First World Problems...

You may have noticed I haven't been posting very regularly since Easter.  Life has gotten hectic and as much as I love blogging (and as much as it is good for me) I've just been trying to juggle everything else.

Last week, I somehow (in typical Meg fashion, really) managed to sprain my foot, and get two large bruises and the beginning of scars on both legs.  How did I manage this, you might ask?  Nope, it wasn't the canine rodeo or work-related incident.  It wasn't even any sport related incident, I somehow got this injury from moving around on a bleacher.  I've heard from others that bleachers are dangerous, but apparently to a catastrophe-prone person they can be treacherous.

Because of a previous IkeaFail, my son's room was a mess and so was our guest room because all of the contents of the shelf that was destroyed had been strewn across our guest room and looked like an earthquake had happened.  My work situation was busy and it seemed like I was constantly late getting home from work and people were challenging.  Let's just say I actuall
y told a client my Magic 8 ball was broken.  I may write about that later.

Somewhere in all this was a text exchange between myself and another mom.  She was concerned that at an upcoming social function my son was with people he was comfortable with.  As we were texting, I joked with her, "this is a kindergarten thing, not a wedding reception and definitely not the Korean Peninsula".  She laughed back as I assured her, my son would be comfortable enough with whoever she picked and that as a fellow busy mom, she could take that off her to do list.

Whether it's allergy season or the funk that's going around my son's school, we've had some type of mild respiratory-headachy annoyance and my son got kicked out of his swim class because even his incredibly patient teacher lost patience with him (this was a first).  I then took him home and tried to get him to nap.  As I tried singing the Rosary to him which is how I normally get him to sleep, he just got more annoyed and tell me to stop singing.  Then I started just praying aloud.  That annoyed him too.  Then I prayed to myself.  He told me again to stop praying.  I told him that that prayer was the only thing keeping mommy from having a temper tantrum.  He seemed to understand.   That among various other small struggles have made it a kind of tough time.  We try to smile and we just try to function.  We did end up celebrating with a friends birthday party and then giving my son a "bedroom remodel".  He hasn't slept in his bed for about 2 years and then he suddenly decided that sleeping on a mattress was good, but he wanted it in front of his door.  We rearranged his room and hopefully we are off to a better week, hopefully I will be able to post more too.

Whenever I am feeling overwhelmed and like there's so much to do on my to do list and like I'm just treading water, I say to myself, "First World Problems".  I live in a country where I am free, relatively safe and living with much more abundance than many others are blessed with.  Whatever little struggles I have are not huge problems and they can be overcome.  They are reminders to me that I always rely on a greater strength and a greater power.  They are my little "pop up" alerts from God reminding me to step back and be grateful for the blessings.

Physics and Ikea

I have often wondered why veterinary school has so many pre-requisites.  It’s amazing to me that I sometimes use my undergrad pre-law background more than my hard-science classes I took.

Sure, chemistry and biology were somewhat helpful in vet school to understand physiology and how the body “works”. But the 4 physics classes I took?  Nope- when a dog gets hit by a car or a cat falls 5 stories, I don’t stand there and calculate velocity or the relationship with gravity.

I didn’t hate taking physics, I found it somewhat interesting, but when I had to cram in roughly 300 college credits of material into my brain, it seemed like the less relevant of my classes.

Then it hit me-literally.  As my 5’2, 125 pound frame was trying to negotiate two extra large shelves that were taller, wider and close to heavier than me out of Costco and into my car, I used my knowledge of levers, gravity and positioning to get the laws of physics to get those large objects into my car.

I got a little help from a couple of kind men who took pity on me, but I ultimately got them into my car.  I backed my car up to the garage and then was able to slowly slide them into my garage.  My husband came home and checked out the boxes and was confused how I could have gotten something so heavy into the garage by myself- “physics” and a little help from some nice guys...

I then found myself just recently putting something from IKEA together.  It was a reminder to me that the offer of assembly for a cost is maybe not that bad an idea.  My four year old tried to help me and it became an exercise in keeping him safe and struggling to grow in patience.  I almost think they should put an IKEA challenge on those survivor-skills challenges on TV- it is a battle of mental and physical strength...  who knew that all those credits I took in physics would pay off in household skills.

Piano Lessons

My mom had always been saddened that she didn't know how to play a musical instrument.  Determined that my sister and I would be privileged, where she wasn't, she required us to learn how to play piano.  I didn't hate playing piano per say, but I HATED practicing.  There were always too many other things I wanted to do.

It didn't help that my sister was more naturally gifted at playing the piano than I was.  Once I was able to "choose" the instrument I got to play, I chose the violin and got "somewhat" better at it.  I shelved playing a musical instrument during my high school years, had a brief time where I tried to learn again in college and then let it go.  Fast forward 8 years later and I decided to try out for our Church choir and the choir director was happy to find I could read music.  I hadn't realized it, but my mom had opened a door to a different language for me when she made sure I learned music basics.

I enjoyed choir, but have again put that part of me on hold while I raise my son.  As I was talking to him, he enjoys music and listening to me singing and fortunately has his father's ability to pick up tunes easily.  Though my husband never had formal musical training, he's able to pick up a tune on the piano better than I can.

I now understand my mom's wisdom of starting us with piano lessons, before we got to choose our musical instrument we wanted to learn- first- it makes sense to not hop around many different instruments until you find the "one" and what you learn on piano is fairly transferable to other modes of music.  But what I realized most was while I was talking to my son- I asked him what musical instrument he might want to learn.  He immediately told me, "the Trumpet and the Drum".  I then realized that listening to an inexperienced piano player would be a lot more enjoyable than hours of novice drum and trumpet play.  Smart mom!

Keeping Sunday for the Lord and your sanity.

I tried something this Easter Sunday I haven't done in a long time.  That was to not do any housework and just have family time.  In order to do this, I worked like mad on Saturday and I tried to prep as many things as I could ahead of time, so there would be minimal meal prep on Easter.  It was worth the effort.  I didn't do much and that was the point.  We had "Easter Bunny" time, we went to Mass and we ate and we watched a movie as a family and visited on the phone with a few people.  That was it.

I've always tried to avoid treating Sunday as just any other day.  Since my internship, when I had to work most Sundays (sometimes working from 5 am to Midnight) I have avoided any job where I would have to work Sundays, even occasional Sundays.  To me, unless I was working as an emergency clinician (which I did) the only reason for working Sunday was for the convenience of some owners to get vaccines on Sunday, and that was unnecessary in my eyes as I do believe unless your job is required in an emergency setting, everyone should get a day off, religious or otherwise.

I remember as an emergency veterinarian sometimes working a 12 hour shift, going to Mass, getting an hour of sleep and then working another 12 hour shift.  It was rough.  I think the Lord had to know I tried.  When I was in veterinary school I had a brief stint of trying to not "work" by not studying on Sundays.  That didn't go well, especially when all my professors liked to put exams on Monday mornings.

Being a mom, you pretty much don't get "time off".  I heard lately that a study said that working moms do the equivalent of 2.5 full-time jobs.   I'm fortunate enough that I work part-time as a veterinarian, but my time is taken up by volunteering at school, responsibilities at church and trying to do as many things at home so my husband doesn't have to spend his weekend working either.  With taking my son to swim class (and going for a 2 hour swim with him every week) to standing outside in the rain while he has soccer practice, I occasionally think that working full-time the "traditional way" might have it's perks!  I would actually have a time to check e-mail, even if that was in a designated lunch break.

As I was trying to negotiate a utility bill, the operator chastised me when I told them I was driving (I was in a traffic jam and using handsfree technology).  I tried to explain to the service person that in a traffic jam was the only time I had 30 minutes to listen to their "on hold music" and I wasn't kidding.

My husband had a discussion a while back about why I was forgetful and I assured him it wasn't dementia, but that I had too much on my mind.  As an example, I sent him an e-mail that was basically a "brain dump" of all the random things in my mind that I had to do.  Here's the somewhat eclectic list;

"go to kielbasa store, pick up husbands shirts, do we want cinnamon rolls for Easter?  Check my doctor's message on the patient portal, send Easter card to my parents, e-mail PTA liaison about clothing sale, confirm dates with one clinic, respond to two other clinics regarding dates they requested, pay business insurance, pay business credit card bill, go to barbecue place and get free sandwich : )  make sure we schedule dates for our son for before and aftercare, e-mail that family we were hoping to watch our son over the summer regarding summer care...."  All that was in my head for the short trip from an exit ramp to the door of work, less than 2 minutes.

Yeah- that's not a completely random and frantic train of thought, is it?  I have a hard time shutting off my head a lot of the time.  When I'm a veterinarian, I'm systematic.  Over a decade of training and learning that if I don't do something the same way every time, I'm going to miss something.  Somehow as a parent, and regular human, I haven't found my "system".  I'm sure this is the way with a lot of people now a days.  I think maybe my smartphone is somewhat of an enemy.  With people being able to text message and e-mail and expect prompt responses it just puts us all the more in a spin cycle.  On the night of my birthday, I found myself almost getting guilt-tripped into working for someone on my family's day off and I found myself trying to find other doctors to help someone who was in a bad situation.  I think it's kind of sad that there were at least 5 of us veterinarians all texting each other at 10 pm (though I guess it says something about us that we all like to try to take care of each other).

We are all on a frantic rush, sometimes I try to intentionally lose my phone, but then people get annoyed that I didn't answer and my voicemail is full.  Do we remember, back in the good old days, when you sometimes had to play phone tag with people for weeks?  We all survived.  We all survived when we weren't able to pass on forwards or get instant answers.  I surely can't get rid of my smartphone (though sometimes I'd like to) but I do have to have boundaries, we all do.  My small action of taking back my Sunday is not going to return me to a day gone by.  But maybe, just maybe it will give my brain enough of a rest that I'll remember not to put my keys in the refrigerator.