Hello friends!
I started my Fall semester this week… on a Wednesday… I have NO idea what’s up with that. My 2 week break was lovely, but now it’s back to the grind. And I must grind EXTRA hard this semester. I have to commute to school 5 days a week. f i v e. That sucks.
Oh well. It’s only 16 weeks. I got this. It was while I was trying to get ready for class this morning and Zoey was squirting shaving cream all over the shower as I applied my makeup that I started thinking about the many odd predicaments that I find myself in while balancing mom life with college life.
1. My kids regularly ransack my room while I’m in the bathroom getting ready. Funny, because they don’t leave me alone in the bathroom ANY other time.
2. I have taken a 2 hour final while covered in vomit. It was administered online and it was timed. I was smart and waited for bed time… tummy aches do not care about bed time… or finals. The timer also does not care about the ten minutes you need for a shower.
3. When you’re a College Mom you still endure the all nighters that regular college kids suffer, but you pull all day-ers the following day. Imagine meeting that morning with 2 well rested balls of energy… and they want oatmeal. like Now.
4. College Moms have to have write papers with munchkins in their laps, and I don’t mean the delicious little donuts. Damn you, regular college kids and your donuts!
5. Why do regular college kids get all of the donuts? I don’t have enough hands for a kid, a laptop, AND a snack.
6. I have not gone one SINGLE semester as a College Mom without a water damaged textbook. Toddlers are like blenders with no lids… I am a pro at reading wrinkly pages that have been stained Mott’s Strawberry Apple Juice red. Resumé worthy talent.
7. I also look like I highlight with crayon…. but I don’t highlight with crayon.
8. Worst of all, I have to explain to my two favorite people why I can’t bring them with me every time that I leave.
This delicate balancing act that I have going on, is an interesting dynamic to say the least. But I will say, that being a mother is a strange super power. I could never have endured this lifestyle prior to having my kids. I attend the same university that I did before I had them, but I have better grades than I ever did before. I take 5 upper division classes at a time, and have received few grades that weren’t an A. Until this summer I was also working 5 days a week. I was on the Dean’s List for the first time in my college career, and yet I sleep less than ever, have fewer hours to dedicate to my studies than ever before, and I’m so stressed out that my hair dresser noticed that my hair isn’t as thick as usual.
Is it weird that my mothering instinct has manifested itself in a ridiculous level of determination? I don’t know…but I hope the high lasts another 16 weeks and gets me through this last semester. It’s going to be a tough one.
Aren’t they so helpful? 😉 In all reality, being a College Mom means that some days you never make it further than clean underwear, that most of my pictures include a basket of unfolded clean laundry in the background, and that I’m one of the luckiest people in the world. Who says you can’t have it all?
