Poor serving the poor

I recently started my job working weekends at the Saint Louis Crisis Nursery, and I LOVE it.

What is it, you ask? The Nursery is a non-profit kind of shelter for kids to prevent abuse from happening in the home. Parents call us up and ask if we can take their kids for a few hours or even a few days while they are going through a crisis. The reasons vary from needing day care so that the parents can go to work, to a parent feeling suicidal, and needing us to take their kids while they receive psychiatric help.

I know it's only been my first week, but I really do love what I'm doing. I was concerned that it would be too tiring for me to handle, but so far serving other people has just energized me, if anything. I do miss having time together with Jeff and Maddie on the weekends, but the bills have to be paid.

In case you're wondering what my schedule looks like - I watch maddie during the days, go to grad school classes at night, and work on the weekends. Thank goodness Jeff and I are taking the same classes, otherwise we would literally never see each other except in passing.

For this next part, I need to do some back-tracking.

Graduating with your bachelor's is not what it used to be. Jeff and I honestly (and naively) thought that graduating would ensure more income, better jobs, etc. We were wrong. It has brought Jeff one low-paying job after another. We quickly realized that the only way to break this cycle would be to go back to school and get some kind of graduate degree.

While we always wanted the end goal to be to recieve our PhDs, I was intimidated by the competition for clinical psychology programs, with their acceptance rates around 3-6%, they're harder to get into than medical schools. So we decided to get our master's in counseling, so that we could financially be able to counsel and support ourselves through our PhD, and so we could develop more experience, making our Resume's more impressive.

Well, I'm here to say that I was wrong. And so dumb. The master's program here will essentially take as much time as a PhD program (because you have to work to support yourself, you end up taking less classes), and more money, (because PhD programs are almost always paid for, and master's are not.)

So now here I am. Three years later after graduation, we are still poor, and we are back to square one. Not to worry, we're going to continue with the master's program, but all the while, we are going to try and prepare a doctorate.

That gives me one year to increase my GRE scores, do more research, and send in applications. On top of everything else we have going on. yikes.

I couldn't feel more sheepish. Why didn't I do all of this when I was completing my undergraduate? Why did I ever tell myself that I should wait a few years? How could I ever have been so young and arrogant and naive and foolish about this stuff?

Welcome to real life, I suppose. I hope one day we'll break the cycle and be able to look back on this and laugh. Until then, I will be working at the Crisis Nursery, a poor woman, serving other poor women. At least my experience helps me have empathy.

And here's a maddie gram to brighten up an otherwise depressing blog post:

We had some bad news today...

Just when it all seems to be falling into place, you're thrown another curve ball and told to readjust. again.

We received some news today that we would essentially be losing about $400 bucks a month. Now, that's a lot of money. Especially when we have literally every cent budgeted out each month.

I was devastated. And then numbed. And then thoughts started rushing through my head about how to get by, how was I going to find a job? How would we pay for daycare?

So even though I wasn't in the mood for it whatsoever, Jeff dragged me to the store to get food since our kitchen is currently full of carrots and... baby food. While we were there, a cashier stopped and talked to us about how cute maddie is.

Then out of nowhere, he (the cashier) told me to make sure this Thanksgiving that I really enjoy maddie's first holiday season, and to just live in the moment. Just be, he said. Too many people live waiting to get from point a to point b that they forget to enjoy the journey.

It was exactly what I needed to hear.

Thanks God, for sending me the message.

Hope ya know...

we had a hard time. There was a talk given not too long ago about how a family's stuggles and their perseverance. Everytime they struggled, they would pray to God, "Hope ya know, we had a hard time." In the past few months years, I've found myself saying that same phrase to God.

But happy day - Jeff and I were accepted to get our master's! We were so thrilled and over joyed, we scooped up maddie and danced around with her around the house. Then it hit me, our hard time is far from over. Grad school will continue to bring struggles, and who know how we'll manage papers and research and homework on top of work and dishes and diapers?

So to Maddie,

I hope ya know we had a hard time. I hope you know that when you were a baby, you didn't have any fancy toys, or perfectly matching outfits. You didn't have your own room with perfectly planned decor. You did, however, have kitchen pots and pans to play with, lovingly worn hand-me down, and a crib right next to our bed.

While I'm going to grad school, I hope you know the sleepless nights I'll have. The meals I skipped while making your own. The days I chose to stay up all night finishing a paper because I wanted to rock you to sleep before.

I hope you grow up knowing how important family and education is. And how unimportant the other things are. I hope one day you realize just how much we sacrificed to get our education, so we could provide for you and set an example for you. You continue to inspire me to be a better person in every way.

You are smart. You are [so] loved. You are important.

How to go a whole year without getting your hair cut:

Step one: Have little to no extra money.

Step two: have good intentions to get your haircut, then have a baby and lose all free time to get said haircut.

step three: move to a new state where you don't trust anyone to cut your hair.

step four: never, ever, ever wear your hair down. This only encourages your baby to yank on your obscenely long hair, and occasionally use it as a teething toy when you're not looking.

step five: suck it up, find a beauty school that cuts hair for cheap, and go get it done.

(appointment is tomorrow.)

(and no, I'm not exaggerating. The last time I had my hair cut was a whole year ago. My split ends will be thanking me.)

whiteley update

I have to apologize for not blogging so much lately. The truth is, it's easier for me to share what's going on, when I actually have all of my ducks in a row, and right now, none of my ducks are in any row.

But here's what IS going on:

Maddie is beginning to crawl, roll, and scooch her way around everywhere. Part of me loves it, and part of me wants to scream, "stop growing!!"

I have been searching for a job, but have not had much luck. It's really frustrating, especially when all I want to do is stay at home with maddie.

Jeff and I both found a college in the area that has a great counseling program, and we're applying for acceptance for this winter. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

For now, my sanity has been working out. Gosh, I never thought I would ever say that. But since my amazing sister-in-law has lost over 100 lbs, she has been a huge motivation for me to get back into shape. And I have to say, having gone from my c-section and feeling so weak and hardly able to sit up at times, to now, where I have a little more muscle, it just feels amazing.

and now, enjoy this hilarious video of maddie blowing raspberries. 

Keeping up with the Molly Mormon Moms

Just to warn, this is a venting post. Feel free not to read if you're looking for something about how wonderful life is.

  Ever since becoming pregnant, I've noticed a trend. A majority of the women I knew from BYU who got pregnant all had the same image: a dewy glow, they somehow managed only to gain weight directly in their bellies and maintained sticks for legs and arms, a perfect new wardrobe full of maternity clothes, and a professional maternity photo shoot to make them look even more amazing.

(*those who managed to be honest and realistic about pregnancy - thank you. It helped me a lot)

  Here's what I had during my pregnancy: a new pair of stretchy pants... and I stretched out my old wardrobe with my giant belly (along with other giant body parts.) Because the truth is? Pregnancy wasn't perfect and dewy and glowy! I loved it, but I didn't have the money for the perfect clothes or the perfect photo shoot. 

  Now that Madison's here, a new phenomenon is surfacing... All the same women have perfect newborn photo shoots and meticulous brand-new outfits for their perfect babies, featuring pictures of themselves magically fitting into their fabulous pre-pregnancy jeans 2 days after giving birth.

   Here's what I have: a new camera (which I am so incredibly grateful for), cute hand-me-down outfits from people who loved and supported us, and a post-partum body that still doesn't quite fit into my old jeans. Shocker.

  I have to keep reminding myself that it's ok to not be perfect. Madison doesn't know the difference between professional pictures, and my attempt to act like a professional photographer. And the hand-me-down clothes are just as cute as the brand-new ones. Maybe one day I'll get my pre-pregnancy body back, but until then It's ok to look the way I do.

Besides, with a baby this cute, who needs a professional photographer? 

anyone else have any similar stories? PLEASE let me know! Maybe if we could all admit that we're not perfect it would be a little easier to stop trying to keep up with each other.