Adulting in the Adult World As A Student and Parent: I’m Exhausted, But Surprisingly Happy*

That little * catch your eye on the end? Yeah. That’s right. There’s some fine print with that happiness. 😉

I didn’t manage to get a post in yesterday because, well…as the blog title clearly stated, “I’m exhausted.” Between homeschooling the 9 year old, cleaning up after the 2 year old, vacuuming up a ridiculous amount of kitty litter (seriously! Somebody invent a non-stick spray for cat paws!), washing dry erase marker off of places it shouldn’t be (thanks again, little monster…), at some point running the oldest to jiu jitsu (according to his instructor, he sounds like a bleating goat when he’s subjected to a choke hold…)….

This was going somewhere. Lost focus. Got distracted by the goat noises…*shakes it off* That happens a lot. (Distractions. Not goat noises.)

Oh, yeah. All that masterful juggling of daily duties (I forgot cooking dinner, doing dishes, and laundry…but that’s assumed, right?) AND I stayed up late to do my course work. Up until this semester (just started my junior year), I had been able to handle a full-time student work load. However, I (thought I) was smart and took into account over the summer just how crazy full of energy the little one had been and thus cut out a course from my usual schedule (which put me at 3/4 time student enrollment). Little did I know when I registered for my courses in June that in the following month my daughter would rip away the last big chunk of sanity I had left in my daily life: the nap.

OOOOOOOOoooh yes. She didn’t cut out *a*nap. She cut out *the* nap. The only one I had left. A lovely two hour span to which I could devote to whatever crisis needed handled, be it my own school work, my son’s school work, reworking our budget, making phone calls/appointments/dinner plans/another pot of coffee, rearranging furniture (don’t ask…I haven’t figured out if it’s a hobby or a psychological issue), planning a vacation (yes, please!), or simply relaxing on the couch with the Xbox controller (I’m a Dragon Age addict. That I will admit. Maker, help me.) I dropped down to half-time enrollment over the weekend to try to salvage a bit of sanity. So far, I think it’s helping. But it will be tested again soon when the hubby starts his own college courses back up in a week or so….

Long story short: I’m exhausted because my youngest is an active non-napping toddler who thinks mommy is a jungle gym. BUT I’m still happy because my goat bleating pre-teen is fun to watch on jiu jitsu nights (seriously, it was difficult not to LOL when Sifu pointed it out) and I can still manage to be a decent student myself. Despite the sleep deprivation…

Magic is real. It exists in the form of caffeine and video games.

“Sounds like a Tuesday.” – Hawke, DA2

*photo found via Pinterest, but pretty sure I formally saw it on Tumblr under “the mage hell spiral”…or something like that.

*Featured photo is a screen grab from This YouTube Video about the scene in DA:I (the video is actually about glitches the player experience during the scene…and a bit about Goat Simulator…another fun game. Haha!!)