I'm the college mom

I've spent my week in and out of class rooms at my new college. I have 9 credits done from my one year of college over 10 years ago and am now adding onto that with 10 more credits this semester. Algebra, English Comp 1, & Anatomy-Physiology. The math and English are there just because I have to have them but the one I really care about is my Anatomy & Physiology class. I have 3 semesters of prerequisites before I am able to move on to actual Nursing School. A dream of mine for a VERY long time. Eventually I'll be a Nurse Practitioner but for now I'm a college student, mom, wife.................

The list goes on and on. It is hard to transition your mind having just sent a 2 year old to time out for a tantrum to changing a really poppy diaper from a 6 month old to sitting in English Comp next to a kid either just out of high school or barely out. It's like trying to have a decent conversation with a brick. I've met other adults my own age who are either just married, no kids, or a man. And let's just say it out loud here, when you are a man and you are married with children (hey, wasn't that a tv show at one time) you still have it better than us mom's. I'm not trying to say we're better or do more, but listen, we do more. I remember when my husband was going to college. We had one child and then added another one during that time. He would go to work where he would sit down at a desk and end up doing some of his homework there. He would come home, eat dinner that was fixed FOR him, leave for class and not think a second thing about whether the kids were being cared for or not. That wasn't a worry when he started school. For me, and most mom's, the biggest questions is "What am I going to do with my kids?" We sit in the classroom trying to get a degree because for reasons not all of us understand we didn't get it done before we had kids and now we feel stuck. We also want our girls to expect more out of themselves but can't tell them to do so without doing it ourselves. So, we get up early in the morning and don't stop until we lay our heads down late at night. And sometimes, our head has to come off that pillow during the night for reasons named Child 1, child 2, child 3, and hyper dog. We wake up with still a tinge of exhaustion lingering. And not the kind of exhaustion that most college students face. It's the emotionally draining exhaustion of giving to our families and trying to find a sense of who we are underneath it all.

It is hard and this is only my first week. But, I have one week down and only 15 more to go! Go me! Go all you other college moms!