stolen" objects kept changing in description), it was not worth it for Mark to deal with conditions like that. So that's done, and it's been MUCH nicer around here ever since. Mark working as a CNA elsewhere is still a possibility, but we'll see if we can find something that will work better with our schedule.

The other big news is Mark finally made his official decision about what to study and he starts classes in a couple of weeks to go to ITT Tech for their Bachelor's in Electrical Engineering Technologist program. You might be thinking that this is a very big change from what we were all originally planning, and you would be absolutely correct. After much considering, we came to the following conclusions. While scrub tech would be a really fun job, in reality it doesn't pay well, the job itself would become pretty stagnant after awhile, and depending on the surgeon you end up with, it could be pretty miserable too. So that's out. We looked into nursing, and while I still think Mark would do well at it, it's just not him. Plus, a good point that Mark brought up was that after all these years of dealing with crappy shiftwork, it would be really nice to get a normal Monday-Friday, 9-5, no nights/holidays/weekends sort of job that pays well right off the bat. The way he ended up on engineering goes back to his high school years when he was interested in studying robotics or biomechanics or something similar in college, and was actually offered scholarships for this field of study, but his parents at the time didn't want to cover the rest of the tuition. And most 18-year-olds don't think, "Okay, I'll just get student loans to cover the rest of the schooling." So Mark didn't study engineering out of high school. His mom has plenty of stories about how growing up he was always taking stuff apart to see how it works (which seems to be the hallmark trait of an engineer) and even now he's always creating and building stuff (which doesn't always go well when you consider he's also accident-prone). We will have quite a bit of tuition we'll have to pay off after he's done with school but this is a career that you can pretty well guarantee a great starting paycheck right out of the gate. And he is so excited to get started. I've jokingly told him he'd better be sure this time because he's not allowed to change his mind again. We're looking at 3 1/2 years total. So a bit longer than we were originally thinking but it'll be worth it, and we're hoping that once he has his Associate's halfway through he can at least get an internship or something part time to get his foot in the door. And the best part is Mark has the best mentor he could ask for - my dad is an electrical engineer who graduated from MIT and is very pleased that someone in the family has finally seen the light and chosen the true path to enlightenment. I think we should all take a moment to feel sorry for me because after growing up with an engineer for a father, now I'm going to be living with one too.

So now that we have that part of our lives all sorted out, it's been easier to focus on Mira. Some days the best way to spend time together is to grab a snack and eat outside and talk about flowers and butterflies and other things that capture a three-year-old's attention.

Mira also likes to take selfies with me. Here are some fun ones.

And another picture of her enjoying some "white ice cream."

I hope I don't jinx myself ... but ... I think we've finally got potty training figured out. She had a really rough patch a couple months ago when she had a cold and totally regressed to the point where she wasn't using the potty for her business hardly at all. That was incredibly frustrating even though I knew that kids can regress when they get sick. But once she got better, she's had it down pat ever since then. She's even been going poop in the potty! I'll admit there's a fair amount of bribery going on (now she thinks she needs a treat every time she goes poop in the potty but I'm still willing to pay that price to avoid cleaning up those accidents!) but she's got it. She's had maybe 3 poop accidents in the last couple of months and those have seemed to be related to a change in routine that got her particularly excited and/or distracted to the point that she just plain forgot about having to go. And I can live with that. It was unbelievably frustrating when I knew she knew exactly when she had to go poop and she wouldn't even make an effort to go to the potty - even though she'd go pee in the potty every time so clearly she knew what was going on. Last week she pooped her pants and while I was cleaning her up (not even mad, just confused because she'd been doing so well) she said sadly, "I sorry, Mommy." No way you can get mad at that!

Mira is starting to show a very thoughtful side and a surprising amount of awareness. Most days, by the end of the day everyone is getting burned out and ready for the day to be over (and after about 4 or 5 PM Mira becomes a monster anyway), and a few times I've gotten mad at Mira for some sort of misbehavior. I'll reprimand her, and a few minutes later she'll always come up to me and, without any prompting whatsoever, hug me and say, "I sorry I was mean to you, Mommy." Every time. So I'm doing something right.

The other time I knew I was doing something right was when Mira bolted out the door and ran up the street, and completely disregarded me telling her to come back. I had to drag her back inside, lecturing some boring Mom lecture about being safe and letting an adult know and needing to listen and now she has to stay inside, and she stomped her foot and yelled, "You're mean, Mom!" I actually almost laughed out loud when she said that because I'd always told myself that if I heard those words it meant I was being a good mom.

I love this picture. This is how Mira shields her eyes from the bright sunlight. She's got the basic idea.

Here she is showing off some sketches on a dry erase board. They're works in progress.

Any time Mark and I eat with chopsticks Mira of course has to as well. Luckily we found these cool learning chopsticks for kids, and Mira actually does really well with them, as you can see. Where were these cool things when I was learning to use chopsticks?? Genius invention.

This next picture is just Mira in a nutshell. Fearless, sassy, fashionable.

A fun activity we've been doing lately is discovering new playgrounds to go to. It's been nice for me to get out of the house to do something and Mira thinks it's fun to find a new place to go. Plus she just needs lots of physical activity. She's so energetic and physically active and rough-and-tumble, but she's also emotional and dramatic, so we ended up with an interesting combination there.

As frustrating and exhausting as parenting this crazy child can be sometimes, it's definitely never boring.

Late last month, Mark and I finally were able to take some time for ourselves and we went out to celebrate 12 years together. That's wild when you think about it - like, that's a crazy long time when you think about it! We went on a hike in the mountains, which also happened to coincide with the annual Wildflower Festival. So while the wildflowers were pretty, the view was ruined with all the other people who were also wanting to look at the wildflowers. Nature, for me, is ruined a bit with lots of people around. But it was still a beautiful hike, not horribly long or strenuous (which was good since Mark is still recovering from his hockey injury), and it had been a long time since we'd gone on a hike, which is something we both enjoy.

I'm usually not a fan of selfies but I made an exception because of the sceneery.

And then that evening we splurged and did our next favorite date, which is dress up and try out a new place to eat. We went to a martini bar called Twigs that had about 30 different martinis to choose from, plus very nice food. We may have found our new favorite hangout - for when we have the time and money to hang out at nice restaurants more often, anyway.

And lastly, our mutant vegetable garden. It's been unusually rainy the last month and these tomato plants just won't stop growing!

This was a couple weeks ago and they're even taller, wider and denser now.

Our zucchini plant, which so far has given us 4 very large zucchinis already.

Now try to imagine about 50 green tomatoes and branches so thick and heavy they're dragging on the ground. I think I will not be incorrect when I say we will have WAY more tomatoes than we'll know what to do with this year. I think we're going to learn how to make our own tomato sauce so we can freeze it and store it for awhile. Mira keeps asking when the tomatoes will be ready (she LOVES tomatoes), and I have to keep reminding her that when the tomatoes turn red they'll be ready but since they're small and green they won't taste good right now. Mira will point at a bunch of small tomatoes, clasp her little hands together, and say, "Aawww, it's my size!" Anything small is "her size." But then she'll tell a story about how "Me was a teeny baby, and me got way way big, and now me is all growed up!" So she's tiny but she's also all grown up.

Like I said, never boring around here. I might complain, but I do like some excitement in my life, I suppose.

Wally just wants a good nap.