So I handed in my last paper of the semester this past Sunday. By Tuesday morning I read that I had to do a revision *and* have my course instructor’s approval. O. M. G. Wth did I hand in? My instructor called me at work Tuesday morning but I was at work and couldn’t take the call. So we emailed. I was so frustrated because things I was graded on as being wrong I know I answered the correct way. So finally after an exasperated email to the instructor she told me I referenced the wrong email that I downloaded as a pdf. I gave the wrong article title! I felt dumb. So last night I fixed what was wrong and a couple of other things that needed to be expanded on and emailed the instructor that I wanted to submit again. She called me right away and said she had to approve the revision to email her my correct paper. Done. She looked it over and approved me submitting again. So I submitted the paper again this time with the correct article title referenced. Whew! So now I wait for the powers to be to evaluate the correction. I check constantly of course. But so far…nothing

I used to have this vision of other peoples’ lives, marriages, relationships with children, that other people have situations that are “perfect.” Call it a social media phenomenon where people only post the “good” things, like look how great we are, look what a great time I have with my kids. All. The. Time. I actually unfriended someone on social media because I couldn’t take the perfection of her life, I just couldn’t! I don’t want to see everyone’s dirty laundry I really don’t, I’ve “hid” people for being too freaking depressing like every post single post is what is wrong with the world. It might sound mean but it is what it is.

I remember when Thomas was much younger, pre-diagnosis and I felt like my life was so out of control and not perfect at all, so very far from normal never mind perfect. I felt like everyone else had this great life and their kids were so well behaved and I had this child who threw fits and hit me. I did have Alyssa though, who was so so good as a young child. I think I forget how good she was at that time because Thomas’ behavior just over shadowed everything.

These days I know no one has a perfect life, even the person I unfriended years ago probably doesn’t have it all rosy and great. (Although I’ll never know because I’m too jaded to ever friend them again, haha). A woman who watched me struggle with Thomas years ago once pulled me aside and said, “Menay…everyone’s got shit…” meaning everyone has *something* going on that disrupts life or makes life a little more difficult. That no one has a perfect life. When that woman said those words to me I truly appreciated it and I’ve never forgotten either. It made an impact on me to realize that no one has this perfect or better life than what I had. We’re all so different who can say what “normal” is? Who can say what perfect is? I will say I have a nice life, I’m happy with the choices that were made by my husband and I to get us where we are today. I’m proud of my family and I enjoy spending time with my kids. Nothing happened overnight and nothing happened without immense prayer and the intervention of a loving God and merciful Savior.

Life for us has taken on a different normal. Alyssa married to Sam, Tommy and I are now “in-laws.” I still stumble my words when I mention Sam and say “my son in law.” He’s more than an in law. We really love him and see him as more than the man who married our daughter. Alyssa and Sam now have a puppy named Clayton. He is the most adorable little dog! He’s a golden-doodle, but not one that’s full size, Clayton is only supposed to grow to be around 17-20 pounds. Perfect!

I’m writing a research analysis paper for school. It’s hard, I don’t see it as impossible hard, or difficult but just a lot of work. There’s all these sections to the assignment and the whole time I’m wondering if I’m doing things correctly. I have a phone appointment with my instructor this week so hopefully she’ll clear things up a bit. In the meantime I keep plugging along and doing the best that I can. After this class I have 2; 2 credit classes left and then I’ll have my BSN. I get excited just thinking about it.

My working at the vaccine center overtime has been squashed, thanks to the great city deciding to pay agency nurses from other states their pay plus room and board, rather than pay city nurses overtime. Doesn’t make much sense to me. But what do I know? It was a good run while it lasted, I met some really great nurses and people who did other jobs at the centers. I really didn’t mind working the extra hours, everyone who was working wanted to be there and just about everyone who came in to be vaccinated wanted to be there to get the vaccine so it was a win/win situation.

I love that my daughter is married. Im thrilled that she has a great husband and awesome in-laws. Alyssa and Sam are doing their life their way and I am one of their biggest cheerleaders. God help anyone who would criticize or cause drama; not that anyone would, I’m just saying… Alyssa is 22 years old and Sam is 23. They both have college educations and the college degrees they both worked so very hard for. I never thought I’d say this but I have a bit of envy towards them.

After a 2 year engagement to Tommy I found out I was pregnant with Thomas exactly the week before we were to be married. Thomas wasn’t exactly planned but he was far from prevented. In starting our family so early in our marriage we weren’t able to travel and do many things young marrieds do before they start a family. After Thomas, along came Alyssa…2 moves, Lelly…and the rest is as they say history. I don’t regret having our children as young as we did. Right now it’s great because everyone is old enough to be left alone so that Tommy and I can go to dinner or just take off and be crazy and go to CVS. If we want to go away for the weekend there aren’t any major hoops to jump through. I was able to enter the workforce *and* go back to school for an advanced degree. I couldn’t do those things when everyone was younger and Thomas is a category all his own. There wasn’t much we could do for just the two of us back then. I remember on a Friday or Saturday night we would order dinner for the two of us, wait for everyone to go to bed and then eat by ourselves without interruption. It was nice and I love those memories.

I guess you could say the grass is always greener on the other side; of everything. Even marriage. In writing this out and seeing things retrospectively we lived our life they way God intended us to. I can’t imagine being an older parent and trying to keep up with my kids, especially Thomas. In actuality Thomas made me be “a grown up”. I’ve said it many times and I’ll say it again; I would not be who I am if Thomas were not special needs, but that’s a whole other blog post.

My wish is for Sam and Alyssa to have as clear of a path to their lives together as possible. I know the Lord leads their footsteps and I will be there cheering them on.