Ready or not

My bed is full of laundry to be folded, my sink full of dishes to wash, my living room scattered with toys, and my car in desperate need of a cleaning. My baby is in bed taking her nap and I am reluctantly opening up my new syllabi for this semester that starts today while taking a few moments to post to my blog.

Ready or not, my 4th and 2nd to last semester for the MSIDT program starts today. I have "senioritis" pretty bad. Having successfully survived the semester this summer, I keep asking myself - Is this worth it? Are the late nights of homework and weekends spent glued to my laptop while my husband and daughter spend time together really worth it? Do I really want to continue? Attending park days, smocking dresses for Elisabeth, baking cookies, planting a garden and scrapbooking sounds so much more appealing.

However, I only have two semesters left. I can do this. I can finish my masters. Besides, I made a promise to Lance to finish AND I would hate the thousands of tuition dollars and hard work over the last few years to go to waste. And despite the stress associated with being a fulltime student, mother and wife, I secretly love what I am studying and enjoy being in school at times.

So, ready or not, here I come. I guess the laundry will have to wait.

Tradition!

Lance took me to see Topol in Fiddler on the Roof yesterday. Despite having to sit in our $50 nose bleed seats, the performance was absolutely amazing. I wish we had a set of opera glasses as we missed so much of the facial expressions that made the play as engaging as it was. Despite this, we laughed, cried, clapped, and sang with everyone else there. We are in the process of teaching Elisabeth some of the songs. "The Dream" is a great splashing, bathtime song. She will love show tunes before we know it!

I adore musicals and wish we could afford to attend the theater on a regular basis. After singing "Tradition" on the way to get frozen yogurt, we decided we need to make theater a part of our own family's traditions. We decided we will attend at least one musical or play every year. When Elisabeth is old enough - Maybe 8 or 9, she will start attending musicals with us.

Here is a record of what we have seen as a family so far:

• Fiddler on the Roof - 2009
  
• Wicked - 2008
• The Pagaent of the Masters - 2008
  
• Les Miserables - 2006
  
• Holes - 2005
• Walter Wonka and the Lawyer Factory - 2004 (A musical put on by the law students at the U of MN Law School).
  
• A handful of musical and theater performances done at BYU in 2002. Unfortunately, neither one of us remembers what we saw but Lance got free tickets while we were undergrads so we know we saw quite a few!

We are thinking we may get tickets to see The Lion King in 2010. Do you have suggestions of what would be a good play to add to our wish list?

Spontaneity

There is nothing more exhilarating than having a two week break between graduate school semesters. Breaks allow me to catch up on housework, spend more time playing with Elisabeth, watch movies I missed during the semester and break out of my routine and be spontaneous. Spontaneous. Now that is an understatement.

I feel like a giddy college freshman who has a new sense of freedom after finishing my last final. For example, when I heard about "Fiddler on the Roof" playing in town, I purchased two tickets for the last showing on a whim. Lance and I have plans to take at least three evenings to go to Disneyland while a babysitter watches Elisabeth. I took Elisabeth and Sofi to the dog park and we watched Sofi frolic with the other dogs for at least an hour.

I dread opening up my box of text books to prepare for next semester. I cross my fingers in hopes that these last two semesters are not as painful as I fear and that my next two week break will arrive quickly.

Bilingual Baby

Lance: Do you want me to help you brush your teeth, Elisabeth?
Elisabeth: Apua (Finnish for "help")

Amazing how a 14 month old girl can learn another language in six short weeks. Especially since she barely knows English!

Loves Music, Loves to Dance

Elisabeth loves to sing, to listen to music and loves to dance. Notice her fancy footwork. Usually she just wiggles in time to the music but today she pulled out the steps.

Apparently she digs David Archuleta.



Also notice I don't know how to use the camera properly.

From the mouths of babes

Elisabeth is slowly improving her verbal skills. She will sometimes say a word clearly one day and then never to repeat it for weeks and weeks. Every word she uses is purposeful and her vocabulary is growing more and more everyday. Thanks to our long-time Finnish visitors (who will have been at our house for a total of six weeks when they leave) she is also becoming bilingual.

Here are some of the things she says on a regular basis:

• Mama
• Dog
• anna ("give me" in Finnish)
• ei ("no" in Finnish)
• kiitos ("thank you" in Finnish)
• eeese (her version of "please")
• hes (her version of "yes")
• nana (you guessed it. . . "banana")
• Dada
• all done
• gampa ("grandpa")
• gamma ("grandma")
• ny-ny ("good night")
• up
• baak ("book")
• Nona (her babysitter)
• woof woof (actually, her bark sounds more of a soft grunt - hmmm, hmmm)
• choo-choo (everytime she hears the train go by our house)
• uh oh
• hi
  

She can sign "more", "please," "thank you," "eat," and "all done." As you can guess from her round cheeks, she signs "eat" quite often through the day. This one sure loves to eat!

The most recent phrase to come out of our little music lover's mouth was "do it again" after we were done singing a hymn at church today. Lance and I couldn't believe we heard her say this.

About a two months ago, Lance brought her in to our bedroom for her morning feeding (As of July 5th, she is officially weaned, however.) She started to eat and then stopped, looked up into my eyes and said as clear as clear can be "Hi Mama." She then proceeded to return to her feeding. Talk about melting my heart! I regret to say she hasn't done that since.

She also loves to "sing" along to songs she loves while we are driving in the car. This repertoire includes "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star," "The Wheels on the Bus," anything Disney and Starship's "We Built this City."

I cherish these simple moments with her amidst the stress and busy-ness of life in graduate school.

Grad School FAQs

1.  What are you studying at school?

I am enrolled in the Masters of Instructional Design and Technology at Cal State Fullerton.  I am learning good instructional design concepts so I can design learning materials, online courses, training programs,  educational software, etc.  You name it.  I am also learning how to program educational software in Flash.   My desire is to work as a consultant some day to help schools, businesses, and non-profit organizations transfer courses to an online environment without having to work at a full-time job. 

2.  When do you graduate?  How much time do you have left?

I graduate (God willing) in May 2010.  I have three more semesters total until I graduate and I am halfway through one of those three.

3.  You are a fairly new mom with a husband who is at work more than 40 hours a week.  How do you find the time to be a student?

This is TOUGH.  Very, Very, Very Tough.  My goal is to be a loving mother and wife, first and foremost.  Then comes my role as a student.  I only do homework when Elisabeth is asleep or happily engaged with her Papa or another good friend.  This means LOTS of late nights and all-day Saturday homework fests.  I usually go to bed around 2 a.m. at least once a week.  Basically, I do homework in every free second I can.  

4.  If you are studying all the time, who takes care of the things around the house?

I still try to do as much as I can.  Whatever I can not finish, my dear, supportive husband picks up the slack.  I think he has folded more laundry, given more baths to the baby, ran more errands to the grocery store and spend more time with Elisabeth on Saturdays than he ever imagined was possible. I couldn't love him anymore than I do now.  He is gift from heaven.

5.  Why are you doing this again?

Trust me when I say this thought has crossed my mind at least once a day for the last 7 weeks. Going to graduate school as a mother is more difficult than anything I have ever done in my life.  Our family has had to make many sacrifices so I could return to school.  Is this worth it?  I am not sure. But I do know I felt prompted by the Holy Spirit to start graduate school in the Fall of 2007.  I also know I need to keep the promise I made to my husband when I registered for classes in 2007.  He promised to support me through graduate school as long as I promised to see it through to the end.  

Getting a masters in education has always been a lifelong goal of mine.  I love learning and attending school more than a normal human-being should and amongst all the stress and huge projects, I actually enjoy what I am studying and can't wait to apply it to my life.   

With only one sweet and well-behaved one year old at home and dreams of giving her three more brothers or sisters, it is now or never.   Will it be worth it?  I pray every day that Heavenly Father will give me the strength and insight into this journey of faith.

Seek learning, even by study and also by faith.  D&C 88:118