Being a back-to-school mom is challenging. Actually, it is one of the most challenging, if not The most challenging thing that I have ever done in my 30 years of existence! My husband was 38 years old when he earned his Ph.D. degree and because I am younger than him, I am even more motivated to go on and take another step towards achieving my academic goal, even if I am already a mom of two daughters.
I earned my Mass Communication degree in 2004. I went back to school, for the first time, in the Fall of 2010, for the Pre-Nursing program at the university where my husband is currently employed. We only had one child then and although it was already hard to manage my schedule, it was just okay because my parents-in-law were with us to help us watch over our firstborn who was 4 years old that year. For a year, I thrived and succeeded, but decided to pause from such undertaking because of financial reason. We shouldered my university expenses which was not at all cheap (around $4,000 for a 12-unit-credit semester) and because it was just my husband who was earning, having nieces back home in Philippines whom we sent to Nursing schools, I decided to do a little sacrifice by pausing from my personal goal and letting our ‘scholars’ go first. Besides, the husband and I were earnest and keen in our ‘work’ of giving our firstborn a sibling as well plus my parents-in-law have to go back to Las Vegas, too, as they couldn’t bear the freezing months in our place so me stopping my academic pursuit in the meantime actually has lots of concrete reasons.
Fast forward to 2013: we now have a toddler who is our second bundle of joy. And, for reasons that I cannot explain sonorously, I found myself enrolled in an online school with a rigid and tough course that I thought is a good program for me. Plus, I am back to homeschooling our firstborn in her 2nd grade curriculum so with all the given duties of mine as a full-time homemaker, I just realized that I did make my life really challenging. Nobody demanded me to take this plight; it is my personal decision, and I partly blame my husband for ALWAYS supporting me in whatever endeavor that I take. Lol. I know, I am so lucky and blessed with and of him. (Side note: “I love you, Tol!” That’s our nametag by the way.)
So why am I expressing all these? Well, as this post’s title says: “refresher”. This photo below is the reason why I have come up with this post.
As evidently hard as it is for me to spend some alone-time in facing my lessons, I like to dwell on the positive aspect of the challenge. That photo above shows a regular scene of me when I turn on the mode of my being a student for the day. My husband usually comes home around 5:30pm from work and around 6 o’clock, I can already have my time to face my books. As much as I want to stay in our room where we do the homeschool session with my 2nd grader, I just can’t because little T, our toddler, will be following me around and if I close the door, she would end up banging it with her precious hands and would keep calling “Mama, mama, mama!” as she thinks I am hiding away from her. Lol. I had to tell her that Daddy is taking over the “Yayahood” role because Mama has to do the lessons that I need to do and I can sense that she understands a bit when she sees my pile of books that need to be tackled. Understand a bit she does, but only for a minute or two. Haha!
So, what I do is to just stay in our living room, by my computer desk, where she and the big sister plays as well, and I just sit on the floor with my book as I work on it and let her and the Ate play and do their own thing with just me visible in her eyes. Their noise when they play sounds music to me, yes, but it can be disturbing as well when I really need a solitude to analyze the paragraph or two that I am reading and understand what I have just read. By and by, I have come to accept that this is part of what I signed up for as a student mom. Like I said, it is very hard, but I decided to look at the positive part of it; thanks to the husband’s influence on aclarity in life.
In the midst of me facing my books and my daughters playing just in front of me, my toddler would often come up and make lots of sweet gestures (read: disruptions and fuss) as she tries to convince me to join them in their fun. It is so easy to get frustrated when you’re being disturbed, but kids are too precious and sweet to be recipients of our anger so I would rather call it a refreshment every time she comes to me and show me her antics or takes my pen away or flips the pages of my book.
Update on the Medical Transcription Editing course that I am taking: The last two modules that I just finished were Medical Word Building and Medical Grammar and Punctuation. Even if they’re not the easiest, I am thankful that I made it into acing the plight. A student is supposed to get 85% and up in order to pass and thank God I have exceeded the required minimum score in the Unit Tests and Module Exams. I also did well on the regular quizzes, too, that are recorded in a separate sheet.
Medical terminologies and medical grammar are not like the ordinary English grammar that we learn in school. I was so stunned to meet new words that were so alien to me and for many times, I feel like retreating already, but the husband’s support is so overwhelming that he always tells me to take things lightly and not stress myself about it. I would always get worried when I couldn’t finish a page or two in a day as it would delay my progress based on the school’s completion report tracker but the husband’s assurance that it is okay if I couldn’t finish the program on time because the more important thing is take a rest when the body and mind are really physically drained already. Which is the case many times during the week! Lol.
Anyway, I am on the 7th module now, 17 modules more to go, and the even harder ones to deal with are still on the way! HAH! Whatever way I shall take in dealing with this, only God’s providence of strength and wisdom, my husband’s incomparably amazing support, and my love for my daughters and theirs to me can bring me to where I want to go and what I want to achieve. Of course, the thoughts and wishes from my extended family and friends like you also matter. Thank you! 