Double Life

I've been wanting to write this post for awhile, but I haven't known how to properly convey the message I want to get across. Up until now I've probably been too emotional to do so anyways.

That title makes this sound so serious, huh??

I bet a lot of people clicked on it thinking I was going to confess some awful thing I've done.

Ha ha...

k, yeah, that's not the case here.

This is just something that I've been thinking about a lot lately and I think it's something that a lot of moms feel at times in their lives.

I WAS going to go back to work this summer. It was probably going to be full-time, or very close to full-time so we'll count it as that anyways. I was all set up to go back and do the at-home therapy with autistic children like I did before I had Grace.

I was excited to go back. My company was excited to have me back. I was SOOO looking forward to seeing the kids I used to work with. It actually made me kind of emotional thinking about how much they would have changed from when I had seen them last.

With the kind of therapy I did/that company does those kids get so much quality help, that within the course of a year sometimes the child does a complete 180 and you wouldn't even know they are the same kid.

It took Jeff and I months for us to decide that I was going to go back to work.

I cried about it a lot....I didn't want to...I wanted to....I really didn't want to.....I really wanted to....I got mad and sad and angry about it....I was excited and happy and pumped up about it.

Wow....I guess I'm kind of emotional....

Ha ha ha.

Anyways....

We had officially decided I was going to do it. There are blog posts previously about why....we need to save up money for Jeff's last semester of school in the fall etc. You can go read about that if you want.

Well.....

My pancreas decided it hates me.

Jeff and I have thought about it and we are pretty sure it's been holding a grudge against me for awhile now, but a couple months ago it decided to just completely die all together, so here we are now.

I got out of the hospital and it was literally two weeks away that I was going to start work again.

I was heartbroken.

There was no possible way that I could imagine being in a client's home and testing my blood....giving myself an insulin shot....or managing any high or low symptoms that come with Type 1 Diabetes.

I mean yeah....in a matter of months/a year I'd be completely fine to be out there and do those things, diabetics lead totally normal lives that way and I knew I would too, but to be just barely diagnosed and start work again....I couldn't do it.

Well....

Even though I was sad I wasn't going to see the kids that I love so much again....

Or that I wasn't going to be able to help a little financially....

I was pretty relieved.

Like I said......we had toiled over if I was going to go back or not.

I didn't want to leave Grace. I never do!

People offer to babysit her all the time and honestly I'd rather just keep her with me and do whatever it is I need to do.

When I was considering going back to work I was counting up the hours and hours I'd be away from her and it was killing me.

I was going to miss so many things.

I would have missed her first step.

That memory will always be ingrained in my mind. I know exactly where it happened...when it happened...the look on her face of how proud she was of herself...

I don't want to miss stuff like that.

It's hard wanting to be two places at the same time.

I will always want to be home with Grace more than anything else....

But that doesn't take away the fact that I absolutely would love doing at home therapy again.

That job was so rewarding and challenging. It was seriously the best job.

I miss those kids.

I miss hearing them say my name. Or for some of them hearing them say anything!

I miss talking with their parents.

That's why this post is about having a double life, because sometimes I find myself stuck wishing there were two of me.

One person to go out and love working and being independent.

And another person to be with Grace 24/7 and soak up every bit of happiness that I find there.

I think that's why a lot of moms choose to work. Some moms don't "choose" it and would much rather stay home, like me, but those that do choose it, when they have a choice....I understand why they do.

Stay-at-home moms don't get lots of recognition. They clean their house and their baby rewards them with messing it up again.

They change diapers, feed the baby, comfort their children, teach their children how to do everything....but all of that goes unseen the majority of the time.

Being out in the workforce, your efforts are seen and rewarded....mostly by money, but often times by other things too.

I am very fortunate to have a husband who always notices the efforts that I'm making, though. He'll always thank me for taking care of Grace or for cleaning up our house or taking care of things that need to happen in our lives.

I wouldn't be able to stay home if it wasn't for how hard he works.

Working full-time through getting his bachelors and masters degrees....there aren't many people who are willing to do that.

His hard work is seen by more than just me though, he's starting to get opportunities for the future that all are possible because of his character and motivation. I love that guy. I'm glad he's my best friend.

And now I'll leave you with some feel good mom quotes, cause what else would sum up this post?

Grace's Birthday!

Grace is officially one year old!

I may or may not have cried some good tears reminiscing on her first year yesterday.

                       From this.......                  to this.....                              to this! 

The first year is a huge deal! They grow SO much. They learn SO much. They just develop SOOO much!

Yesterday I'd look at the clock periodically and remember exactly a year ago in the hospital what was happening with Grace's birth story. She wasn't born till almost midnight, so I had lots of hours yesterday that I could remember what happened at the hospital that day.

And after she was born, oh my goodness, just remembering how little she was. Her tiny little feet at the end of her skinnier than skinny legs. They are definitely not skinny anymore! Ha ha.

Her sad little newborn cries....and how she just slept ALL the time! And would just lay on us all the time. That quickly changed within a couple weeks when she got more awake and decided cuddling was not her thing.

Her first year she was not a cuddler. If you were holding her she'd want to be sitting up and seeing exactly what was happening in the room. As she's getting older, though, she's starting to cuddle with us more. She'll actually lean back and lay with us a little bit. It's fun to see how she changes.

At her one year well child check up today she was very average in everything but her head size! Ha ha. She was 21.05 pounds, which is lighter than I was expecting, actually! So that's the 51st percentile for her age. She was the 52nd percentile for height and the 81st for her head circumference, ha ha. Jeff and I both have big heads, so that makes sense. Her doctor gave us a book for her birthday which I thought was super sweet of them!

Yesterday, being her birthday, was super fun!

We had a ladybug party in our backyard with our families. They all gave Grace fun toys and clothes. We really have the best families ever. They are so supportive and great to us. And I love how they all love Grace! She's an easy girl to love though. She's a big sweetheart.

These are the decorations I made for the party...

 Red and black everywhere!

 I made a high chair tutu :)

I strung up Grace's monthly photos and birthday poster on clothes pins! 

 This kind of shows the back of the monthly photos, 

I put corresponding dots on the back for each month.

Birthday poster that was in the middle of the monthly pictures :)

The monthly pictures that I'm talking about above are the ones I posted on Instagram/Facebook every month with her milestones. I'm going to post them here too so I have them somewhere all together. It's fun looking at how she's progressed. 

 I love how she goes from laying down not paying attention to what's going on...

 To smiling at me....

 Getting more and more personality...

Rolling to her tummy....

 Sitting up...

 Slowly getting stronger...

 To standing up!

Acting crazy!

 Having an attitude...

Being more like a toddler than a baby. 

Back to the party! 

Grace LOVES all of her presents! She's been playing nonstop all day and thinks they are all awesome. 

I want to start out with this story, because it made my whole day...

Grace's cousin Sophie picked her out a baby doll for her birthday and Grace loves it! It's kind of melted my heart actually how much she loves it....

Grace has never been into stuffed animals. She's never gotten attached to a stuffed animal like a lot of babies do or ever even played with them in general. We have plenty, but she never picks to play with them. So since she loved this baby doll instantly, it made me happy! 

We were sitting on the floor playing this morning and she kept throwing the doll on my lap, then turning around and backing up to get on my lap too. I was trying to figure out what she wanted and then it dawned on me that she wanted to take a picture!

I'm not even joking, that's totally what she wanted! Ha ha ha ha, it was so funny!

So I got my phone out, did a selfie and Grace smiled so big!

Baby doll selfie!

As soon as I took the picture she hopped off my lap and crawled across the room to play some more. 

Does that tell you how many selfies we must take?? Ha ha ha ha! 

She's so funny and so smart, I can't get over it sometimes.

Here are the rest of the pictures of her gifts!

 Baby doll love at first sight! 

Ladybug Camelbak....she's OBSESSED with my Camelbak, so I thought it was time she got her own, ha ha. :) She knew immediately what it was for too. 

Okay....so this picture is upside-down....and I've tried several times to fix that....but it's not working, so enjoy it's cuteness from this angle, ha ha. She got tons of cute clothes!

 She loves this piano. She can play it without looking, while sitting on it, or even the correct way! Ha ha. She's so weird, but hilarious!

 Vrrroom! This car has been constantly moving this week (she got it earlier in the week from my dad and Teri). She likes pushing it really hard and seeing how far it can go. She's gotten good at making it go while she's actually on it too.

Ladybug mania! I think it's safe to say she thinks the ladybug starlight is pretty amazing. We took it in her dark room and she freaked out at it's awesomeness, ha ha.

I made a ladybug cake and cupcakes for her party. The ladybug frosting got kind of melty from being out in the heat, ha ha, but it turned out okay! I also did some pink funfetti cupcakes with sprinkles. Soooo fancy, I know....I should open a bakery... :)

 Her face in this one is so cute! I wish it wasn't so blurry. 

 "My cake!"

 She was mostly a fan of the frosting. Straight sugar....can't go wrong there....

 Hmmmm....

 And eventually she found out she could reach the balloon!

Birthday girl cuteness!

This one is from Monday when my dad and Teri came! Jeff and I love this picture! Her teeth are hilarious!

One last funny story, cause this is something fun to remember...

Grace has about 5 or 6 words now that she says all the time. Some more than others, like "DAH-Y!" (Daddy) is a constant.....she's a ginormous daddy's girl.....but another more frequent one that she says is "YASS!" (Yes).

About a week ago when she started saying it she mostly left off the Y and it sounded..........LIKE NOTHING WE EVER SAY IN OUR HOUSE..........*cough cough*.........but since then she's almost always been adding the Y on there.

The first time she said it Jeff and I were just sitting in the living room with her and we looked at each other like......WHAT?!

Did she just say.......?!?!

And we kept listening......

And she kept saying it.....

Nothing around her sounded like that. We had no idea what she was saying.

We finally figured out that it was "yes" through a couple context clues.

Ha ha ha ha...she keeps us laughing all day long.

She says "yass" when she gets excited mostly. Like I've noticed when she likes a situation she'll say it, or if she gets an object/toy/food that she likes she'll say it then too.

It's kind of weird, cause usually kids learn to say "no" before "yes". And usually they don't say the "s" they start with "ya", ha ha.

She says it clear as day though - "yass!!"

One time Jeff was playing with her and said "yes" and she repeated back "yes" with the E sound rather than A.

It'll be interesting watching when she transitions into the E sound permanently, so then maybe people won't hear her accidentally swearing all the time.

And think that Jeff and I are horrible people, ha ha ha.

Oh man....I love that girl...

Extremes

I think I need to take up journaling, cause there are so many things I want to say, but I don't want to tell the world. Ha ha ha...people that read my blog regularly probably think that I'm already TOO open and honest on here.

Eh....maybe sometimes, but there is a lot more I could say.

Mostly I've been overwhelmed lately with the extremes of my life.

I've been feeling stuck this past month or so in feeling like I want to exercise again, but being too nervous to do it.

Before I got sick I went on walks almost everyday. Since I've been home from the hospital I have gone on one....

And it ended badly.

Thank goodness Jeff was with me, because I was very close to passing out.

My blood sugar had done a nose dive and I was really shaky. When we got home I just sat on our couch shaking, trying to stuff food in my mouth, and overall just trying to calm down.

The normal range for blood sugar is 80 - 120. That's where I'm trying to keep myself.

Before I went into the hospital my blood sugar was up in the 500 range. If you're a medically aware person you're reading that and freaking out, because that's TERRIBLE! I was in a state called diabetic ketoacidosis which I very easily could have died from if I hadn't gotten help. And thus why my body was slowly deteriorating.

So there was that extreme.

Since I've been home and taking my many medications I've been pretty low... usually dropping in the 50-70 range, which is really bad. That's where the shaky/passing out thing happens. I haven't ever passed out yet, but it's really nerve wracking making sure I don't.

Being a stay-at-home mom and having to be there for my daughter makes it hard to deal with the stress of going too low. In the hospital they told me that I need to take care of myself before my baby if something like that is happening.

That's hard for me.

I've never been about taking care of myself before the people I love.

Even going out and walking the grocery store has made me drop low before, so going on walks has just terrified me.

But today we did it! I got the courage up to do it, and we did it!

Being a diabetic you have to carry around lots of things just in case anything happens. That's totally not who I am...or should I say, USED to be.

I've never carried a purse around. But now even going on walks I have to take all my stuff with me.

Extremes extremes.

I'm learning how to make it work.

It'll all get worked out, it's just taking time. It's all about figuring out how much medicine to take to stay in the range I'm supposed to be in.

I guess I should point out that I'm not in a never-ending state of having low blood sugar...if that were the case I'd be back in the hospital. A lot of the time I'm just fine.

It's just a big change going from never having to worry about these things, to worrying about them all the time.

I certainly took my health for granted up until now.

When I was little I was never sick. Never ever.

Both my mom and dad have pointed that out since this has all happened. They've both said that I was always their healthy, never had to go see the doctor child. It was always my brother and sister who were getting little out patient surgeries and going to the doctor for infections or illnesses. I was always healthy and never had any problems.

I very much took for granted how easy my health was.

I guess now that I'm like this, I've never wanted to be more healthy in my life. I really want to be active and moving all the time. I want to eat as healthy as I can. And although those things certainly don't hurt my kind of diabetes, they most definitely aren't going to cure me. It's just my new outlook on life in general that makes me want to be that way.

Even though it doesn't make any sense why this change has happened in my life, I know that my faith can help me see past that.

Type 1 Diabetes isn't caused by anything I did. It's not preventable. It's not curable.

So even though sometimes it feels very unfair and my reasoning tells me this shouldn't have to be how it is, I can have faith that God has a plan for me.

God knows what I need in my life. He knows what I can live with. He knows what will make me a stronger person. He knows how to help me. He knows I need faith.

And I'll keep trying to have that faith no matter what. Even when there are hard days and why on earth is my blood sugar STILL at 50 I just ate my ENTIRE kitchen days...I know I can do it if I have faith.

All the extremes will slowly fiddle away.

I have faith in that.

Too Blessed to be Stressed

When I get all emotional and feel like I want to explode all over Facebook and Instagram I have to step back and tell myself that probably nobody wants to see that, and I should probably just go blog. 

Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

Consequently my blogs are usually emotional and I just blubber my way through them. 

Oh well...

It's my blog. I can do what I want, right?

Riiiiiight.

I've been feeling all kinds of emotional about Jeff and Grace lately. 

I think Grace will be walking, at least a little bit, by her birthday. It's about three weeks away! She stands up all the time by herself. Sometimes she's still a little wobbly, but most of the time she'll just stand there for 30 seconds or more. 

We've been giving her lots of table foods and she LOVES them! I think our days of mushy baby food are near over. She had chicken enchiladas for the first time the other day and ate a ton! I think it might have been her favorite thing we've given her. She's also been having spaghetti, pancakes, eggs, rice, fruit in little pieces, whatever kinds of meat we have with our meals, and the list goes on and on. 

She's never liked bananas. I think it's more of a texture thing than taste. I'm very much a texture person when it comes to food, so I wonder if she is too. She acts like she doesn't like the sliminess of the bananas. 

Grace has always been a good sleeper. The first two months she was very much a newborn sleeper, but that's to be expected, that's just a stage of life you have to live through. Since she's been between 2 and 3 months old she's been an excellent sleeper. 

She currently sleeps 12 or 12 1/2 hours at  night. 

Then her morning nap is usually 2 hours long and her afternoon nap is generally 1 1/2 hours. 

That's MORE than rockstar status sleeping. 

That's like too good to be true! 

Jeff and I are very blessed that way. 

Grace has always thrived on having a schedule. 

Our schedule for sleeping, eating, etc. is pretty set, but it's not rigid. Being too rigid isn't a healthy thing, but I also believe being TOO flexible isn't healthy either. 

Kids need structure. It's predictable. Predictability is comforting to anybody, no matter what age they are. 

Obviously Grace has her off days where she'll only take a twenty minute nap or will just be really whiney, but for the most part she's a really good baby. 

Her best word that she says is "Dada". I can see her saying it in context all the time and it's really cute. 

Yesterday the garbage truck came by and I picked Grace up to look out the window and look at it pick up the garbage can. She looked for a minute, but then started looking everywhere else to see if Daddy was home. She started pointing down the road/sidewalk and saying: "Dada?? A-dad-y? Dada?!" 

We generally look out the window mostly to see if Daddy's home yet or to watch him leave, so it was super cute that she had made that connection. She's a smart girl!

Tangent story about her being a smartie: The other day we were at a party and a lady who we had just met was talking to Grace and after a minute or so she looked at me and said: "I can tell she's a really smart baby. Most babies just look around at things, but you can tell she's actually analyzing and taking in everything she's looking at. She seems so smart!" 

She's getting really good at letting us know what she does or does not want. Lately she's been ALL about wanting to sit on my lap. She doesn't really care about snuggling or being close to me, she just wants to be safe on my lap. 

This is the face she makes when she wants something that she's not getting. (In most cases it's when I'm not letting her up on my lap fast enough, ha ha)

I seriously adore that picture. It cracks me up! It's probably in my top 10 favorite pictures of her. She will make her bottom teeth go crooked and get the most concerned look on her face. She usually just does a little whimper with it, which is also cute. 

There have been a handful of instances lately where she's gotten a huge attitude! She's definitely turning into a sassy toddler. My mom says she reminds her of me when I was her age. 

I guess I was a pretty good tantrum thrower for my mom. 

I've always been pretty shy in public, especially when I was little, but at home I was a firecracker! Ha ha ha. 

I wonder if Grace will be the same way.

There have been a couple times when I've tried taking away something from Grace that she REALLY wants and she has thrown a tantrum over it. She will flail her body backwards and fall to the ground. She'll also get the biggest death grip on whatever she's holding that she wants. 

It's kind of funny, cause it's really out of character for her. She's always been strong-willed, but in a good way, never in an aggressive upset way. 

Can you tell I like watching my baby develop? 

Watching little people grow and develop is my favorite thing. But you already know that if you've read my blog before. 

And last, but not least I have to say how nice Jeff has been to me lately. With a lot of medical changes and really just huge life changes happening he's been so sweet to me. He always asks me what I need in the calmest, nicest way and never gets frustrated with me. (Even though I'm extremely frustrated with myself)

I've been kind of sick the past week trying to figure out everything and he's been so supportive. 

Also, he's just a really good guy. He's being a rockstar at his job and I just feel so blessed that he works so hard for us. 

He came home from work the other day and about a half hour later one of his coworkers called him with a question. He's the assistant manager so he helps his coworkers with problems a lot. After they couldn't figure it out over the phone Jeff told her he'd just come back to work and help her. 

He didn't have to do that, but he cares enough about the people he works with and his job in general that he did. He's such a nice guy and hardworker! 

I was going to work this summer to save up some money for the fall, but now that I'm not Jeff is stepping up and doing everything he needs to do to cover that. And he's never complained about any of it. 

I feel very blessed to have these two people in my life. 

Something

I'm a positive person.

I really am!

If I feel comfortable around you I'm probably a sarcastic person, which might make you think I'm not super positive, but really, my approach to life is very positive.

The past couple of weeks since my hospitalization I've been forcing myself to stay positive. It has been hard, but it has been doable. I've had moments of meltdown where I've allowed myself to be very un-positive (maybe even negative!), but I keep trying to reel it back in and just be happy.

When I was in the hospital I sat in the hospital bed and stared at the wall a lot. I had a lot of time to think....

And in those times of thinking I had very similar thoughts to an article I found yesterday.

Yesterday I was searching Type 1 Diabetes stuff on Pinterest and I found a lot of interesting things.

(Tangent: I learned that Type 1 people want to make it VERY, might I say ADAMANTLY, clear that they do NOT have Type 2 Diabetes and they preach the difference, ha ha. People are funny.)

I found an article written by a young woman who shared her story of when she was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes and all of the emotions she went through.

She talked about feeling angry and depressed, because her life had completely changed. She had to learn to live a totally new life, but then it dawned on her that she's not so different from the rest of the world. She talked about the notion that everyone has their own specific trial or trials that they have to live with.

She realized after she had been diagnosed that everyone has a "something" and that Type 1 Diabetes just happened to be her "something". Everyone at some time has something that makes their life hard. Something that pushes them and makes their life difficult. Nobody really goes through life without having "something" hard to go through.

I have been having very similar thoughts to that ever since I was diagnosed.

People would apologize to me that I was going through what was happening and although I appreciated it, I'd WANT to say: "Well, yeah, but you have such and such going on in your life...". Or people would ask if they could help and I'd think to myself about how they could be getting help for their situation.

The idea that everyone has a "something" is so true. 

Infertility, anxiety, lack of faith, death of a loved one, difficult children, divorce, depression, wishing to get married someday, any health related issues, unemployment, addiction, not having enough money for their needs, marital stress for any number of reasons, even feeling like you're not as productive as you should be...those are only a few "somethings" that I can think that people I know face everyday.

And a "something" doesn't have to be as life altering as Type 1 Diabetes. I believe that everyone is given the trials they have for a certain reason.

Everyone has a "something".

Type 1 Diabetes is my something.

It's what you do with that something that matters.

I'm finding that if I have the mindset and the willingness to concur this new lifestyle, then I feel empowered and like I can lead the life I want to live.

New

Well, this week is definitely one we'll never forget. I ended up having to be in the hospital for 48 hours, because we found out I have Type 1 Diabetes.

I guess I should start from the beginning....

About a month ago I started feeling sick.

There were all of these weird little symptoms where I honestly thought I was pregnant.

I was getting really tired and completely out of energy, I was feeling aches and pains that sometimes correlate with pregnancy, along with other things that I'm sure none of you want to know that just made me think I might be pregnant.

Well, a couple weeks and three pregnancy tests later (I was so paranoid) I obviously wasn't pregnant.

I also was losing weight with absolutely no effort, which honestly I was super happy about, but still I was like.....uh....what is happening to me...

I ended up losing thirty pounds in about three weeks.

30.

Three. Zero.

Thirty pounds with absolutely no effort.

Something was wrong, but I didn't know what.

I was getting weaker and weaker everyday and I couldn't figure it out.

By the end.........and "by the end" I mean, right before we went into the hospital.....I wasn't able to carry Grace from her bedroom to the living room (5 steps). I could barely get off the couch without feeling like I was going to pass out.

I was constantly out of breath and my heart was always pounding like crazy.

Jeff and I went into the urgent care and ended up being there for six hours that day. We had to take Grace to my sister-in-law, because we were stuck there getting tests done all day. They told us I had diabetes which happens a lot to moms who have gestational diabetes while pregnant, which I did with Grace.

At the urgent care they were telling us it was Type 2 Diabetes which honestly made me feel really bad about myself. They told us that 50% of moms who have gestational diabetes end up getting Type 2 sometime later, but I just felt bad because Type 2 is so heavily linked with obesity, I just had felt like I had failed majorly.

After zapping me with a whole bunch of fluids through an IV cause I was super dehydrated they sent me home and that was pretty much that.

The weekend happened and I just still felt so awful, but we didn't know what to do.

My vision was starting to go weird and that scared us so we ended up going into the emergency room Monday afternoon. That's when everything got more real and scary and we actually figured everything out.

I was admitted to the hospital and they ran a million blood tests to see what exactly was wrong. After they found out it was Type 1 Diabetes it got a lot more serious and I got a bunch of IV's stuck in me with way too many bags of fluid getting pumped into me. At one point I had four big bags of medicine getting drawn into me at one time.

All of the nurses kept getting confused because I had so much stuff going on.

Over the next two days we had to learn everything there is to know about living with Type 1 Diabetes.

Testing my blood, giving myself insulin, carefully counting out carbs for everything I eat...

It came as a big shock, because usually Type 1 is more of a childhood/adolescent type illness to get. But for some reason my pancreas has decided to fail me now at this stage of life, so this is how it's going to be.  

I'm completely insulin dependent. I have to give myself insulin shots 3-4 times a day, I can't eat anything without it. And I'm on a diabetic diet too. Mostly that means that I have to watch my carb intake. It's not like Type 2 Diabetes where I have to limit myself, it's more I just have to take insulin to function normally.

I've had a lot of tears over this and I know I still will.

It's not fun feeling like a part of your body is permanently broken in a way that effects the way you live everyday.

All of my family and doctors have said over and over again that it'll all be okay, I'll get used to it in no time, and everything will be normal and fine.

I completely agree with them.

I know all of that is true. I've only been living this way for a few days and I can already see that everything's going to be normal....

But I also agree with what one of the diabetes educators told me in the hospital, that it's okay to mourn over this.

It's okay to feel upset and grieve even when I know it's all going to be okay. I feel like I wouldn't be handling it if I didn't grieve a little.

I know everything happens for a reason.

What the exact reason for this is, I might not know for a long time. I do keep getting the feeling that one of the things I'm needing to learn right now is to just slow down in life though. I just need to take a step back and enjoy all of the simple things in my life.

The two days I was in the hospital I missed Grace so much. I just wanted to play with her.

And now that I've been home with her for a couple days that's all I've been doing. We've just been playing. I guess I've stopped trying to do too much and I'm trying to just soak in the small moments in my life.

I think that's an important thing for anyone to do. It's not very fun that I needed a two day stay in the hospital to realize that, but oh well....sometimes that's what needs to happen.

With all of these changes I'm not going back to work this summer anymore. Hopefully I can get this new lifestyle figured out and we can just have a fun summer.

I feel like I can't end this post without talking about how good God is in my life. I'll never understand what I did to deserve as much as I have, despite all these new challenges.

I have the best husband anyone could ever ask for. I'm not very good at speaking up, even in situations where I'm allowed to, and Jeff never gets annoyed by that. He was my voice in the hospital when I didn't want to say things...when he knew I was scared and couldn't say how I really felt. He's helped me figure out exactly what I need to be doing with my medicine and has answered way too many crying phone calls the past couple of days when I haven't known what to do. He never stops being patient with me. He's stepped up and done everything for Grace while I've been sick. He's so supportive. I'm a very lucky girl.

This little baby makes me feel very lucky too!

In the hospital selfie

Kids

I've been thinking a lot about all of the sweet children I've worked with over the years. From my senior year of high school to post bachelor's degree....I've worked with a lot of kids!

I've calculated it and it's about roughly...

520 children.

Those are children that I've worked with personally, not just in passing. I was their teacher, therapist, mentor, friend...

That's SO many kids!! In seven years...that's a lot of kids to get to know and to love!

I really have loved the children I've worked with too.

I know there are plenty of other people like me who love what they do, but I can't help but remember the negative nancy teachers who hated coming to their job. They thought the kids were annoying....and they were just so tired of working with kids.

I switched jobs a lot throughout my college years, because my class schedule changed from year to year. Sometimes I'd have morning classes, sometimes evening or afternoon etc. So that may have helped with the "getting tired" thing....but all the same, I loved working with the kids that I did.

From the beginning of my teaching experience I've always encountered autism.

Every job I've had or experience I've had with children, there is always at least one autistic child in the mix.

I love autism!

You might wonder how I could say that, because it can be such a debilitating thing for both the person and the family involved.

So I guess I should rephrase that.

I love the children I've worked with who have autism!

They challenged me in ways I never thought possible in education.

Their personalities are HILARIOUS, so so funny, even if they can't talk.

They are the sweetest kids. A lot of people with autism have somewhat of out of body experiences where they can't really control what they are doing/their emotions...but man, when they are sweet, they are the sweetest!

I wish people didn't shy away from special needs people so much.

I think society tells us it's rude to shy away from it (which it's true....it is very rude), but in people's heart of hearts they still turn away.

I had the experience the other day to witness a friend of mine have the most disgusted look on their face when another friend said: "I know there's an opening in the special needs class at that school maybe you could go be an aide?" Because the first friend needed a part time job.

The look she gave broke my heart. Seriously, do people not know how incredibly blessed they would be if they worked with such precious kids?

Oh man.....

I wanted to call her out on it and tell her how offensive that was to me and that she has no idea how her life would change for the better if she did something like that.

Buuuut....I'm not like that to step up and say things out of my comfort zone.

I've been thinking a lot about those 520 some odd number of children I've worked with and how they have grown up so much since I've seen them.

Working with children is hard. It's not like adult co-workers where you can stay connected with them. With children, the school year ends and there they go....they're gone from your life.

I often wonder where all of those children are now.

I've worked with every situation you could probably imagine....

Homeless children, children with fabulously rich families, single parent families, multi-generation home families....black, white, Latino, Asian....learning disabilities, special needs, children who are two grade levels above what they should be....

I wonder if that little homeless boy that I knew four years ago ever got out of that situation he was in.

And I wonder if that cute little girl I taught in pre-school - who was brighter and wittier than any little kid I knew - but had a huge temper, ever grew out of that. She'd be in first grade now!

I wonder if that autistic boy who I worked with for almost three years is doing okay with his struggling single mom.

I just wonder....

With so many kids I've known, I'd love to know how they are doing. Even the one's that didn't have any "problems"...the sweet little shy kids from good, well-off families....the ones who reminded me so much of myself when I was little. I wonder how their lives are.

Well, my current little student, who I love more than any other students I've ever had is waking up, so I better go get her. I love my little baby! Being a mom is the best.