Go Time!

This New Year has already been crowded with curve balls and I’m only 15 days in.  A dreadfully long list of goals for 2012 means I have an even longer to-do list.  An incredibly sick toddler makes starting back to school complicated, not to mention makes Mommy feel guilty, helpless and worried.  A romantic wedding planned for 8 months from now is encouraging detail after detail to sprint laps through my brain day and night.  Wait. Did I say planned? Wishful thinking.  A not-yet-planned wedding is wreaking havoc on my previously occupied brain.  Back to school is... currently inconvenient.  Class schedules which significantly clash with day care drop off and pick up times tempt my perverse desire to time travel.  These are just a few examples of some problematic circumstances which have required some hefty problem solving skills on my part in the first two weeks of 2012. 

Let me be clear...

I am the BIGGEST advocate of education and life-long learning.  I plan to begin attaining my business degree (part-time, while working) post graduation in the coming fall, and that certainly isn’t my final educational goal.  This is something I will elaborate on more in the coming months as this is something soon-to-be-hubby and I will be doing together.  

Dum, dum, da-dum... honestly, I am really not the “bride type”.  I am a marriage type (if there is such a type), but the one day isn’t it for me.  I am all about every minute that follows the big day.  With that said, am I over the moon thrilled to be planning our wedding? YES, event planning happens to be a personal and professional area of interest for me.  That’s right, even our wedding will benefit from our creative marketing backgrounds. 

Day care.  I have such a love-hate relationship with this service which, is intended to offer convenience and care.  Is it convenient that Hubby-to-be is able to go to work, and I am able to finish school?  Absolutely, and we are grateful to have found the perfect place for our Bean to spend so much of her time.  She has friends and even a best friend, too.  The programs are educational based, meals are organic and healthy, and her day is structured identical to our home routine.  Yet, as pleased as I am with our day care facility, I will never be convinced that care outside of the home is better or even on par with the benefits a child receives while being cared for at home with a parent. Is it convenient that day care happens to harvest more germs daily than a hand rail in a Toronto subway?  It seems to be the same cycle every week.  We send our little Bean sprout to day care Monday morning healthy as a miniature ox.  By Wednesday she has an ear infection, cold, flu, fever, or a combination of two or three.  We spend the rest of the week playing guessing games to get her healthy for the following Monday.  Repeat.  We miss work/school days, and our poor babe is up and down like a yo-yo.  I am told this cycle will eventually end and our daughter will begin to develop her own immunities, yet because she is relatively fresh to day care, she has yet to build a strong immune system.  It has been nearly five months, and the three of us are quickly becoming worn out.  Most recently we have experienced a terrible flu, dehydration, constipation which has landed us in the hospital with a sick little girl three times in the last two weeks.  Imagine how thrilled we are to send our finally mended babe off to day care tomorrow?  I know what you’re thinking, (and you’re right) I should choose a better attitude, though I think I would be better equipped to do so if I could be in two places at once.  

Is planning a wedding, being 15 weeks shy from finishing a second college diploma, and raising the most amazing toddler in the world all wonderful blessings to be entirely grateful for?  Yes.  Yes, a million and one times, to the moon and back, yes.  Did I need to do all of these things at once?  Probably not, that’s my thing though.  When I want something, I want it now, and I won’t quit.  Lately though, this way of doing things is wearing me out and making me feel less like a super hero.  I have been having difficulty keeping all of my upcoming goals and milestones visualized.  They have all been on my mind forcing awkward moments of blank stares thought which provokes hubby-to-be to ask “what ARE you thinking?”  I then ask myself, the same question.  

It’s like this; I am in the final stretch.  I have set these goals, and made it more than half way successfully, all I have left to do is maintain stamina and see the necessary steps through.  I can and will do this.  Today my daughter and I sat down at the table and made a colossal chart categorized by month.  We filled in the major milestones for each month from birthdays, to potty training, graduation, new vehicle purchases, to acquiring a house instead of the condo.  We included our wedding, the “family-moon  Being able to visualize by month each of these significant events for this new current year calmed my nerves and allowed me to gain necessary perspective again.  We hung the chart in our bedroom as an inspirational tool designed to fuel each required step.  

8 weeks left until I begin my career opportunity search, 14 weeks until Bean turns two years old, approximately 15 weeks until I am finished college, and 229 days until I say “I do”.  It’s go time.