Ponderings of what to do next with my life

Ariadna
Originally uploaded by Daniel Naranjo

I have recently been giving a lot of thought to what I would like to do career wise with my life. The whole having my hours cut at work has been somewhat of a catalyst making me look at my current life and family situation and plan out a bit where I want to go. So if you will indulge me I'll share my current list of choices on the table with my thoughts for each plan. Here are the options I have come up with so far:

1. Continue with the status quo: For those of you playing along at home, the status quo is me working one day a week at the clinic, and the other days staying home and being a full time mom/Relief Society president.
   

• Pro's: Plenty of good mommy time with Bella. Financially we can swing this option with no major lifestyle sacrifices or acquiring extra debt. No need to add complications to the current childcare situation. A stable situation that would not be unduly complicated if we decided to add another child to the mix in another year or so.
  
• Con's: I don't do very well being at home all day with little structure. When my main goal for the day is showering and getting the two of us dressed, that is sometimes all we manage to get done. I often find myself frustrated from limited adult interaction and not using my education and clinical skills to their full potential. I really like my job and the population I work with and would like to improve my skills but this is happening in a rather piecemeal way right now.

2. Go back to school and get my PhD. in Social Work: I have my Masters degree and advanced LCSW licence so this is the next step up. The funniest thing is that I was exploring this option on the U of U's social work PhD page and my picture is on the page. It must have been taken my last year in grad school. Talk about a sign.

• Pro's: I could see myself doing some teaching on a college level and there is a lot of focus in the U's program on Geriatric social work and they have a research institute set up with that focus so if I decided to go this route I should have support in my area of interest. There is also a grant opportunity from a foundation offering $25,000 a year for PhD students doing their dissertations in Geriatric Social work. It is competitive but a possibility. Plus the U has some decent childcare options for students which may address the what to do with Bella question. I have a supportive boss and should be able to work my schedule around to be able to keep my job while I do school if I would like.
  
• Con's: This is a big, long term commitment. It means less time with the little one, and life would be more complicated by the addition of any other little ones to our family. The Blue Prince still has two more years in his plumbing program and it may be hard to have both of us doing school at the same time. We may need to take out student loans if grant options don't pan out. The application deadline for this program are in Feb. so if I do decide to go this route I wouldn't even actually apply till next year.
  

3. Getting a Gerontology certificate or Masters Degree: Since I already have a master's degree in a related field, the certificate would be more realistic. This is actually the middle ground between the two above options that I am the most strongly considering for right now.

• Pro's: It seems to be a fairly flexible program, giving you up to 3 years to complete 15 credit hours of classwork and practicum. Some of the practicum options look very intriguing including some private Geriatric Care Management placements which is an area I've strongly considered working in (basically a private practice where you give advice and help seniors and their families make plans for their current and future needs). Doing a practicum in this area would give me a feel for the business end and much needed mentoring. I could do the program as a matriculated or non-matriculated student (which might be cheaper) but if I do decided to go on they would only count hours I did as a matriculated student. They start the program every semester. When I called they said that summer semester starts this week and that they would be happy to have me jump right in, but I think a bit more planning is needed so I would probably shoot for the August start instead. Again I could probably still work things around my current work schedule and keep my job.
  
• Con's: I would need to look into childcare options and figure out how to pay for it but at least as a matriculated student I would be able to take advantage of on-campus resources.
  
  Anyway, sorry for the long post. I think this was more for me than anyone else in order to get my mind sorted out, but I would love comments as to what other think of my plotting.
  

Picture updates

On a lighter note and for the real reason most people follow this blog.... Bella Pictures and Updates:

The Blue Prince has been installing sprinklers at our condo complex. Bella has been helping in her usual way of digging in the dirt, testing it's edibility and pulling tools and parts out of Papi's tool bag and bucket.

Here is a close-up of the two worker bees and yes that is dirt around her mouth. (I love this picture of my husband, he is such a sweetheart)

Last night Bella discovered that she could climb into her toy basket and here is her showing off the skill this morning. Now she pulls half of the toys out, climbs in, pulls a book off the shelf and proceeds to read it. (I know Dad, Mr. "I used to sleep with books under my pillow", you are so proud)

Oh, and this post is dedicated to my loving sister Emily who likes to mock me for having a blog and joining the "trendy mommy blogging set". Because as she puts it "you get married, you have a baby and automatically you must start a blog"

Babysitter issues (aka: when being a working mom sucks)

I think I am giving myself an ulcer, stress is leaving me somewhat catatonic this week and my eyelid keeps going into twitching fits. What could be causing this you ask, well let me give you a rundown of the past few weeks.
At the end of March Bella's fantastic babysitter had a baby by c-section and has been out of commission since then. The baby has had jaundice and anemia and this week ended up in the hospital for blood transfusions. (I think they have figured out that the problem is with the Rh factor incompatibility with her mom). I have been working two days a week which I have found puts you in a somewhat difficult category to find childcare. It is too few hours to be able to support paying a nanny and too many and too regular to be able to comfortably impose on friends or family connections. I have had the most success with stay-at-home moms who take in one or two kids in addition to their own as an income supplement. These people tend to be unlicensed by the state as licenced providers who depend on childcare as their primary source of income can only have 2 children under the age of two and understandably they prefer to fill those slots with children who will be with them full time.
So what has been my childcare situation these past few weeks, let me give you a rundown:

• Week 1: The first week the plague hit our home and the Blue Prince and I managed to get sick on alternating days. His sick days just happened to line up with my work days so he stayed home with Bella.
• Week 2: A very sweet lady in the ward who has always fawned over Bella had been out of work and offered babysitting whenever necessary. We took her up on it for a week and it worked out well, unfortunately she called me up the Saturday afterwards stating that she had been offered a full time job and wouldn't be able to continue babysitting. (Another discomforting problem that week was that a little Burmese girl in Salt Lake went missing and was found dead, killed by her neighbor. Guess where the little girl lived... in the same complex about four doors down from this babysitter, and yes Bella was staying with her the day the girl went missing)
• Week 3: My counselor in Relief society had been out of work for a while and she happily agreed to take care of Bella for me. Unfortunately yet again I got a Saturday phone call but this time it was news that her parents in Mexico were ill and she needed to go home and take care of them, permanently. So now not only am I without a babysitter, I am down a counselor.
• Week 4: Back against the wall I resort to asking a lady in the ward who has an in-home childcare to take Bella. She is a very sweet lady and takes good care of her but her husband generally makes me uncomfortable and she always has a ton of kids and adults coming in and out of the apartment. It is also the situation where I'm sure they stick her in front of the television for far more than I like. The good news is that she was embarrassingly cheap and I felt morally obliged to pay her more than her asking price.
• Week 5 (this week): Getting desperate and not really wanting to go back to the week 4 lady I prevail upon a neighbor friend for Monday. On Wednesday I had set up with another lovely lady who lives nearby, has a daughter a little older than Bella and hopefully will be available on a semi-permanent basis but she ended calling me Wed. morning saying that her daughter had an emergency dental visit that day and that she wouldn't be back in time to take Bella. So back to Week 4 lady for Wed.

So that has been my month. Add to that the fact that my hospital is going through downsizing and I found out yesterday that my hours are going to be significantly cut and you can begin to see the cause of the aforementioned eye twitching. Apparently, when my position was switched to my current department no budgeted FTE hours were included in the arrangement so with the downsizing I became very vulnerable. It is only due to my fantastic manager and a doctor who values me and my contribution to the clinic and their willingness to make cuts in other areas of the department that kept me with any kind of job at all. With my hour cuts I am probably going to cut back to only working one day a week, (embrace the motto: how much work can we squeeze into 6 hours) and actually this will probably reduce the babysitter stress. Financial stress may become more of an issue but luckily we don't have any debt other than our mortgage and cutting back a bit we should be fine. My salary has mostly gone towards our savings and random expenses anyway.

Throughout all this Bella has been fantastic. I have no idea how I ended up with such a flexible sweet kid, who in general, steals the heart of every adult she comes in contact with. If she was the kind of kid that went into hysterics every time you left her with an unfamiliar person I think that would have thrown me over the edge.

People always ask me: "How are you doing" and my pat, automatic answer will always be "fine", or "doing well" . I tend to hide when I am stressed out and will never admit to it in passing conversations or to acquaintances. Even with friends or family I will put on a happy face and listen more than I share. Probably one of my defining personality traits. You may wonder why I decided to open up and share in this forum, beside the fact that actually it has been quite cathartic to get it off my chest. The fact is, I started this blog primarily as a way for people who care about our little family to know what has been going on with us. This is the type of stuff I would share with the people that I know frequently read this blog if I had a chance to sit down and talk to you all as much and as often as I would like. (And really this is not an invitation for worried phone calls because truth is we are doing okay)

Casa Pueblo

I realize that I haven't posted many pictures of our Uruguay trip and in looking through them I came across our photos of a little side trip we took to Casa Pueblo, the workshop/home/museum of Carlos Paez Villaro.

Carlos Villaro is a world renowned Uruguayan artist primarily known for his public mural work in many countries. He is probably in his 80's now and has an incredibly long career as a painter, sculptor, architect and a Ceramic artist. His work is influenced by the art of Picasso and in his world travels he worked for a time with Picasso. Another factoid: Carlos's son was one of the Uruguayan rugby players that survived the plane crash in the Andes that the movie Alive was based on.

The home at Casa Pueblo is an amazing work of art and architecture perched on a cliff overlooking the ocean. The views are incredible. We found out later that a portion of the complex is actually hotel now as well. Next time we go to Uruguay we will have to find out the cost, it may be worth the splurge to stay in such a beautiful setting.

While at the museum I purchased a book that contains some of the colorful animal prints that Carlos has done through the years. Someday when I get organized I hope to frame some and put them up in Bella's room as a happy, colorful addition. My Dad and Kathy having more resources than us decided to purchase a numbered print of one of the artist's paintings of the house at Casa Pueblo. They were in the gift shop debating over two, one signed but with a slight rip and the other unsigned. When the worker at the gift-shop sensed that it was important to them to have a signed print, she asked for them to write down their names and wait for her to go into the workshop area for a moment. She returned a few minutes latter with the numbered print that they wanted signed with a personal inscription from the artist. Apparently Casa Pueblo is still Carlos's working studio and he just happened to be in residence that day and willingly took a moment to sign the print. The cynical possibility is that the gift-shop worker just took it in the back and signed it herself to make a sell but we prefer to believe the first option. Either way it makes for a good story.

Anyway here are some of the other pictures we took of our little group at Casa Pueblo. If you want to see the rest of our Uruguay pictures I have downloaded them to my Flickr account and you can see them by clicking the link on the left of this page. My step-mom Kathy should have some great pictures as well but we have yet to see those (hint, hint). Enjoy:

Visiting Bubie Ishi

This weekend we decided to take the long car trek to Las Vegas to visit family, primarily my second mom Ishi and sisters Ariana and Shoshana (who flew in special for the weekend). Considering that it is a 6 hour drive there and back, Bella did great in her new front facing car seat.

Ishi generally spoiled us rotten and took us to the new Springs Preserve which was awesome. It is a group of museums, gardens and children's play areas that focus on the history and landscape of the area around Las Vegas. Considering that we were a group made up of 5 adults, a 16 year-old and a 1 year old and that we all had a fantastic time playing with the displays shows how well this place was thought out. Anyway, enjoy the pictures.

Aunt Shoshana showing off her excellent hand excavator skills.

The blue prince digging for fossils. Was overheard to be saying "Grandpa, Grandpa, where are you?"

Aunt Ariana teaching Bella how to play video games.

Bella riding Tita the Turtle

Me and the Blue Prince playing with the turtle shells.

"I know the Indian hut is cool but are you done taking pictures yet?"

Living the dream of being garbage men.

Casey and Blue Prince having scaled the mighty mastodon skeleton.

Water and Sand play, what could be better

Waiting for the flash flood.

This is the only picture I got of Ishi and I had to take it when she wasn't looking.

My day so far

(No children were harmed

(as least I hope not permanently)

in the events of this blog)

It's been one of those days. It started today with a very hungry and upset Bella waking up at 7:15am (15 min after the Blue Prince left for work, otherwise he would have thrown her a bottle in order to let me sleep). Not a huge deal, but she is now becoming this loud, indignant screamer which is somewhat hard to deal with that early. I decided to grab a bottle and the baby and bring her back to bed with me, with the hope that both of us could get an extra hour or two of sleep. The plan was working until at around 9am she started struggling with the covers and literally launched herself headfirst off the bed, did a flip, and landed flat on her back on the wood floor. The wailing didn't stop till I let her play with my cell phone. (she likes to hold the phone backwards to her ear while saying "hola" quite cute)


We then played on the bed a while with Papi's socks, which she enjoyed until she discovered that with the socks on both hands she can't take them off without help.

After breakfast Bella was toddling around as she is wont to do when she finds a small ladder/footstool that I had neglected to put away, and next thing I know: Crash--- Wail--- baby trapped under the ladder.


Hoping for a safe activity I put her in the baby saucer and popped in Baby Galileo while I got on the internet for a while. She watches happily talking to the puppets on the screen when suddenly she starts screaming and crying. I couldn't figure out what had happened to cause that reaction. Other than biting her tongue or getting her leg caught in a leg hole, there is little she could do to hurt herself in that contraption. I put her on my lap and rewinded the tape to see what had gotten her spooked. Apparently she is terrified of a specific cow puppet in one scene. Either that or it makes her very, very angry.


So hopefully I am done traumatizing my daughter for the day, but who knows it's only 5pm.
Anyone else care to share parental failings?

Bella Walking

Here is the previously promised video of Bella walking. She was chasing around after the neighbor's cat.

Slacker Blogger

I know I have been a huge slacker about updating recently and almost every day I take picture or think of something that would make a good entry but the actual execution is somehow lacking. Today is not much of an exception. I don't have time to think of anything clever to say but I do have a bunch of Bella pictures to post, which is the main reason people read this blog anyway. I have been told by several people that they have been checking in. If you are a lurker feel free to make comments, I love them it makes me feel less like I am just sending posts off into the great unknown.


So without any further adieu Bella Updates:




She is now a fairly good walker, she took her first step in grandpa's hotel room in Uruguay and then in the airport before coming home. My dad worked with her a lot during the trip and I think was determined that she was going to leave there walking. The video doesn't want to upload but I'll try again tomorrow.

Her hair is almost long enough to do something with. This is my first attempt at pigtails per the request of Auntie Emmy. She screamed and cried the whole time I tried to put them in and they lasted all of an hour. So it may be a while before we attempt it again.

And other random pictures of dinnertime (she was eating black beans) and a recent evening in the park:

She is wearing the fantastic pink poncho that Grandpa bought her in Uruguay. So much easier to put on than a jacket.

Found in Uruguay

This is likely to be a semi-short post but I did want to put up some pictures and let everyone know we are home safely from our South American Adventure. We had a great trip, with many ups and downs which I may or may not get into later... but anyway here are a couple of lovely finds:

My baby's Curls:

We have always taken it as a genetic destiny that this child would have curly hair but apparently Bella's curls only appear in the presence of humidity. Or maybe it's a genetic switch that's only flipped on when she touches Uruguayan soil. Anyway, they were lovely and I am missing them already.

The Origin of the Blue Prince's Nose:

This is my husband's paternal Grandmother posing first with Bella and afterwards with my husband, and Bella's cousin Francisco. (I think the cousins definatly look alike). She is a fantastic woman and she got so exited to see us, though she kept exclaiming about how fat I had gotten and kept asking me what I had eaten to get so fat. It was so funny and hard to get offended when she said it with such love and humor as she was giving me hugs.

Carolina:

Standing next to me in the orange shirt is a young woman named Carolina. When I was serving as a missionary I taught her the gospel. She was 14 years old at the time. It was such a lovely surprise to visit my husbands home ward and to find her there actively participating in the ward. She is now married and has a daughter of her own (way to make me feel old) and she and her husband are making plans to be sealed in the temple soon.

One of the most beautiful views in the world:

This was the view from our hotel room in Piriapolis and it wasn't even a particularly well or specially situated room. This is the view you get from most of the town, beautiful sea views bumping up to lovely green hills and mountains in the background. My husband teases me about how much I like this place. I admit it is an ongoing fantasy of mine to one day buy a house or build on a plot of land in this area. Maybe one day...

Happy Birthday my baby Girl

It's oficial Princess Bella is no longer a baby. I can't believe how fast this year has flown by. Bella has gotten so big and independent and busy. She still sees no point in walking as of yet as truthfully she can crawl almost as fast as I walk. Aunt Ariana knitted this sweater for her for her birthday and it is absolutly beautiful. (and finally I got video evidence of her kissing noises). I love you baby girl.

We are off to Uruguay for two weeks starting tomorrow. We have been planning this trip for so long, it's hard to believe it is finally here. My dad and step-mom Kathy will be with us for the trip, including the majority of the plane ride. It should help the 20 hour plane ride to have several hands and laps available to take turns. I should have some fun picts and stories to post when we get back. But untill then enjoy these from Bella and Aunt Emmy's combined birthday dinner on Sunday.