Just a little retrospect about Semester 1.

My purpose here is to be completely honest.

That said, I am done with my first semester as a nursing student. In a week, I will be starting my second semester. Now that I've received my final grades, I feel that it's okay to talk about this fact. About a week before the semester ended, I contemplating writing about how I was almost finished, about how I thought I was going to pass, but I held back. I felt so superstitious, like I was going to jinx myself if I went down that road!

Again, I'm going to be honest. This semester was completely rough. There were many, many times that I felt like giving up. At least once a week I asked myself if I could really do this, if I really could get through school and be a nurse. I'm sure there are some nursing students who automatically snap up the information and see how logical it all is or already have prior experience with nursing care, but that's not me. I have no experience with health care. I've been to the hospital once, to have my baby. I think getting through my first semester of nursing school the hardest thing I've done in my life and not given up on. There were times when I seriously just did not pick up the phone or call people. I just couldn't. 

It was hard, but there are so many good things about this semester too. I met so many wonderful, wonderful people and I finally feel like I have a group of people that I belong with. We are all different and have great personalities. My nursing buddies are all such wonderful people. I love you all and thank you for accepting my quirks and myself, because I know I can be an anxiety-ridden basket-case. I have wonderful instructors that may or may not think that I am a little obsessive about breastfeeding, but encourage me to be passionate about it and are so helpful when it comes to incorporating it into my school work. We all have something we are passionate about! I also enjoyed being a part of our nursing student RSO. They do a lot of great, helpful, and also fun things in the community.

Why was this semester hard though? In retrospect, I'd say it would have to be lack of sleep, not having a partner who has time to help, and financial issues. I have to look at the hard things in order to realize the good things, and in order to think more positively about those things next semester.

I'm serious about sleep. When I didn't have a child, sleep was stupid. Honestly, a waste of my time. I'd rather be up, rather be doing something. Now, sleep is glorious. However, my nursing program is not for late-risers. I got up at 5:30am one day and 7:00 three other days this semester, and was going to bed late because of homework or simply trying to relax after a day of classes and doing household things and helping with the baby. I was also working a couple hours at a food pantry on Thursdays, which meant I was getting up at 8am at the latest. Then, it seemed on Fridays, I either had an appointment or something else important to do, so I didn't get to sleep in on that day either. I think I averaged about 6 hours of sleep a night for the entire last semester. I don't have any advice, if other parents are looking for advice, about how to remedy this. For me, it came down to either not doing homework or not relaxing. Honestly, student parents need to relax at some point or you will not succeed. You will be burned out, so burned out that it just doesn't matter to you anymore. Sure, there will be those bright, flickering moments when you realize that getting through school would be a wonderful, life changing move for your family, but when people are burned out, stressed out, and feeling down, they don't always make the right decisions. So I made sure I had my homework done, but I stayed up later relaxing. I read a book or watched some television. I watched four seasons of Battlestar Galactica in my final weeks when maybe I should have been cramming. That's what got me through it though, taking some time off for myself, and then not beating myself up for it. When students take time off and they have kids and it seems like so much is riding on completing that education, I think they are going to feel guilty like I did. Just feel a little less guilty. We deserve it and we need it. I still got A's and I still learned important things about nursing, even if I stared mindlessly at a TV for quite a while. 

Being a student parent is tough, but there are a lot of student parents out there, myself included, who have a partner that goes to school to. What does this amount to? Well, caffienated, half-dead lifeforms, and a house that is better classified as a disaster-hole rather than a home. We wage war with the dishes every day. We wage war with crackers on the carpet, and battle the piles of laundry strewn about the house. I really do mean strewn about the house too, everywhere. The result? Usually we skulk back to the couch and give up because we are exhausted. This is a fact of life. After all, between the homework and the relaxing and the child and the volunteering and the working, is there really time to be Ms. Suzie Homemaker? No. Occasionally, on a weekend, when we regained our strength, we could at least make the house look presentable. I truly, truly envy those who have a partner who has the time and energy to clean up those messes because I know my boyfriend and I just weren't those people this last semester. We tried to help the other one out, but it just seemed like an avalanche and it just kept coming. It wasn't the end of the world, but a nice environment makes a big difference when you are living in it and studying in it. It's more stressful to have a dirty house than I ever imagined. Those of you who are single parents, you amaze me, and you are my heroes. You deal with so much more of this kind of thing, and some of you actually manage to accomplish what two people cannot. If you don't accomplish it and you are a single parent, I don't think anyone is blaming you. If they do, they can jump off a cliff, because they are obviously not very emphathetic.

A dirty, stressful house is the kind of thing I don't think most of us consider before we have children. Well, I am telling you, my childless friends, consider it. Consider how fast you can clean your house because that is truly a skill you will value when you do have kids. Either that, or you will fantasize about the day when they are old enough to do the cleaning for you. I now understand the slave-labor economics of childhood chores. 

Of course, there are also financial issues. We have student loans to help house and feed us and pay for classes and materials. The other things though, like my car that is almost as old as I am, make me wish that I had a steady job so I could earn a paycheck and pay for things now. I have a work study position, but really, it's hard for me when I am so busy to fit time in to actually go to work and make money. I even like my job. I had two work study jobs this year actually and I liked all my bosses. They are wonderful people to work for and very flexible. I use the work study money to hopefully make enough to cover expenses that I can't consider entirely necessary, like junk food so I can feed my stress-eater urges (I don't endorse this, I've gained 12lbs). I could never try to make enough money on work study between my obligations at home and my classes to actually pay bills. Maybe some people are stronger than me, but I can't do it. My boyfriend and I can't afford to get real jobs because we have a child and too much homework. I felt burnt out with just my workload and little bit of work I was doing. Sometimes I am a little jealous when I look at other things that people have, like their cars or that they can afford to live in nicer places. Our place isn't so bad though and could be worse, and my car still runs and gets us places. Those people with those things have different circumstances though, and even if I just went and got a minimum wage job or something, it would be really difficult I think to be able to pay for all those things anyway. So, my best job is to keep on earning this degree, despite the stress. Despite the fact that I would dearly love not just to have a better car, but two cars so our schedules would be more relaxed, it's not possible. It will happen someday though. I have to believe that things will get better. They might get worse before they get better, but I can deal with it.

There is something else really important I learned about too, that wasn't academic either. When you are struggling with something really big, you need to find reasons to do it for yourself, as well as those around you. Saying I wanted to be a nurse to help give my daughter a good life was a powerful motivator, but at times, wasn't enough. I had to think about why I wanted to become a nurse for me. I want to be a nurse so I can help people, so I can have a good job where something new happens everyday, and hopefully some kind of stability. I thought about that every time I thought about quitting. There are reasons why we are where we are, usually reasons that we control. Not everything is fair, but at least in our own thoughts, we should be able to be fair and truthful with ourselves. 

So now it's done, on with the next one! I don't have a lot of hopes that I will be able to update this any more frequently throughout the summer, but I'll try. :)

Your monthly update is brought to you by "free time".

I am now of the opinion that you don't really know how hard something is going to be until you've done it. No amount of so-called preparation or advice can truly prepare someone for something difficult.

Such is nursing school with a toddler.

I have been in my first semester of nursing school for nearly a month. There are several things I have learned:

1. Studying in your house with your toddler awake is impossible.
2. The only way to get everything done is to either A) get less sleep or B) spend nearly every waking moment (without toddlers being awake as well) doing homework.

Pertaining to the first item of note, toddlers are very active, or at least mine is. If I sit down with a textbook, she automatically assumes that it is story time, regardless of the fact that it is 1300+ pages and has pictures of people inserting catheters. Another scenario would be that her daddy will be watching her, and I am sitting on the couch while they play together. This should be an easy way for me to get my work done but it's not. I am constantly watching her. Studying in another room is no good either because I can still hear her. So, apart from taking some notes one day, I accomplish everything at night, during naps, or during the couple hours that she is in daycare and I am at school but not in classes.

Relating to both notes of interest, for the first two weeks I believe I stayed up until 1am each night, something I haven't done in a very long time. I watched videos, read hundreds of pages of my textbooks, and completed a few minor assignments. I actually started highlighting in my textbooks, something I haven't done in the years I have been in college. Nursing textbooks are not books that are usually sold. Nursing students keep them around to study from and research in, so it's advantageous to just mark up all the interesting things because by the time a nursing student may think about parting with them, there will probably have been at least five other editions released.

Another thing I have learned is that nursing school is very anxiety-inducing, at least for me. I've already had a panic attack, but thankfully that was a couple weeks ago and while I am still experiencing some anxiety, it's not as bad as it was. Anxiety, like pain, is very relative to the person experiencing it. I wonder if I am experiencing more anxiety than others or the other students are better at "faking it". A lot of anxiety comes from the pressure I put upon myself to succeed. I have to succeed, for a better future for myself and my daughter. Sometimes that pressure is overwhelming.

Not everything about nursing school is overwhelming though. I am really enjoying reconnecting with some old friends that I knew before entering the program and meeting some new friends. Nursing school is like a club, almost. Everyone is there for the same reason, going through the same thing, so there's this natural level of camaraderie and inside-jokes that everyone understands. I'm also learning about things that are both interesting and challenging at the same time, which is more than I can say for some college classes I've taken. I have opportunities to talk about things I am obsessed with, like the benefits of breastfeeding, with people of both genders and I don't feel out of place or awkward. Any health topic is game, and it's wonderful.

I've also joined an RSO for student nurses on campus. They require ten hours of volunteer work each semester, which is exciting for me, even though I don't have a lot of extra time. Giving back to the community has become very important to me since I first began volunteering last spring. Not only do I feel joy and a sense of fulfillment when I volunteer, but I know that I am helping make someone's day a little better. Having required community service hours is awesome because I know that some people who have never volunteered before will discover how wonderful it is, even if the volunteering was required and not "voluntary" to begin with. Giving and caring is such an integral part of healthcare too, and healthcare students need to demonstrate that they are capable and willing of giving their time and caring for others. I am no longer a part of the student-parent RSO I had joined earlier in the school year because of some conflicts, but I think that this new RSO will be a great fit.

So, I have survived so far. I think I just may make it to the end of the semester. The beginning of things is always the hardest, but I think I've got a "rhythm" now that I can count on when it comes to studying, reading, and doing assignments. I'm also trying to take some time for myself too, to alleviate some of the stress, and I think that's really helping. All work and no play makes nursing students burn out!

P.S.: Free time doesn't really exist. This is a myth. There is only study time and time-you-should-be-studying.

A whole year of breastfeeding!

I have two exciting announcements to make as this month draws to a close. The first is that I am now the proud parent of a toddler! My daughter turned one on the 13th of this month and it was very exciting. We actually held two birthday parties, one for family members and friends living in the community where I am originally from and one party in the city where I attend college. Both parties were a blast. I loved seeing Alice walk around and interact with all of the important people in our lives, and playing with her little buddies we have encountered in our wonderful first year.

The second announcement is also very exciting for me, and I think will be for many other people who have pursued the same path. November 13th was also the day that Alice and I reached a full year of breastfeeding. According to the CDC website on breastfeeding, in 2006 only 22.7% of babies were breastfeeding at one year of age. We have beat the odds!

I feel so incredibly accomplished and proud of myself. Since having Alice, as I have previously mentioned, I really felt the need to set goals for myself and pursue them. I knew I could reach six months of breastfeeding after the first week or so after Alice was born but I wasn't sure whether or not I could reach a full year. I was incredibly doubtful that I would reach the World Health Organization's recommendation of two years (and I'm still unsure about that one for a couple reasons). Then, at six months, reaching a whole year did not seem out of our grasp.

When Alice was about seven or eight months old, someone asked me what kind of formula I was feeding my daughter. We don't talk that often and she didn't know that I was exclusively breastfeeding. I told her, "None." She was very surprised because I had been attending school full time with the exception of part of November and December the year Alice was born. 

I understood her surprise, but am very adamant when I say that mothers who choose to breastfeed can do so successfully and still attend college. Yes, it will be more complicated than if they have the opportunity to stay at home. They have to do a little more planning, but not any more planning than a mother who plans to work while breastfeeding her baby. I believe that additional planning is worth every minute spent trying to figure out a game plan to make it work, and I think down the road, mothers will realize that it was worth it too when they see their children thrive. I won't say it isn't tough getting there though.

I arranged my schedule with time in between classes to go home and feed my baby. In the beginning I also would wake up earlier than I needed to and used my breast pump to make sure there was extra milk in the freezer in case she was hungry during my classes as well. Eventually I moved this extra pumping to the evening because Alice was more likely to give me time to "refill" as a I call it. I put all the pumped milk in the freezer because if she was only hungry during the times I was home, I didn't want the milk to go to waste. In this way I built up a stash for the rare date night that occurred, or could possibly occur. Mostly, I'll admit, there were more possible date nights than actual date nights. Such is the life of parents of newborns!

What if you are not able to arrange your classes in such a way? What if you have them back to back, all day long, with breaks that are not long enough for you to go home or to the daycare? What if you commute over a long distance? These are all very valid questions. Make sure you pump extra at home. If you can't afford a pump and qualify, the WIC assistance program will sometimes give you a pump for free! Not only can you pump at home, but you can also bring your pump with you. Most run on batteries or a power cord. Find a secure, clean pumping location on campus or nearby that you can use (not a bathroom!). Even in your car, covered up with a blanket or a coat, could work. I've done it before when out and about, it worked just fine. Make sure you have someplace cold to store your milk, such as a cooler with lots and lots of icepacks. If you have friends who live on campus, or sympathetic faculty members, you might be surprised at how many of them would help you find a place to store your milk. I was told by my WIC peer counselor that the counseling center on my campus is more than happy to have moms pump there and will store milk too! I never had to utilize this service though. If you have an on campus health center, it's possible that if you contacted them they might be able to help you find a place to pump and store your milk too. They are interested in health, after all, and that must include more than just students! A lactation consultant, a WIC peer counselor, or a local breastfeeding coalition might be useful contacts to find more information about how you can make pumping on campus work.

Now that my daughter is older, I visit the daycare at lunch time to nurse her and that's it while I am at school. She refuses pumped milk from the daycare providers so that is our solution. Things don't always go as planned. Most babies, I think, will take bottled milk as long as they are prepared for it ahead of time. Alice just never had that many bottles. Keep this is mind if daycare may be an option at a later date. I was told to introduce Alice to a bottle and I did, but not often enough so this is where we are at right now, nursing during my lunch time. This is a good thing to ask a lactation consultant about when you are thinking about the future of your breastfeeding relationship.

One of the most important things for breastfeeding mothers to realize while they are at college is that they need to surround themselves with supportive people. Don't ask advice from people who are going to tell you it's impossible. Obviously it's not, as many women have done it, including myself. Ignore them. If your friends don't understand why you can't go to lunch with them for a while until you get your breastfeeding schedule figured out, ditch them and find some new ones. It sounds harsh, but your baby's nourishment needs come first, right? I had great friends, family members, and a boss that were supportive and did understand. I won't hesitate to say that I would have eliminated some of my relationships if they weren't supportive. Try to find other breastfeeding moms if there are any through student parent organizations at your school if they are available. These are sometimes known as nontraditional student organizations. Join a breastfeeding group or coalition outside of school, maybe you'll make some connections there. Talk to your professors if you are running into problems with nursing your baby and getting to class on time. If you can't find any support for some reason offline, join an online message board and talk to some mommas there.

Those are just a couple thoughts on the breastfeeding college student that have been running through my head as I've been patting myself on the back for reaching another important milestone in our breastfeeding journey. If I can do it, with work, classes, living off-campus, and being the first person in my family that has breastfed for this long, then I have faith in other student parents too. At least give it a shot, don't give up before you've even started.

As a note: while this isn't a website catering directly to students with children, I would highly suggest kellymom for any information on breastfeeding, among other things. That website helped me through so much, from my general questions as a first time mom, to when I had mastitis, which was not very fun.

Reaching a Milestone

The first year I came to the university, I planned on completing my prerequisites and applying to nursing school. Instead, I got pregnant. The second year I was there, I was pregnant, then had my child, then applied for nursing school that spring; I was denied entry as a result of too many applicants having completed the courses they needed semesters before I had.

Now we come to the third year, I have applied, and I got in. I received my acceptance letter today in the mail, in between nursing my baby at the daycare and rushing to my Spanish class. It was pouring rain, and cold, but I got out of my car on my way to class and hurried up to the mailbox. My heart was beating so fast, and when I found the letter inside I almost wished that it had came tomorrow instead. My boyfriend wasn't home so I couldn't have him open it for me. I was terrified. I got back in the car and decided that I had to open it, that I would just continue to be a nervous wreck if I didn't open it right then.

I felt like I was going to burst when I saw that I had been accepted. I have been telling myself that I would not get my hopes up and become depressed like I was last time. My denial letter last time was pretty much the straw that broke the camel's back, just one thing among so many that I was struggling to deal with. When I called my mom to tell her I started to cry a bit. I felt so relieved, and continue to feel relieved. 

The idea of nursing school is actually quite scary for me. I've been working towards this though for the past two years, and it's not nearly as scary as the thought of never even being able to attempt to reach my goal. Nursing school will be difficult and demanding. I'll probably get less sleep than I did when my daughter was a newborn. The bags I have under my eyes in the picture of me and my daughter will return in January when I begin nursing school, I have no doubt. I will have to study as I have never had before. I have been lucky enough that many subjects have come easily enough to me for me to be able to get by with either no studying, or a small amount of studying. Nursing school will be much different. I am not disillusioned about what it will take to get out of there not only "alive", but with the skills to be a successful nurse. The fact that I will have a toddler only makes my task that much more daunting.

Having a child also only makes me feel that much more determined. I am much more driven to accomplish things now that I have her. She makes me seem much braver on the outside than I really am inside. Alice made it so I had motivation and had goals. There was a time when I was uncertain about what I wanted to do with my life, and where I was going, and then there was her. As the months go by, I know for certain that I need to do this, need to become a nurse, not just for me but for her too. Having to complete nursing school is not nearly so scary as failing before I'd begun - facing this fear is much easier than having to deal with the former. Perhaps though, it won't be as scary as I've been thinking. Tough, yes. Scary? Maybe not.

I called and reserved my seat as soon as I had a spare moment. I'll be given a pile of paperwork to fill out. I'll have to go get re-certified for CPR and First Aid. I have to attend a four hour orientation on November 4th and purchase and get fitted for my scrubs. When I talked to the secretary at the School of Nursing about reserving my seat, I expressed my concern that the orientation was four hours long, and asked her if there would be a break. I told her I was breastfeeding my daughter still and it was a concern for me if there wasn't a break. I was pleasantly surprised as the secretary asked me if I needed privacy to pump, or if I would be bringing the baby with me, and not in a manner that suggested that I was completely off my rocker - but yes, there would be a break. She wanted to make sure I was able to feed my child, and said that if I needed any privacy or anything, just to remind her on the day of the orientation and she would let me use her office or whatever.

How can I be scared when one of my first experiences in the process of the nursing school involved someone wanting to accommodate me and my child? It just gives me a good feeling inside, every time I come across someone who accepts students with children, instead of stigmatizing us.

Why student parents need a community on campus, in a nut shell.

Autumn always makes me feel very nostalgic. I enjoy the cooler weather, the gradual changing of the leaves, and going back to school. I've always liked starting school again. I got to see my friends and socialize, and to learn new things again. Summer always seemed like an endless list of chores that I tried to escape and eventually ended up having to finish.

However, with a child, the chores are never finished. The weather does turn and the leaves do change still, but for me, socializing and seeing friends, and meeting new ones, can be quite challenging in the university setting. I was only at the university for half a year before I found out I was pregnant, and in that time I had still only met a couple people. I hadn't joined any registered student organizations (RSOs) and I didn't have the desire to join a sorority. I thought about finding some place to volunteer but I always seemed to sit at home instead. And, once you are pregnant, the normal venues where you might make friends with someone seem to be a little less welcoming. After all, it's not like I could go to the bar and throw back a couple drinks and meet new people!

I may have said it before, but there really is a growing trend of non-traditional students at universities and community colleges (probably more so, because they are more inexpensive and most attending community colleges live in that community) across the country. Many of these people have children, and as I've attended classes as a mom, they are much more noticeable. Whenever someone mentions they have a child, it piques my interest, and I don't forget it. These are the people I've come to communicate with because we have not only common ground on which to tread (our children, our hectic schedules, our struggles to survive) but because we are students at the same time. It might not be your typical college clique, but it works.

How though, do we go beyond simply getting to know one another? How do we move beyond simply being parents at the university, attending classes, and really feeling like real university students? How can those attending a community college in the same place they've lived their entire lives and plan on raising their children in actually feel like college students? The answer is doing all the same things that college students do, only family-friendly.

My first year at the university I helped do some research on students with children at various universities and community colleges. Many different institutions were developing programs to better help this population. They had offices devoted to serving their needs, specialized communities for student families to live in (though this isn't entirely new), and most interestingly, RSOs centered around the student parent lifestyle.

Other students at my university eventually formed an RSO a while after the research was "completed". Research isn't really ever completed, but my part in it was. I joined when I heard about the group. We are still small, but it has to be understood that the student parent population at any university is going to be a smaller fraction of the whole pie than the traditional, fresh out of high school portion is. Our RSO was just started this past spring, and with a new year upon us, we are working to recruit more members.

However, just by attending meetings to meet other student parents, I've finally forged more friendships when I had almost, honestly, given up hope. Not given up so much hope that I wasn't making the effort to speak to new people, because I feel that's very important, but I had given up hope in making a lot of college friends because my world was now so much more different than what we think of as the typical college student's. I had set my sights on making friends with just mothers of young children, not necessarily friends that had children of all ages and complained about their homework one moment and how they had to pick up the toys strewn across the living room in the next.

Our RSO seems to have settled on focusing on a casual, small community atmosphere where student parents can meet each other and communicate. We are aiming to do one volunteer event a month and we have planned two potlucks for the first two months of the semester, hopefully with more to come. When we volunteer, those who are able to help out with the event stay for the time period that they can, and our events are friendly enough that we can bring our children along. If a volunteer can only stay for an hour, everyone understands. This way we can still help our community, show our children that volunteering is important, and we can feel like every other college student in an RSO. My daughter doesn't understand about volunteering at the age of 10 months, but other members have older children and they most certainly will understand someday. Volunteering is also, to be selfish, great on anyone's resume and I think a lot of student parents struggle to find ways to volunteer that doesn't take away from their families. Doing food drives and the like are great ways for student parents to volunteer, because they are usually not day-long events. Children are also always welcome at our meetings. Also, whenever I try to recruit a new member, I make another connection. Even if I'm thought of as "that annoying girl that tried to recruit me", I will be remembered, and you never know when someone will change their mind and decide to attend a meeting. If I ever have another class with that person, they will know me, and if I'm not known as "that annoying girl...", then perhaps I will make a new friend anyway because I am recognizable.

An RSO also gives you more room to delve into other activities on campus. Our university has a big event where all the RSOs and clubs on campus get together, and community businesses as well, and people mingle and learn about what's available in town and on campus. While we didn't get too many visitors to our table at this event, we did bring our children along and a couple student parents that weren't members did stop by and we chatted with them. Hopefully they will show up to a meeting in the future! By having a table though, we got our name out there, and showed that student parents can be involved too, and I think that's very important. Our roles that we cannot change, and do not want to change, shouldn't get in the way of what we would like to become. Rather, we need to figure out a way to compromise, and be happy.

Our RSO is small so far, but there are some really great people striving to recruit more members, and I think we will grow if we just keep at it. It's so important for student parents to create these small communities though. I think you can make as many friends as you want outside of the university, and they can be amazing friends, but it's also important to have other students that you can commiserate on both fronts with. It's important to have friends that also don't have children to - don't forget about them! There are many childless students who enjoy being around children and will want to do family-friendly activities with you and hang out, with your child, but you might have to search a little harder for them.

It's really not all lost though. I really encourage college students that have children to start some sort of group on their campus for themselves and others like them. It really is amazing what kind of changes occur when you have a sort of safe haven on campus, even if you only meet once a week. Those meetings once a week can turn into so much more.

Two weeks down, fourteen more to go!

Well, I am glad to say that Alice and I have both survived our first two weeks of our new schedule. Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays are relatively easy. I wake up when she wakes up and I go off to my first class, come home for an hour, go to my second, and then I am with her for the rest of the day. Tuesdays and Thursdays, of course, are another story. The three of us have to be at different places, all at 9 a.m. Jake has to be in class, I have to be at work, and Alice goes to daycare. On those days, I wake up early, and it seems as if I never stop running. I am very, very glad when Thursdays are over.

I have it much easier than some though. I only work six hours a week outside the home at a local food pantry, courtesy of federal work study funding; that's when Alice attends daycare. I work those hours right before my class that interferes with Jake's class schedule and makes both of us unable to watch our daughter, as I mentioned before. My other job as a research assistant allows me to work from home or do tasks here and there when I have spare time, and gives me the freedom I need to try and get things done around the apartment or run errands. I only say "try" because there are still definitely a lot of things that need to be done! But that seems to be the same story I hear from all the other moms I know: the work never ends! I even have a delightful boyfriend that helps and it's difficult to get everything accomplished.

I'm also only taking the two classes, which is a relief. At the end of the first week, my head was spinning. I even showed up to the wrong class last Friday because I couldn't remember what time it started, but was sure it was 10 a.m. even though it really started at 11 a.m. That was embarrassing. I had put Alice down for a nap and hurried around the house getting ready, all for nothing... almost. Once I figured out I was in the wrong class, I walked down to the community library's used book sale and scored some amazing children's books, ten of them for only five dollars.

I have managed to get to daycare on time for drop-off and pick-up, which is good, because I learned that my daycare has some very steep "late fees" for picking your children up after the designated time! I think it is 15 dollars for every five minutes, perhaps even 25! Every time I have shown up, Alice has been very happy, which has reduced my stress enormously. She is usually playing with the other babies, crawling around on the floor and playing with toys. Other times I have walked in and the caregivers will be feeding her at this amazing feeding station they have. It is a counter with four seats built in so they can feed multiple children at a time. Maybe it's very common, but I've never seen one before and it's neat. Alice seems to like the ladies that take care of her too, and doesn't cry when I leave her with them. I'm hoping this doesn't change as she gets older but I suppose anything is possible.

The one thing that causes me a little concern is that she won't take the bottle at daycare, nor will she drink much from the sippy. I give them my frozen breastmilk and then they thaw it and give it to her, but she will only drink a little. I go in every day at noon before I eat my own lunch and she nurses then. There is another baby at the daycare that the caregivers said would never take a bottle for them either. He is a couple months older. She doesn't seem unhappy when I arrive and is only very eager to nurse, so I do not think it is harming her. She also gets some solid food that I pack in her diaper bag while she is there. I am going to continue bringing the milk for her for a couple of weeks and seeing if she will decide to take it. A part of me thinks maybe she isn't drinking much because there is so much going on, and the 12 hours she is in daycare each week may just not be enough for her to learn to ignore her surroundings and drink her milk. Perhaps she doesn't quite have good enough control of the sippy to drink it by herself yet and they need to hold it like a bottle for her even though it isn't one. I am going to suggest they try that next Tuesday if they haven't already.

I have also turned in my paperwork to the Department of Human Services to receive assistance with paying for the daycare costs. I'm not paying very much for the two days she is there, but I'm also not making very much working minimum wage jobs, so I really do need the help. Before becoming a parent, I never applied for any of the services at DHS because I felt I didn't need them, even though I know I qualified. I was able to get by on my own money, and using student loans. Now, with a family, I am more hesitant to take out large loans because someday while I am paying them off, not only will I be paying all my other bills, but paying for all the things that Alice needs at the same time. So, I need a little help and I'm okay with that. Sometimes we all need a little help. Unfortunately, my case will be transferred to a new case worker as a result of applying for childcare assistance and I really liked my caseworker. She was really nice. I hope the new one is just as helpful as she has been.

I'll be crossing my fingers that our next couple of weeks go as smoothly as these first two have gone. They weren't completely perfect, but they were far from the disaster I was expecting.

Our impending introduction to daycare looms ahead.

Daycare: the dreaded word.

For the longest time, I held daycare as an evil institution. Nevermind that I know daycare providers that provide wonderful and safe care for children every day, I swore up and down that no child of mine would ever be in a daycare. I had only been to a daycare once or twice when my mom worked late. Otherwise a relative, primarily my grandma that my daughter is named after, would watch me, or there would be a babysitter. I almost always had one-on-one care and that's what I wanted for my daughter too.

However, there are times when not having daycare just isn't possible, and as an adult I came to the conclusion that daycare was necessary in our situation. We were luckier than most and were able to put it off for almost a full year. Alice has experienced in-home care by myself or my boyfriend since she was born. We were able to arrange our class and work schedules around caring for her, and to do that for the first nine months of her life is pretty amazing. This semester Jake and I had a schedule conflict with our classes though and I had to do something because I really needed to take the class that was causing a conflict. Our relatives are all over an hour away so the kind of care I received as a child wasn't an option.

I started looking for a daycare a couple of months ago and found a place at the daycare that is associated with my housing complex. They are accredited by the NAEYC and seemed nice inside. I was able to take a tour without making an appointment, which signaled to me that they had nothing to hide, and was introduced to the caregivers in the infant and toddler room. They also said they would use our cloth diapers, which made me very happy. I started using cloth diapers with Alice at 7 months and have fell in love with them. We still have some disposables leftover which I could have used, but I certainly would have to have bought more and that defeats the whole purpose of cloth diapering for our family. I just have to give them a wet bag, wipes, and provide enough diapers for the day and they'll do the rest. They showed me how they warm up the breastmilk and they also said that I was welcome to just come to the daycare and breastfeed her whenever I wanted while she was there. There are also two playgrounds outside, one for the older children and one for the younger. All children get 15 minutes of outside playtime, weather permitting, even the babies. They have two infant swings that I know Alice will adore. She loves to swing and go very high. What really sold me on this particular daycare was definitely being able to keep Alice in her cloth diapers though.

I had also checked out the university daycare, but I never toured it. In fact, I was never offered a tour. I didn't have to ask at the daycare Alice would be attending, they offered it to me when I got information. There was also a waiting list at that daycare, and not at the one that we got a spot at. Additionally, I had also heard about a registration fee. My registration fee at the off-campus daycare was waived since it is associated with my housing complex. How cool!

I'm still experiencing a small amount of nervousness about the situation though. I believe they will take good care of her at the daycare, that's not the issue. I am nervous I will forget something she needs to have while she is there, or she will be scared with all the other children running around. She isn't used to too much activity. We have regular play dates with my friend and her 10 month old that we met in the park, but sometimes I think Alice gets overwhelmed even by that. I know, in a way though, that going to daycare will be very good for her socially. Eventually she will become accustomed to having more children and different adults than us around. She will learn to share, because at home everything is hers and she isn't required to share unless our friends come over. Even then, babies are babies and they will grab anything out of the other one's hands and at the age she is at, they don't understand when you try to explain. At daycare, constant experience with sharing will grow on her and as she grows, it will come naturally. At least I hope! I can only hope. I never liked to share as a child - but I wasn't in daycare. Would it have been different if I had?

I think Alice going to daycare will be a learning experience for us both. I thought the day-to-day routine would get easier as she headed into toddlerhood and we left the newborn and infant stages behind us, but they only get more complicated and require more planning on my part it seems. Packing for daycare and arriving at school, work, and daycare on time will be a challenge. Leaving Alice in the hands of someone else will be a challenge too, if only because I worry about her adjusting. Hopefully she will even make some more friends, and I can make some more play date connnections!

Readers, what are your experiences with daycare? What did you like or dislike? Did you choose to forgo daycare in favor of one-on-one care for your child? Why or why not?