Mom. Student. Wife. Doctor?

Being as I am still working on my prerequisites for Chiropractic school, I really don’t have the opportunity much to be around all the chiropractic people I so enjoy. When I was invited to accompany a friend of mine to a seminar in St. Louis, I was really excited at the prospect. I was a little leery about leaving the kids and my husband at home. My husband and I are kindred spirits and although he is not a Chiropractor, he shares my enthusiasm about chiropractic and my love of being around it. Because I am a student, I pay a minimal amount to attend the seminar, and since it is a philosophy seminar, I can bring my husband along, if I can find someone to leave the kids with. I have been reviewing it over and over again in my mind; however, I will not leave my kids in Oklahoma, while I am in St. Louis that is just not me. I want to go, but I don’t want to drag my husband along, and then make him watch the kids all weekend that just wouldn’t be fair. So, I finally decided to contact my friend, and she said that the seminar will have child care available right there in the hotel that we will be attending the seminar at. She said that her older daughter will be helping out with the child care there and that the cost for it is only $10.00 a day per child.

This is great! Now my husband and I can attend the seminar together this summer without worry. I know we will have a great time and chiropractic philosophy really keeps me focused on my goals and gets me really pumped up. This will be just what we need. I think I might add an extra day or two onto our trip so we can take in some of the sights in St. Louis, and also take the kids to the zoo there, which is absolutely free. All you have to do is pay for parking which I think is about $5 and that is it. I have also arranged for her daughter to watch the kids one night for us, so we can go downtown for a grown ups night out with my friend and her husband. There is a really great restaurant there that my friend has been dying to take me to. I found some really inexpensive accommodations nearby as the hotel that the seminar will be in is quite expensive. My friend Pat offered that I could stay with her while I am there, but I know that with the kids that will be a little much and since the seminar and child care are so cheap and we will drive to St. Louis, I will gladly pay for a hotel room for us all. It will be a real treat to get away and get really pumped up on a great philosophy weekend and squeeze in a little family time as well.

I use my debit card for everything. I rarely ever carry or pay cash even for the smallest item. It drives my husband crazy that I will send him to the store for a gallon of milk and expect him to use his debit card. He likes to pay cash for the little things, but it doesn't bother me at all to use the card even for a small purchase.

Recently, I have been giving a lot of thought to the big brother theory. If I use my debit card for everything, then truthfully anyone who is interested can track my every move. They will know my habits, like which stores I frequent and how much I spend. It is kind of like the internet, it is really tracking my every move. I don't mean to sound paranoid, but sometimes I think that it is a little scary. Anyone who has access to this information can tell exactly my path as I go through town running errands. They can tell what night I do my grocery shopping and where, and can even see everything I buy. The truth is that there was a time when using a card was safer than carrying cash, however, lately it seems like the merchants barely even look at the cards much less match the signature to them. In places like McDonalds and Subway for instance a purchase for less than $30.00 they don't even have you sign for anymore. It has gotten a little to casual for my comfort, where they just assume that whoever presents my card is me, no matter what or how they sign. In this day, it seems that they could begin using fingerprints or DNA to identify you as the correct person; however, I don't really want that info in the government's data base either.

I am seriously considering using cash more often for my purchases, as I just don't like the idea of my every move being followed or traced by an unknown source. If our government can trace our every move and the internet can also, who is to say that this information is not falling into the wrong hands as well. I just think that for our own protection and privacy, we should watch our information and only share it when necessary, this way if there is a problem, we know how our information got leaked.

Have you noticed that lately physicians are not treating diseases as they used to. Unlike in the past, most doctors are realizing that their over prescribing ways have given rise to a decrease in both a person's natural immunity and the effectiveness of the antibiotics that they are giving. In the current state of the world, the possibility exists of a biological attack. With this fact, all of a sudden the doctors are realizing that they may need all possible drugs available to thwart this type of attack. In the interim, they are claiming that most of the illnesses we have now are viral and no drugs are necessary.

The librarian at school was recently diagnosed with mono and was told by a physician that no antibiotics were necessary to resolve the problems. The only medication besides the over the counter ones available, they gave her steroids and sent her home. Now I don't know if you are aware of how dangerous steroid use can be, but let's put it this way, it puts some people completely out of their minds. I mean they actually become psychotic. It is scary that a doctor in this age would prefer giving someone steroids vs. a common antibiotic as would have been given in the past.

With this latest development in medicine, it seems to me that many people have become more reluctant to go to the doctor for colds and such. They are now realizing that a majority of doctors are not prescribing anything for these illnesses anyway, and the truth is why pay even a co-pay if a doctor is going to send you home just to have you take an over the counter medication. It is definitely not worth the time and energy of going to the MD if they are not going to prescribe anything.

My fear is that if less people are going to the doctor for these small illnesses, then what are the doctors going to do to generate more money. I am afraid that during the next few years, some of the surgeries that have withered in popularity will be returning. Some examples would be tonsillectomies, hysterectomies, and appendectomy. These surgeries, although less life threatening than most, may start to be increased to generate revenue for the struggling MD's. I really hope that I am wrong, yet somehow these doctors are going to need to make up the money lost by the inevitable decrease in office visits. I can't imagine that they are going to sit by and watch their livelihoods dwindle away, without taking action somehow.

I love to travel and go to different places and meet all different people. What I have learned by traveling is that even here in the US, regionally there are different norms, foods and cultural aspects that I never really considered until doing some traveling and meeting people from different areas of the country. Being from New York, I just never truly realized that there were so many differences across the regions of the US.

I met a guy from Nebraska at school, and they actually used to go out at night when they were in high school and tip cows. I had never heard of such a thing. He explained to me that cows sleep standing up, and when you find a cow that is asleep if you just push him a little bit, he will fall right over. How awful! I never spent any time around cows, so I hope this doesn’t hurt them. He said that it doesn’t, but it still seems pretty mean to me.

I met a girl from Arkansas where I work, and she was telling me that where she is from they use the word Coke to describe any type of soda. She said that when you go to a restaurant where she is from, they ask you what you want to drink, and you say a Coke. Then they ask you what type of Coke you want and you tell them, root beer, Sprite, orange, Pepsi and so forth. I thought this sounded kind of strange, but then again I had never really heard the word pop used for soda before coming to the mid west either.

Where I am from we use the word supermarket instead of the word grocery store. We also say going food shopping instead of grocery shopping. This is one adaptation that I made very quickly after coming to the Midwest and realizing that no one knew what I was talking about. I also grew up calling pizza a pizza pie, but here in the mid west, that is confusing. The one day I called up the local pizza place to place an order, and accidentally ordered a large pie, they said we don’t sell pies ma’am, you need to call Tippin’s if you want a pie. Tippin’s is a Midwest cake and pie place. I didn’t realize my mistake until I hung up the phone, very confused. I called back and ordered a cheese pizza, and then no problems. Needless to say I have not made that mistake again.

Once on a trip to St. Louis, MO we called a local place to order a pizza, and what we got was really a cracker crust with provolone cheese instead of mozzarella and it was cut into a checkerboard. Well, by far this is the strangest of my Midwest experiences thus far. In New York, all pizza looked relatively the same, but this pizza was not even pizza in my mind. I later learned that this is supposed to be the most famous pizza in St. Louis, a place called Imo’s and that is there specialty this thin crust, and when I say thin crust I mean the equivalent of a saltine cracker with cheese and sauce on it. Probably won’t make that mistake again either.

Since being outside of New York the one thing I really miss is Bakeries, Bagel Shops and Delis. Where I live you can get all these items in your grocery store, but they are not near as good as what I am used to. Also, in NY when you go to the deli, you don’t have to tell them how to slice it; the meat is always sliced very thin. My first trip to a grocery store deli in the Midwest was also an adventure. I ordered a pound of roast beef, and when I got home, I found out that I had four slices of roast beef. Obviously, no sandwiches that evening. I have since learned that you need to tell them to slice it very thin, but if you say shaved, then they pick up a clump of already sliced meat from behind the counter. I want mine fresh so I have to tell them very thin. They don’t always get it the way I want it, but at least I have never gotten just 4 pieces per pound again.

In short, I think it is the differences that make the world a most interesting place. I love the adventure of it all, and learning new customs too.

I had a really fun weekend. My husband and I took the kids to the park, which is something we really love to do. We even took our little Pomeranian with us. She is really my baby as she was before I even had kids. I think that people without kids can very easily have a pet and treat it like a baby, but once you have kids it seems as if a pet just becomes another thing to take care of. I have always loved having animals. I always loved talking to my dog even when I was a kid. I guess the best thing about having a pet, is sometimes, when you are sad or worried, you can snuggle them and talk to them about anything. They don’t talk back and they never judge you, and that is perhaps the thing I love the most. I just fell that now, I don’t have the kind of relationship with my dog that I once had. I don’t know it is kind of like, since having kids that my dog has stopped being my baby and started being just a dog. Although, I must say I have 2 pets that were mine before my husband and my kids, and both are the sweetest most wonderful animals in the world.

My Pomeranian is red, her name is Gidget. She was about 1 ½ when I got her. I went to a breeder to get a puppy and they had her, and she had been abused and was really timid, and I fell in love with her. She came to me with her name and I just thought that the poor animal had been through enough, so I kept it the same so as not to further traumatize her. I chose the breed because they are supposed to get along really well with people, children and other animals. All that is true, she is an excellent pet. She has been great with the kids and is very friendly. She is much less skittish then she was when I first got her, although, if there is thunder or a vacuum cleaner, she hides under the bed, other than that, no problems. She is a great size too. We have had the opportunity to take her on several trips with us, and she travels well on airplanes and in the car. I never check her with the baggage, I always just keep her under the seat with me, where I can keep an eye on her and reassure her that everything will be okay.

My other pet, purchased about a year after Gidget, is Palmer. He is a Persian cat, red in color similar to Gidget. He is very friendly and gets along well with Gidget. I picked him because his breed was also supposed to be more docile and should get along with other animals well. This was true, but the story about how I got Palmer was even more interesting. I wanted to get him so Gidget would have company while I was at work, so I went to a breeder. Now I had never had a cat before, my father always hated them, well I went to the breeder’s house and there were cats EVERYWHERE. Well, I was not used to having cats rubbing all up against me and it really creeped me out. It took me two days to be able touch poor little Palmer, but once I did I was in love, and so was Gidget, she started acting like the proud mama, it was really sweet.

Since beginning to attend school here at OU I have learned so much. Not the kind of learning that books provide, but more the life lessons that take us from a teenager to an adult. Coming here to school and finding an apartment for me and my family was quite a harrowing experience. When I was searching for an apartment here I sent to many different complexes in the area to check out what they had to offer. I got a whole bunch of brochures and spoke to several rental agents on the phone. Quite honestly, they all looked good, but I decided to rent a townhouse. I had seen the brochure and they had a cute play area on the grounds and a pool and it seemed like a really nice place. I spoke to the woman several times on the phone and told her that I would be moving there with my husband and my one year old daughter and that I had another child on the way. I asked was it a family place and she said it was. I inquired about the playground and she said it had a slide and swings and was really cute.

Well, I was moving to the area to do my prerequisites to attend Chiropractic College and wanted a nice place for my family and I to call home while I did my course work. So we packed up all our belongings into a rental truck including the family cat and dog and drove for 2 days to get here. When we finally arrived after 2 horrendous days in the car and moving truck, all I really wanted to do was unload our mattresses and go to sleep. We walked around the apartment complex while we waited for the woman to come and give us our keys. As we walked around back, we could see the swing set, with one broken swing. And a large tower that had no sides to it and no slide. As we continued around the grounds, we noticed that instead of beautifully landscaped grounds as described and pictured in their brochure, there was just a lot of dirt with an occasional tuft of grass or two. We were disappointed, but I was tired, so when the woman came to let us into our new residence, I was ready to move in. As we walked in, we immediately noticed a large, what appeared to be bleach stain in the center of the living room carpet, and we had been told that the carpet would be replaced. Then in the upstairs bathroom the whole tub and sink which were white ceramic, were all black. We were devastated. This whole thing was not what we had expected, and now what could we do? We knew no one, and had very little money, but we told the woman that we didn't think that this was going to work out. We asked her to give us back half of our security deposit and that she could keep the other half for her inconvenience, but she said no, that she was going to keep it all. Fortunately, we took out our camera and took pictures of the "beautifully landscaped grounds" and "cute playground" before we left. We could not get pictures of the inside of the building however. We then went to a hotel for the night and began a hunt for the perfect apartment again in the morning. We tried several times to get just half of the deposit back, but the woman was nasty and did not want to deal with us.

Well, we had no choice, so we took the apartment complex to small claims court. I was really nervous, as I had never been to court before. Well, we told our side and she told hers. She had brought pictures of their newly improved playground area, but when I showed the judge the brochure they sent me vs. the pictures of what we actually saw when we got there, she almost dropped. She had no idea that we had taken pictures of what the area looked like when we arrived that evening. Well, the judge awarded us all of our deposit back and the woman from the apartments requested to have those pictures we took back from us. I guess even she couldn't deny how awful the complex looked on that day. Well, it is a real dose of grown up reality when you learn that everyone and everything are not what they seem.

I have been thinking a lot lately about home schooling my children. It seems that there are a lot of different thoughts and theories about this that exist in the world. The general population of people thinks that home schooling is a bizarre way of keeping your kids out of the world. I don’t think of it that way. I do worry though that it will keep my children too sheltered, and this is something that I really want to avoid. I want my kids to be able to deal with and be involved in the real world and be able to make changes, but I also feel that a large part of the public school experience is keeping control of the kids as opposed to teaching them anything. These days you are constantly hearing about very young kids bringing weapons to school and doing all kinds of bizarre things that I am just not sure makes for the best learning environment for children.

I have recently become aware of the fact that with lunches, recess, specials and other activities, the time that a teacher actually spends teaching your kids is about 2 hours out of a 6 hour school day. I think that is ridiculous. I have met several people who have home schooled or are home schooling their children and they say that they spend about 2 hours a day teaching to their children and working with them. Their kids do seem well adjusted and happy. They have special home schooling groups that take field trips and do recreation activities together so that the kids are getting the social interactions with their peers. I think that this adds a good balance to the lives of these children. Most of the kids and families that I have met through these organizations have been well adjusted families. It seems like I have not met a kid who has an ADD diagnosis and is home schooled. I know that I could home school my kids at the younger ages, but worry a little bit about teaching them when they get older. I also think that it is important to introduce them to the public school system prior to them attending college, so that they can get a feeling about what it is like, perhaps at the High School level, but I am not quite sure on this.

I want to provide my children with the best education possible, but am just not sure whether public school, private school, or home schooling is the best. I did meet one woman who told me that she was home schooled up through high school and when she hit college she went totally wild with the freedom of it all. She said that she felt that home schooling had caused her to be too sheltered and once tossed into the real world, she was completely overwhelmed. I would be very careful not to shelter my kids. If I am to home school them, I will be sure to give them a good balance of activities and interactions not only with other home schooled children, but all children, so that they can live a balanced life.

Beginning school with a 2 year old and a 3 month old is definitely a bit of a challenge. I need to be in classes all day long, and when we first began discussing it, we discussed the option of putting the kids in day care. I was not really comfortable leaving my kids in day care all day. I guess I am the type who wants it all. I want to have my career, but don't want to do it at the expense of my kids. Anyway, after a little while I came up with a plan. I told my husband that he could stay home with the kids while I was in school. This way, we wouldn't have to worry about who was taking care of the kids while we were gone. He agreed reluctantly agreed, so now, he works a few nights a week and stays home with the kids while I am at school all day. I guess I didn't really realize what I was in for. Some days I come home and all of them are still in there pjs at 4:00pm and he is bragging that he has gotten the dishes done and put away while I was at school for 8 hours.

Well, quite honestly, I do know that my kids are being well cared for, but somehow when I was thinking about him staying home with the kids this is not exactly what I had in mind. Although, I am truly grateful for the support of my husband, I know that I am lucky to have a man who supports my efforts and loves his children enough to break tradition and stay home to care for them. I can't imagine what my life would be like if I were a single parent trying to get this much done. The demands of school and family pull a person in two different directions. Some nights after we get done with dinner and baths and bedtime, I have to sit down and do school work until midnight. Then I am up at 6:00am getting ready and out to school. The days are long and the nights too short.

I really think that all though I am very lucky to be able to have it all, perhaps things would be much easier if the women's liberation movement had never taken place. If you think about it since women have earned the equality to be able to work, go to school, and have a family, the woman's salary has become an essential part of a family's financial structure. In most households, women don't have the freedom to choose work or staying home, but instead must work outside the home and work in the home and balance both like some type of circus clown. In addition to having to manage a work and household schedule, with the divorce rate being as high as it is, many women are having to do it all alone.

I don't think that when women's lib came about, that this was the intent. The intent was the right for a woman to choose, not be force into both roles. Now as women, more so than at any other time in history, we are burdened to choose between raising our children or allowing them to eat. What kind of choice is that?