Going Back to College: A Mommy's Survival Guide

I wrote this for a college class.  Critique is welcome and encouraged!

 

For some, “taking a year off” from college can turn into a much longer break.  Often, life happens in the mean time.  We get a job, get married, have children, and accumulate a number of responsibilities.  Returning to school after 10+ years can seem overwhelming at first.  Here are some tips and tricks that can help you get through that first semester.

Time and Stress Management

Buy a calendar.  A calendar will be your best friend.  Not only will you need to write down important class dates (tests, exams, paper due dates, etc), you’ll also want to keep track of important life dates too.  It’s never fun to find out at the last minute your husband will be out of town the entire week of midterms.  Trust me!

Online classes.  Online classes are a great way to take classes in your pajamas after the kids go to bed.  Taking classes online will also help with the transition from changing diapers and folding laundry to focusing on logarithms and memorizing legal terms.  Don’t slack off, though.  You never want to underestimate the amount of time you need to dedicate to online classes.  They are college courses. 

Keep a pillow handy.  They are perfect for screaming into when your significant other comes home to a messy house and says, “Did you do any work today?”  Pillows also work well to keep kids in line when you’re tethered to the computer, taking a test or timed writing.  When they are getting into things or making a mess, just aim and throw.  It’s that simple!

Organizational Skills

Notebooks, scantrons, binders, oh my.  It is important to make sure you have a 3 ring binder, notebook, and folder for each course.  Binders will help keep your assignments and papers organized and give you a place to keep graded work for quick reference while studying for tests.  Notebooks are perfect for taking notes and doodling the last half hour of your 3 hour lecture.  Always make sure you know what your instructor uses for tests at the beginning of the course.  Then, when it’s time to take a test or skill drill, you are prepared. 

Clean first, then study.  Keeping the house clean is hard enough without having to dedicate forty hours a week to classes.  Studying can sometimes seem to be the most important priority, but if you are constantly putting it at the top of the list, your house suffers.  If you have a toddler, it is even more important to keep the house clean.  A “toddler bomb” can leave your house looking like a warzone.  Where did that chunk of concrete come from? 

Laundry baskets.  While baskets are great for keeping laundry in, they work for so many other things too.  A laundry basket can be a toy box, storage bin, or a place to keep your books and various school paraphernalia (see above).

Studying with Children

Get them involved.  Kids are notorious for only really wanting you when you’re busy doing something else.  Whether it be a phone call, cooking dinner, or studying, they are sure to ask you a million questions, want you to hold them, or scream in your ear the second your attention goes elsewhere.  Getting your child interested in doing “homework” with you is a good way to keep them occupied.  It’s as simple as laying out paper and pencil or workbooks from the dollar store while you’re at the table. 

Use your family and friends.  Now is the time to cash in all those babysitting hours with friends and family.  If you have a teenager in your extended family, even better!  Just remember, teens like money, so if you’re broke, give grandma a call.  A friend or family member with kids in the same age group is great for trading babysitting.  “Play dates” are a lifesaver on test week.

Let them eat cake…..or pudding for breakfast.  This first semester, you’re going to have the “I’m a terrible mom” feeling often.  Just remember you and your children will make it through mostly intact.  Slacking a little bit and letting the kids run amok every now and then will become a necessity when adjusting to a fuller schedule.  Eventually you will all adjust and find a new rhythm, so try not to stress the small lapses in good parenting.

Conclusion

College can seem like a daunting task at first, but once you get past the nervousness of something new, adjust to the new pace, and find some structure in the chaos, you will come to enjoy it.  The most important advice I can give would be to breath.  Stress can take all the small things and magnify them into a giant ball of chaos if you let it.  Keep focused on the fact that you are not just do this for your family, you are also doing it for yourself. 

PYHO A short story.

 Pour Your Heart Out

Disclaimer:  My marriage is fine.  I wanted to write something, and this is what came out.  A part of me fears this woman.  I think everyone feels this way at least once in awhile in a relationship.  Plus....PMS.  It's a bitch.

She’s starting to feel him pulling away.  It’s like that invisible cord that keeps getting tauter.  You could pluck it it’s so tight.  When the relationship is easy the cord is loose, it just hangs there, barely noticeable.  But he’s pulling, tugging.  Eventually it will unravel, break. 

Fucking money.

She refuses to be one of those couples.  How goddamned cliché.  But he’s hiding things from her now.  He’s afraid if she finds out about the money, she’ll want to spend it.  She will “blow it” on crap.  Hiding.  Lying.  Omissions.  Lack of trust.  These are the killers.  Turns relationships into retaliationships.  She doesn’t want to hate him.  She loves him too much.  Her heart is breaking. 

She cries and tells people it’s allergies.  Lies.  They start to become natural.  Like breathing.  Then, when he asks “What’s wrong?”, and she says “Nothing.”, it’s no longer a lie.  Everything is exactly as she knew it would be.  He won’t love her anymore.  He looks at her as a disappointment.  Not the person he thought he was committing himself to.  Someone less than that.  Same old, same old.

She knows she’s flawed, broken.  She knows that, but instinct makes her fight to be right.  She puts her flaws out there and says “cast the first stone, motherfuckers!”  They won’t.  Not real ones.  That’s so old school.  They’ll talk about her though.  He’ll talk about her to other people.  She won’t know, but she’ll suspect.  She throws out some self-deprecation to see what the response will be.  It will be a knowing smirk or a full on accusing snort.  “Yeah, we already know.   He told us.” 

This can’t be really happening.  She’s been known to make stuff up in her head.   She’s been known to blow things out of proportion.  It’s her disease.  Everything’s magnified.  Every word, every expression, every snub, every glance.  They’re all open for interpretation, and she’ll pick them apart like a vulture until nothing’s left but bleached bone.  “Don’t do this!”  She should just talk to him.  She’s scared to find out.  She’s scared he’s going to hold in what he really feels until one day it breaks, the cord, snaps and rips her open, old school, like a whip.  Her insides will be on full display for all to see. 

Her disease.  It eats away at her.  She’s crazy and she knows it.  They think she’s lazy, a poor housekeeper, a mediocre mom, but some days the energy just to keep all the crazy locked up and her chest from tearing open is all she has to work with .  There’s nothing left over.  “Get over it.”  Fuck you.  She’s tried.  They don’t know where she’s come from, the abyss she came from.  She climbed out of a hole so deep, she wasn’t sure she’d ever see the light of day again.  She did.  IT was miraculous.  IT was the most wonderful thing she’s ever seen.  But every now and then, there’s a cloud that hangs over her, and she can’t just shoo it away.  Sometimes hours, sometimes days, sometimes a month.  She can’t control it. But, it can’t rain all the time.  Lame, right?  She’ll talk to him.

…….To Be Continued.