Monday, May 25, 2015
Savannah National Wildlife Refuge: Alligator Alley
Monday, May 18, 2015
Funny moments overheard at my house
---We had a really busy Tuesday which included gymnastic class for the girls, an Art show at the school, art activities at the school and the book fair. All these things were happening in a 3 hour period and I knew we wouldn't be able to get to everything. In the end, we were able to go to gymnastics, see the girls' art and go to the book fair-- but we missed out on the art activities.
We have been working with Emily on gratitude and not criticizing, and so as we walked out of the school she turned to me and said, "Mom, we didn't get to do any activities!" I replied, "I know, but we couldn't do everything today. We were able to do almost everything, so don't complain about missing one thing." She paused for a moment then said, "Mom....thank you so much for taking us to gymnastics, the book fair and the art show. But.....that was the worst art show ever."
--One evening Matt was cutting a bunch of fabric for me. I really don't love to cut fabric but he does, so he usually does that when I need him. He was watching a show while cutting fabric, and Nathalie kept going in to our room to try and watch the show. However, she'd already had her media time for the day so I kept calling her out of the room. After two or three times, she said, "Mom, how come Dad gets to have media time and I don't?" And I said, "Well, because Dad is an adult and he gets more media time then you." Without skipping a beat, she said, "But you don't get media time and you're a grown up!"
Hahaha, that one made me laugh out loud.
--At Charlotte's 4 yr check up she got weighed and her height was measured. When she was all done, she turned around to me and said, "Mom, look how much bigger I am now that I am four!" I laughed because she hasn't gained any weight and she's only grown an inch or two.
-- A few nights ago, we had a friend over to play games, but Lydia wouldn't go to sleep. So I went into our closet/bathroom area where her pack and play is (still working on moving her to the toddler bed!) and read on my phone while she babbled to herself in her crib. I heard her moving a lot, but it was all dark and I was trying to not interact with her, so I didn't pay attention. Suddenly she said, "Help, Mama! Help!" So I turned on the light and she had almost climbed completely out of the pack and play and was hanging precariously with her head first off the side. She looked at me and said, "Help Mama! Lydia falling! Falling!"
Very, very cute!
We have been working with Emily on gratitude and not criticizing, and so as we walked out of the school she turned to me and said, "Mom, we didn't get to do any activities!" I replied, "I know, but we couldn't do everything today. We were able to do almost everything, so don't complain about missing one thing." She paused for a moment then said, "Mom....thank you so much for taking us to gymnastics, the book fair and the art show. But.....that was the worst art show ever."
--One evening Matt was cutting a bunch of fabric for me. I really don't love to cut fabric but he does, so he usually does that when I need him. He was watching a show while cutting fabric, and Nathalie kept going in to our room to try and watch the show. However, she'd already had her media time for the day so I kept calling her out of the room. After two or three times, she said, "Mom, how come Dad gets to have media time and I don't?" And I said, "Well, because Dad is an adult and he gets more media time then you." Without skipping a beat, she said, "But you don't get media time and you're a grown up!"
Hahaha, that one made me laugh out loud.
--At Charlotte's 4 yr check up she got weighed and her height was measured. When she was all done, she turned around to me and said, "Mom, look how much bigger I am now that I am four!" I laughed because she hasn't gained any weight and she's only grown an inch or two.
-- A few nights ago, we had a friend over to play games, but Lydia wouldn't go to sleep. So I went into our closet/bathroom area where her pack and play is (still working on moving her to the toddler bed!) and read on my phone while she babbled to herself in her crib. I heard her moving a lot, but it was all dark and I was trying to not interact with her, so I didn't pay attention. Suddenly she said, "Help, Mama! Help!" So I turned on the light and she had almost climbed completely out of the pack and play and was hanging precariously with her head first off the side. She looked at me and said, "Help Mama! Lydia falling! Falling!"
Very, very cute!
Sunday, May 17, 2015
In between the lines
Hello. It's time for a little update into our lives. Not just a glossing over update, but a personal one.
At the very end of February, Matt's OBGYN professor came to observe him at clinicals. What followed that observation was a harsh critique of his clinical performance and of his worth as a graduate student. In the end, Matt's professor requested that he be present for a meeting between her and the dean of the nursing program to discuss Matt's future. He was, as she said, "the worst student she'd ever had."
(Let me just say here that Matt is an excellent clinician. Academics are not his strong point but relationships are. All his patients loved him, he was funny, kind, and professional. However, his professor thought he wasn't formal enough and that his sense of humor and somewhat abrupt personality were too abrasive and those qualities bothered her.)
We had about 6 days between this bad experience and the meeting with the dean and his professor. He also had a major exam for both of his classes (Pharmacology and OBGYN) before the meeting. Matt studied like mad-- probably 6-8 hours each day.
He aced the Pharmacology exam. He failed the OBGYN exam.
Besides studying the last 6 days, Matt and I had prayed, pondered and fasted about this. We knew this teacher didn't like him (he's had her before) and that he struggled academically. We also knew that this professor had determined to make her course as hard as possible in hopes to fail several students, as she thought that Women's Health was the more important topic her students would learn during graduate school. (Women's Health was her specialty, obviously.) So between the studying, praying, fasting, and apprehension, we were extremely stressed out.
Matt's meeting went about as well as expected. His professor attacked and wanted him kicked out of the program. His academic performance didn't help. The dean was on Matt's side and said that she knew where he was coming from-- the dean has ADHD, went to graduate school with young children, and had also been an ER nurse before grad school. The dean's ability to empathize was a direct response to my fast. They talked about various options for Matt. The dean was his advocate.
The end result was that Matt withdrew from his OBGYN course. Because of his fail on the midterm, he had a very small chance of passing the class. He knew that if he failed there would be more severe consequences, but if he withdrew as the dean suggested, the consequences would be lighter. So he withdrew. The dean suggested he get a job somewhere other than the ER so he can learn to slow down and build a more comprehensive care plan instead of his "fix-it-fast ER mentality" that she knew he sometimes had.
What does this mean for Matt's schooling? It means that Matt isn't in classes right now. His classes are offered sequentially once a year, so he has to wait to retake OBGYN next January. He finished out his Pharmacology course with a good grade, so he won't have to retake that. He will still audit his clinical class in the fall (even though he took that course of Fall 2014) just to get back into the swing of school, then he will begin OBGYN again. He won't graduate this December; now we will be in Georgia an extra year.
Also, since that date, he has been looking for a job. 8-9 weeks after submitting applications, he finally got some phone calls. (The South just moves slower. I'm not making this up!) He accepted a job with a flexible schedule which will help when he has to do clinical hours in the fall. We have been living off loan savings over the last few months.
This has been really hard for us.
I'm sure you can imagine our feelings knowing that he will be in school another year, we will put off our dream of settling down with a farm sometime next year, having to live another (horrible) summer here, waiting and waiting and waiting for a job for 2.5 months, Matt confronting his ADHD and those consequences, being far away from our families and another year on a grad school budget. Sometimes this has actually felt physically painful. I realize that these are #firstworldproblems and that we shouldn't complain because he 1)wasn't kicked out of grad school and 2)it's just a setback, but still. It was definitely a tough pill to swallow, especially because I felt so powerless and frustrated at the same time.
I'm still trying to figure out what I need to learn from this. However, I have figured one thing out. In all my prayers and ponderings since that first week in March, I have realized that I have to stop trying to control what I can't. The Lord answered my prayers through the dean's advocacy. He answered my prayers through Matt's job which meets our immediate needs as well as the his time constraints this fall, even though it took nearly 3 months to get. The Lord answered several of my other, unrelated prayers about which I'd been praying a long time. I realized that if I just submit my will, then I can feel peace, even in the midst of this struggle. I have no idea what this experience is trying to teach us. Maybe someday we'll look back and say, "Oh, well if he had graduated in 2015 instead, then we never would have...."
Right now, it still seems discouraging and challenging. But I am starting to comprehend (very slightly) that submitting my will is the ultimate act of agency. It's not that I'm giving up. It's that I'm relinquishing control and handing it all over to the Lord.
That's good enough for now.
At the very end of February, Matt's OBGYN professor came to observe him at clinicals. What followed that observation was a harsh critique of his clinical performance and of his worth as a graduate student. In the end, Matt's professor requested that he be present for a meeting between her and the dean of the nursing program to discuss Matt's future. He was, as she said, "the worst student she'd ever had."
(Let me just say here that Matt is an excellent clinician. Academics are not his strong point but relationships are. All his patients loved him, he was funny, kind, and professional. However, his professor thought he wasn't formal enough and that his sense of humor and somewhat abrupt personality were too abrasive and those qualities bothered her.)
We had about 6 days between this bad experience and the meeting with the dean and his professor. He also had a major exam for both of his classes (Pharmacology and OBGYN) before the meeting. Matt studied like mad-- probably 6-8 hours each day.
He aced the Pharmacology exam. He failed the OBGYN exam.
Besides studying the last 6 days, Matt and I had prayed, pondered and fasted about this. We knew this teacher didn't like him (he's had her before) and that he struggled academically. We also knew that this professor had determined to make her course as hard as possible in hopes to fail several students, as she thought that Women's Health was the more important topic her students would learn during graduate school. (Women's Health was her specialty, obviously.) So between the studying, praying, fasting, and apprehension, we were extremely stressed out.
Matt's meeting went about as well as expected. His professor attacked and wanted him kicked out of the program. His academic performance didn't help. The dean was on Matt's side and said that she knew where he was coming from-- the dean has ADHD, went to graduate school with young children, and had also been an ER nurse before grad school. The dean's ability to empathize was a direct response to my fast. They talked about various options for Matt. The dean was his advocate.
The end result was that Matt withdrew from his OBGYN course. Because of his fail on the midterm, he had a very small chance of passing the class. He knew that if he failed there would be more severe consequences, but if he withdrew as the dean suggested, the consequences would be lighter. So he withdrew. The dean suggested he get a job somewhere other than the ER so he can learn to slow down and build a more comprehensive care plan instead of his "fix-it-fast ER mentality" that she knew he sometimes had.
What does this mean for Matt's schooling? It means that Matt isn't in classes right now. His classes are offered sequentially once a year, so he has to wait to retake OBGYN next January. He finished out his Pharmacology course with a good grade, so he won't have to retake that. He will still audit his clinical class in the fall (even though he took that course of Fall 2014) just to get back into the swing of school, then he will begin OBGYN again. He won't graduate this December; now we will be in Georgia an extra year.
Also, since that date, he has been looking for a job. 8-9 weeks after submitting applications, he finally got some phone calls. (The South just moves slower. I'm not making this up!) He accepted a job with a flexible schedule which will help when he has to do clinical hours in the fall. We have been living off loan savings over the last few months.
This has been really hard for us.
I'm sure you can imagine our feelings knowing that he will be in school another year, we will put off our dream of settling down with a farm sometime next year, having to live another (horrible) summer here, waiting and waiting and waiting for a job for 2.5 months, Matt confronting his ADHD and those consequences, being far away from our families and another year on a grad school budget. Sometimes this has actually felt physically painful. I realize that these are #firstworldproblems and that we shouldn't complain because he 1)wasn't kicked out of grad school and 2)it's just a setback, but still. It was definitely a tough pill to swallow, especially because I felt so powerless and frustrated at the same time.
I'm still trying to figure out what I need to learn from this. However, I have figured one thing out. In all my prayers and ponderings since that first week in March, I have realized that I have to stop trying to control what I can't. The Lord answered my prayers through the dean's advocacy. He answered my prayers through Matt's job which meets our immediate needs as well as the his time constraints this fall, even though it took nearly 3 months to get. The Lord answered several of my other, unrelated prayers about which I'd been praying a long time. I realized that if I just submit my will, then I can feel peace, even in the midst of this struggle. I have no idea what this experience is trying to teach us. Maybe someday we'll look back and say, "Oh, well if he had graduated in 2015 instead, then we never would have...."
Right now, it still seems discouraging and challenging. But I am starting to comprehend (very slightly) that submitting my will is the ultimate act of agency. It's not that I'm giving up. It's that I'm relinquishing control and handing it all over to the Lord.
That's good enough for now.
Sunday, May 10, 2015
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)