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growing Taylor

December 23rd, 2012 . Posted in by Taylor, education, teen pregnancy & parenting, women, work/career | 1 Comment »

My entire life whenever I thought about what kind of mother I wanted to be I knew I wanted to stay home with my kids until my youngest went into kindergarten. I wanted to be the mom who volunteered at her kids school, drove them everywhere, made every meal from scratch and had dinner on the table in a spotless house when my husband came home from work all while raising a handful of beautiful polite children. Having my son early changed things slightly, I hadn’t yet finished high school and I had no husband to support us. I knew to be able to give my son the kind of life I wanted for him when he was 6 weeks old I started attending school with him in daycare down the hall. It was the most amazing compromise and I was very happy with my decision. Unfortunately for reasons beyond my control that stopped being an option when my son was about 7 months old. (I will do a blog about this later)  It was pretty disappointing but I was secretly thrilled I’d be able to spend my whole day devoted to my sweet little boy! Over the next year I tried to go back to school several times but could not stand leaving him. I was very blessed to have amazing family support that allowed me to stay home with him.

I thoroughly enjoyed doing nothing but raising my son for the next year and a half, but shortly after his second birthday I knew it was time for a change. I had completely lost myself in my motherhood, I referred to myself mommy in public without even realizing it several times, I had no outside life I spent 24 hours a day 7 days a week alone with my son and you could tell. I was going stir crazy, my brain was turning to mush and I desperately needed some adult (non mom) interaction.  I applied for my local college and was accepted! I was beyond excited, I was finally taking the steps needed to be able to provide for myself and my son! Yet something still didn’t feel quite right, I was having an awful time finding a daycare I trusted. On a whim I decided to apply for college in the city I grew up in, 5 hours from my current city, 5 hours from my mom, and 5 hours from my mommy friends! I was accepted, and found a preschool there I loved instantly! It truly seems meant to be 🙂
My son will be two and a half January 16th, January 7th I start college. I am thrilled to be able to learn more about who I am as a person,  if I don’t take this time to grow into myself I don’t know how I will be able to help Grayson grow into anyone. I know it will be hard to leave my son but I am no good to him unless I take the time to work on myself. I have a long road ahead of me, 4.5 years of being a single momma in college. I am terrified but it feels right. I can’t wait to see who I become!

A Day In The Life..

December 22nd, 2012 . Posted in bySarrahbaby, day-to-day life | No Comments »
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This is my first post about a day in my life as a mom of three girls, a wife, and someone who stays at home. I don’t know how this will go because, in my opinion, my life is boring but I am hoping someone will get something out of it. Anyways, let me begin..

I woke up this morning after getting up twice in the middle of the night for my youngest to eat (8 months old) actually feeling like I got a good night sleep. I thought to myself, hey this might actually be a good day. I was wrong. Terribly wrong lol. My middle child, Elizabeth, woke up first. She woke up in a horrible mood. She was so mean and cranky. As soon as I brought Elizabeth out into the living room my middle child, Amber, woke up as well. So here I have two little girls who fight all the time cranky. Next thing I know I have a fight on my hands. Amber sits down to read a book and Elizabeth decides she wants the book.

Right now, my husband, David, and I, have been trying hard to find the right form of discipline to get through to our children because they have been out of whack lately.

So this time we tried just sitting them on opposite couches to calm down and wake up a little bit more. Well, this did not work. Anyone have any other ideas other than timeout, spanking, yelling, or taking things away??

So anyways the morning goes on and I keep trying to get the girls to calm down and be nicer and get along and listen so on and so forth. Lunch time comes around and the girls are still acting insane. Of course I can’t eat lunch until they get laid down for a nap because I will never get to finish it lol. So I sit the girls down and give them some Chicken Noodle Soup. Elizabeth throws it on the floor and Amber only eats two bites. So lately I am trying to get it across to them that they have to eat what I give them when I give it to them. They think they should be able to eat whatever, whenever, and wherever they want. So I put them down for their nap about 30 minutes early. Elizabeth goes right to sleep and Amber never takes her nap.

Luckily, and unluckily, David is laid off at the moment so he could stay home while they were napping (Chloe too) and I could go to the grocery store to get food for Christmas Dinner and my grandfather’s birthday dinner tomorrow night. THE GROCERY STORE IS JAMMMMMM PACKED!! I couldn’t even get to all of the things I needed because the store is so packed. Luckily when I come home the girls are still napping so I can grab a quick lunch and spend some time with David. That is what I wish happened anyways.

When I came home David was organizing things in the house and I got to work washing dishes and the counter tops. After about 30 minutes of that all three of my girls wake up. At that point I thought I would never get anything done. LUCKILY, my mom stopped by and I let her watch the girls in the living room while I got some laundry put in the washer/dryer and I finished up in the kitchen. NOW I can sit down.

Chloe is playing nicely in her jumper, Elizabeth and Amber are getting in trouble every few minutes. I cannot get these children to quit acting like this. And talk about RUDE. My oldest daughter out of nowhere has obtained the rudest nastiest attitude ever. It is horrible. Anyone else dealing or has dealt with this?? Please give me some advice lol. So we make the girls sit on opposite couches again and put a movie on for them. At that point it was time for me to start dinner. Holy geez non stop work lol. I have to keep leaving the kitchen to get onto the girls to leave Chloe and her jumper alone and to stop fighting because my Mom is playing on her cell phone lol. So dinner was suppose to be Italian Sausage. I had 6 links of it and 3 out of the 6 ended up burnt. Bleh.

What a day. Finally though we got to all sit down for Italian sausage, buttery pasta, and steamed green beans. It was a good dinner. Then the girls went off to play and I started dishes. David kept on organizing things this whole time by the way lol. Finally it is bed time (mommy relaxation time haha).

I sit down and play Call of Duty Modern Warfare with David for a little while and now as I write this he is watching How I Met Your Mother. I am going to sign off for now because I am exhausted from the kids behavior, shopping, and cleaning. Hopefully someone can give me some advice about the kids or hopefully someone got something from this. Like, life is exhausting being a mom but totally worth it. Good night all 🙂

Prenatal Screening and Spina Bifida

December 21st, 2012 . Posted in teen pregnancy & parenting | No Comments »

A little over three years ago, I learned that I was pregnant. I was young and it was unexpected and terrifying. I’ve always loved children, my own mother had me young and did an amazing job and I had an overwhelming amount of support! I could do it, because in the end it would be worth everything. I spent the first three months huddled on the couch with horrible morning sickness, quickly learning I was about to be a single parent and I thought the worst was over.

At the end of my first trimester I went for the integrated prenatal screen (IPS) a screen for abnormalities in the baby, Down Syndrome being the most common found. When deciding to do the test I did my research and learned that because of my age, family history and the fact that I am a healthy person the likelihood of anything being wrong was slim to none. The test was quite simple and non-invasive, a round of bloodwork, an ultrasound, and another round of bloodwork.

I went for the first set of bloodwork with my biggest fear being the bloodwork itself, I’ve always hated needles. I was ecstatic about the opportunity to see my little baby during the ultrasound. I forgot about the test entirely until the second set of bloodwork, then carried on as usual, I was confident nothing would be wrong, how could it be when the little baby in the picture was so perfect? The day I got the phone call my world stopped, the doctor needed me to come in to discuss the results, something might be seriously wrong, I couldn’t breathe.

I was a wreck the next 2 days waiting for that appointment. The results were in there was a positive for Spina Bifida, I knew what Spina Bifida was, and I knew what the future would look like if it was true. I was sent to a geneticist who asked about family history, and given a more accurate ultrasound. Then came more waiting.

It was by far the scariest and longest couple weeks of my life, weeks where I cried myself to sleep every night, where I broke out crying in class almost daily. Finally the appointment came where I saw the geneticist again for the official results. I had a slightly increased risk (0.37% when the average is 0.1 – 0.2%) but it was very likely my son would be born healthy!

Honestly there were still times I worried for him, I very rarely felt movements during my pregnancy, he was late learning to sit and he never really crawled. Today watching him run and play outside, I remembered that time when I was told he may never be able to do any of those things, it hit me with such force I found myself yet again crying over the results from that test. This time they were tears of joy, I am beyond thankful for my little wild man and his ability to run and play and be his wild self. I will never take it for granted, and when he’s old enough I will share this story with him so he too won’t take it for granted.

Every woman of child bearing age should be taking a multivitamin containing at least 0.4mg of folic acid daily. This reduces the chance of neural tube defects by approximately 70%. To learn more about Spina Bifida please visit http://www.cdc.gov/Features/SpinaBifidaProgram/index.html