Panic Attack or Heart Attack?

I should wrap up work for the day, but I literally just googled "Panic attack or heart attack?" In case you were wondering, I am 99.99% sure I am on the verge of a panic attack and not a heart attack. ;)

In all seriousness, though, I think this is the most anxious I have ever been about election results. I think this is because this is the first time in my life I have been involved, in a tiny role, in advocating for a political cause - the local school bond campaign.

I do not know how the vote will come out. I am hoping for the best, but know there is a myriad of factors that could lead to a different outcome. I know and understand not everyone thinks the same way I do.

But I feel extremely invested in this campaign. It is ironic, because I have no problems about putting every single detail about my personal life online for all to read. It is still hard for me to put myself out there on a political cause. I really worry about alienating people. I worry about failing. I worry about rejection.

Many, many other people have worked one hundred times harder than I have on this issue and have much more invested than I do. And I remain hopeful. Hopeful for our kids. Hopeful for our community. Hopeful for our future.

But still, I would like this not-a-heart-attack-but-a-panic-attack to go away. ;)

A Weight Off

I have written extensively about being unsatisfied with my weight. I am battling a lingering foot injury, that, while it is definitely improving, is still not completely healed. I have not run since falling off a chair on June 28th. I was on crutches for a period and still have fairly limited mobility. All of this to say, my inability to exercise in my usual manner means my weight is now in an even more precarious position.

I previously worked with a nutritionist who focused on helping me become an intuitive eater and in detaching my value as a person from my weight. This was all enormously helpful from a psychological standpoint. However, from a physiological standpoint, I think not weighing myself for a long period combined with eating whatever I was craving have contributed to my weighing more now than I did when I was nine months pregnant with each child.

I was thinking last night I am actually not unsatisfied with my body right now. I wish I could run, but I know that will get there with time. I wish I could wear all my clothes instead of just the select articles of clothing that still fit, but I know that is not the end of the world. Where I am really worried is that at this rate of weight gain, I might at one point gain enough weight to be classified in an unhealthy BMI category.

My nutritionist tried to assure me that BMI is meaningless and many healthy people have a variety of BMI levels. However, this feels like the ultimate judgment I could ever face about my body. Being in a "normal" weight category means my fears about weight, although real and visceral, are largely of my undoing. Being in an "overweight" weight category would mean there is a real, tangible, physical, medical concern.

I am honestly not sure how to lose weight while being an intuitive eater since eating when I am hungry and what I am craving seems to be correlated with gaining more weight for me. So I think I will need to restart tracking, or some kind of diet, or some kind of "food rules," or something else. And that makes me sad. But I suppose that is about the only way to really get the weight off.

All Saints' Day

Today, our church celebrated All Saints' Day. The United Methodist Church celebrates this day on the first Sunday in November and is a chance to remember deceased members of a local congregation. As we reflected on the members of our church who had passed away this year, a wave of emotion hit me as I viscerally recalled others whose own life ended this year.

My father-in-law, Dick Hageman. My fellow working mom friend, Nicole DeCruz. And my best friend, Christine Geuther.

So many others have passed away this year. So many wonderful community members, spouses, parents, siblings. But as I told the kids, 2018 has been the hardest, most difficult year of my adult life. Never have I felt death touch me so closely. Never have I felt so beaten down by the universe. Never have I felt the sense that any of my loved ones could be suddenly snatched away from this earthly life.

"Are you okay, Mom?" my daughter asked at lunch today, her brow wrinkled, her hand stretched tentatively across my shoulder. In the grand scheme of things, I am okay. But some moments are harder than others - and today was filled with many difficult moments.

We will all die someday. I think it is easier and more comforting to ignore our mortality, but death comes for us all. Even more difficult, though, is fully comprehending that death will also come for all of our loved ones, and none of us know how long our time together is guaranteed.

I miss you, Dick. I miss you, Nicole. I miss you, Christine. And the hole in my heart created by your absences will probably always be there.

41 College Campuses

Some people track the number of baseball stadiums they have visited. Others rack up visits to foreign countries. Some, like me, make lists of college campuses they have visited. I am only counting campuses where I have been inside of a building on campus. I have counted 41 college campuses that I remember visiting. Here is my recollection:

1. Sterling College - tiny college in Sterling, Kansas, where I attended a church retreat early in high school. I remember it had very nice facilities.

2. Wichita State University - the university which was like a second home in high school. Just a few miles from my house and with a wonderful library, it was the perfect spot for all kinds of IB research papers.

3. Kansas State University - I think this was probably the first campus I ever attended, when my dad worked here while I was in 1st grade. Years later, I returned for my undergraduate and master's degrees, and now I work here as faculty.

4. University of Kansas - I'm not sure when I first visited, but I know we went to the Natural History Museum on campus as a child. My first recollection is visiting as a high school junior, when I thought it was one of the most beautiful locations I had seen.

5. Oklahoma State University - I visited Stillwater, Oklahoma with my dad between the summer of my sophomore and junior and year of high school. I thought it was very much like K-State, only with a different color scheme.

6. Newman College - This is now Newman University in Wichita, Kansas, but when I visited, it was still Newman College. My dad went back to school for his high school teaching certification and I accompanied him there.

7. Friends University - another private university in Wichita, Kansas. This one was the home of many piano competitions.

8. Emporia University - the first time I was here was for a track meet. I think? I distinctly remember the track. ;-)

9. Southwestern University - a small Methodist college in Winfield, Kansas, it is also the home of the state piano competition, which is my only involvement here.

10. Butler County Community College - I never took any classes here, but Will's parents both worked here for years and ultimately retired from the college, and we visited on several occasions.

11. Johnson County Community College - one of the biggest, nicest community colleges in the world. I took an educational psychology college class here while Annika was a baby. It was a great experience but I decided that becoming a high school teacher would not be my path. ;)

12. Mid-America Nazarene University - a small college in the Olathe, Kansas here. I used to live in Olathe, but never visited until I ran a half marathon race there that used the facilities.

13. University of Missouri - Kansas City - UMKC is right in the heart of downtown KC, near the country club plaza, and I visited my friend, Karen, who worked there many times. It also has fabulous museums on site.

14. University of Texas - Arlington - Speaking of Kansas, Karen used to work at UTA as an academic adviser, and we visited her here as well. 

15. University of Missouri - Columbia - Will and I attended a They Might Be Giants concert in college. Prior to the conference, we wandered the Mizzou campus.

16. University of Colorado - Boulder - Another campus Will and I explored together, this time while on vacation in Colorado.

17. Creighton University - a small university in Nebraska, where I attended a Beta Alpha Psi competition while in college.

18. University of Nebraska - Lincoln - another Nebraska university, this time when I went as a Beta Alpha Psi faculty sponsor one year.

19. University of Minnesota - yet another Beta Alpha Psi trip, this one for a graduate case competition. We also visited the Mall of America on the same trip and that was far more memorable. ;)

20. Washington University - We honeymooned in St. Louis, Missouri, and visited the gorgeous campus of Wash U. I think it might be tied with KU as one of the most beautiful college campuses. ;)

21. University of Central Florida - My alma mater for my PhD! I had never visited this university - and honestly had never even heard of it - until we started researching PhD programs. Beautiful, big, sprawling, innovative - so many happy memories here.

22. University of Florida - While in Florida, we visited the most amazing butterfly garden while on this campus in Gainesville, Florida.

23. University of North Texas - Last month, I presented a workshop at this university in Denton, Texas. Gorgeous campus and the surrounding town feels like a real college town.

24. University of Iowa - I attended the Iowa Summer Writing Festival here this past summer. The campus is beautiful and the surrounding college district is a writer's dream.

25. Rollins College - a small, private college in Winter Park, Florida. My best friend Anna worked here and I visited her in her office several times, but I also enjoyed just strolling through campus on random Saturdays.

26. Penn State University - last month, I visited Penn State for the first time when I went to Pennsylvania for my best friend Christine's funeral services. We saw the Bittany Lion statue, visited the arboretum, and ate ice cream at the fabulous on-campus dairy bar.

27. University of Chicago - Will and I visited this campus on a trip to Chicago. I still think of the t-shirt I saw with this university and the slogan, "Where Fun Goes To Die."

28. University of Oklahoma - Will and I visited this campus on a trip to Oklahoma City. We ate pizza on campus and joked that it was the KU of Oklahoma. ;)

29. University of Tulsa - My marathon ran through the campus of the University of Tulsa. There were many helpful spectators cheering.

30. Dakota State University - our friend Matt had a job at this university in South Dakota and we visited and walked through campus with our kids on several occasions.

31. George Mason University - I attend the Behavioral Tax Symposium every year, which was often held on the campus of George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. The trees and hills are wonderful.

32. Northeastern University - interview school, located in Boston, University! I interviewed for a job here in 2009. I actually interviewed at 9 schools that fall, and of the schools on that list, K-State and KU were the only ones I had visited previously.

33. Southern Illinois University - Edwardsville - SIUE. Will and I both came down for my interview here. I remember it was misting and spitting rain most of the day, and the surrounding community seemed nice.

34. Kennesaw State University - a commuter school in the Atlanta, Georgia here. I interviewed here and loved the school but was horrified by Atlanta traffic.

35. University of New Mexico - interview school in Albuquerque! Beautiful Spanish-inspired architecture. And lots of delicious green chiles everywhere.

36. Iowa State University - interview school in Ames, Iowa. It was December when I visited, 10 degrees, and snowing. I also remember it grew dark extremely early.

37. University of Delaware - interview school in Delaware, but very near Pennsylvania (I flew into the Philadelphia airport). It rained all day and my flight home that night was cancelled.

38. University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee. Interview school. I loved the school and the community and the people and the surrounding community. However, I was horrified by the racial disparity, particularly what I learned later from reading Evicted.

39. University of Washington - My family lived in Seattle while I was growing up, and we visited UW several times. I remember it was located near the water. Clearly, I have a very vivid memory of this campus. ;)

40. University of South Carolina - I attended a behavioral accounting conference here in May, where my best friend Donna works. Super nice and large new business building.

41. Concordia University - this university is in Montreal, Quebec, and I traveled here in 2011 to present a workshop. My friend Charles worked here at the time. I remember how pervasive French was spoken in Montreal, and how cold and snowy the area still seemed in March.

*****

Okay, I may have visited other campuses, but that is all I can recall for now. What are some of the most vivid college campuses you have visited?

A Birth Story

When my first child was born, I had little vision for how I pictured her birth unfolding. While I liked the idea of an un-medicated birth, I had an epidural and ended up with a forceps-assisted delivery. I had a brief teary-eyed moment before my daughter was born when I wondered if I should have made different decisions, but my memories of her birth are of being elated, of being surrounded with family and dear friends, of feeling I was the most blessed person in the world to give birth to such a beautiful baby girl.

When I was pregnant with my second child, my circumstances had changed. I was now a PhD student, with limited health coverage on my student health insurance policy and equally limited funds to pay any resulting bills. I diligently researched all costs of giving birth and discovered that the anesthesiologist group for my health insurance policy would be considered out-of-network. I made the seemingly logical decision I would then pursue an un-medicated birth at almost any price so that I could keep my hospital costs lower.

What started as a goal of reducing my financial burden, however, soon morphed into a philosophical, psychological, and personal point of arms. I read up on techniques used to avoid pain medications while giving birth and became singularly obsessed. I became convinced that c-sections had become more common in recent years and regions to provide greater profits to hospitals. I plotted to stay home as long as possible and to arrive at the hospital minutes before giving birth.

On paper, my plan was successful. I did have a completely un-medicated birth. I did not have to pay for an anesthesiologist. Two days after giving birth, I went home with my healthy, wonderful, beautiful baby boy.

In reality, however, my son's birth scarred me in invisible ways for years. I felt I was constantly defending my choices to avoid an epidural to the hospital. I was on an IV and was told I was required to lie down in bed, and I felt the universe was conspiring against me. My obstetrician would only allow me to push while lying down on my back, and I recoiled against the physical restrictions. I had read volumes of literature extolling the virtues of un-medicated births. My forceps-assisted daughter had a perfect Agpar score. My un-medicated birthed son had an array of breathing problems at birth and was whisked away to a special neo-natal nursery, where he was diagnosed with moderate pheonomthormax.

For at least two years after my son was born, I felt only bitterness about his birth story. I felt so cheated from the perfect idyllic experience I had imagined that I had plotted having a third child so  I would have a chance to have a different birth experience. I vowed that I would never set foot in a hospital ever again, even if I were in a car accident and was hemorrhaging on the side of the road. I had built the potential of my son's birth experience up into an impossibly magical event, so much so that even when events unfolded as well as could be reasonably expected, I was still disappointed and disillusioned.

Today, unless it is on their birthday, the details of either of my children's birth never crosses my mind. I truly think the secret to enjoying and celebrating your child's birth is to just go along for the ride. Because, in the end, the details no longer matter. And this is true of so much of parenting - that the ultimate secret to happiness is simply letting go of expectations.

The Road Not Taken

Will and I lived in Kansas City from late 2002 to mid-2005. While there, I worked downtown as a CPA at a public accounting firm - first full-time, later part-time; Will worked as a laser engineer at a government facility; we bought our "dream home" in Olathe; we had our beautiful baby girl; and we attended church at the largest United Methodist church in the United States. 

We are now frequently in the Kansas City area to visit family, and every time we are in the area, I found myself wondering "what if"? What would life be like if we hadn't decided to start over to move to Florida to pursue our PhDs? Would I be working full-time now, still working part-time, or would I be at home full-time? Would I instead have gone back to school in the area to pursue another career? Would Will still be at the same job? Would we have had more children? Would we be living a rich, full life, or would we feel like something was missing? 

For our family, moving to Florida was the single biggest catalyst in our lives today. I often think of the narrative of our life as pre-Florida, during Florida, and after Florida. But I also try to remember that so many other points in my life may also seemingly have been catalysts. What if my family of origin had stayed in Seattle? What if I had not attended K-State for college and had never met Will? What if I had instead stayed as a liberal arts major, or had attended law school? So many seemingly innocuous moments in our life may actually be important junctures. 

The reality is that there is no one path that any of walk down. Our paths fork and branch and dead-end and re-converge all of the time. And our job is just to keep doing the next right thing, for us, at the time. Because if we do, a fulfilling life is just about guaranteed - even if there is a road not taken. 

Just Winging It

For years, I have joked that I am going to write a parenting book and call it Just Winging It. I would also author it by Amy Hageman, PhD, which sounds much more informative than a book written by Amy Hageman, Girl Who Likes to Google.

Well. The time has come for me to write this book. I have pulled out all of my blog entries pertaining to parenting and am going to come up with a rough organizational scheme and then work on fleshing it out.

Why Just Winging It? Because that is what I am doing. Here are some examples:

10. Feeding Your Baby/Child - do you want to breastfeed or use formula? Organic homemade baby food or baby food jars from the store? School lunch or packed lunch? Good news: Since we live in a developed country with a safe water supply, there are no wrong answers to this. And even better, you can change your mind as you go, like me who changed with the very same children from a crazy long-term breastfeeder to a mom whose children think it has been a "long time" since we have been to McDonalds if it has been more than a week.

9. Stay Home or Work Outside the Home - do you want to work full-time? Job share or work part-time? Stay at home full-time? More good news; you can make this one up as you go, too! I know many moms who have stayed home while their children were little and re-entered the workplace later, just as I know many moms who worked full-time when their children were little and decided to cut back once their children started school. In my first year of being a mom, I went from working full-time, to staying home full-time, to working part-time, and ended up full circle of being gone at work/school full-time. And your children are resilient and will thrive whatever you decide works best for your family.

8. Sleep - how will you train your child to sleep? Bahahaha, that's just me laughing at the assumption that you can make anyone sleep. ;) Sometimes kids just wake up all the time at night. All.the.time. And it has very little to do with you, so you just try things and make it up as you go until finally, at last, they start sleeping. Or go to college.

7. Discipline - this is something that I worried about before we had children - how would we discipline our (imaginary) child? I knew I did not want to use spanking as a tool, but what other tools were there? Honestly, this is something that I think I wasted a ridiculous amount of time worrying about, because it is impossible to say the best way to discipline without knowing your child and the specific behavior and circumstances. I also think that any book that tells you the best way to discipline your child (whom the author has never met) is full of it. ;)

6. Potty Training - bahabaha!!! It might be my stubborn children or it might be my lazy attitude (probably a little of both), but my kids met all of their milestones late. My daughter started talking very late. My son rolled over very late (8 months, in fact). Not surprisingly, they were both late to potty train. And you know what? I truly believe that potty training is not a skill that you just hand to your child one day and they pick up, but something that they develop on their own time and own terms. And the method that really "clicks" with your child will be different for every single person.

5. Your Child's Passions - I have written before that I very naively assumed that our children would be some kind of weighted average between Will and me. Thus, if they were interested in soccer, then Will would take the lead, and if they wanted to learn to play the piano, I would be all over that. This might very well be one of the most ridiculous things I have ever thought. Both of our children are not athletes and have no interest in piano, but love drawing and art...something neither Will nor I know anything about. I very quickly learned that our children's passions are theirs - not ours - and it is likely in an area that you as a parent have very little idea of how to guide them.

4. Age of Responsibility - there are lots of articles that talk about this, such as, What age should your child play alone outside? What age can they walk to school by themselves? What age can they first hold a butter knife? And trying to decipher all of those questions is exhausting. It really comes down to (1) your own child and (2) the situation. And no amount of flow-charting is going to make those decisions any easier.

3. Chores and/or Allowance - this is another area that there are many articles and guidelines, but ultimately no "how-to" guidebook. A lot of articles will advise that children should be making their bed every day....which is great, unless you yourself fail to make your own bed, hypothetically speaking. ;) Others have very strong opinions on the pros or cons of giving an allowance in exchange for doing chores. Good news: No child appears to be permanently affected for not receiving (or receiving) an allowance, so you really can't go wrong.

2. Activities - another area with much guidance. Every child should play on a team sport. And learn a musical instrument. And join a scouting organization. And be involved in church. And eat dinners as a family together every night. And spend two hours a night on homework. And get enough sleep. Oh, and make sure your child is not over-scheduled!! The balance between structured and unstructured activities is going to be different for every.single.family and will shift constantly. And, again, no magic optimization exists.

1. Advice - finally, we are living in the Age of Advice. There are 10 million parenting books on the market with often polar-opposite viewpoints (e.g., Sears' Baby Book vs. Babywise). There are also approximately 10 million websites and articles on the Internet about how to parent. You can even sign up for an Internet newsletter to be delivered to your inbox every week (or every day!) telling you All the Ways You Could Be Doing It Wrong. It's impossible to feel as though we are ever going to meet all of the standards out there, especially since standards on what is "best" so often contradict each other. In the end, I truly believe it comes down to Just Winging It.