Hello! In the past week, I have accepted a 20 hour GA position and surrendered and finally bought a college parking pass (I managed to make it through my entire Undergraduate and Masters degrees--7 years total of school by parking on free streets, at broken meters, and in the occasional public parking garage when absolutely necessary). "This shit is getting real" as my former students would say.
I decided to start this blog due to the complete lack of information out there on navigating your way through a doctoral program when you have children...especially young children. And the fact that my writing could use a little work and it's always nice to have somewhere to put your thoughts...fears, regrets, revelations, accomplishments...you get the picture...in order to remove them from you head and be able to get to sleep a little bit quicker at night. And as a parent, any amount of extra sleep is a little piece of heaven--especially the five minutes I am blessed with after hitting the snooze button and before my oldest is able to fully wake up from the first alarm and stumble her way into my room, joyfully exclaiming "It's wake up time!" and manually prying open my eyes should I try to ignore her. I'm sure those of you who are parents know exactly what I'm talking about and those of you who are not are grateful at this moment for blissful, uninterrupted sleep...and, if you're not, you should be! ;)
So, I thought a good first step would be giving you all a glimpse of a typical 1st semester schedule, at least for my program, with a "full time" GA position (aka 20 hours of work). And how my family is choosing to manage child care, study time, Mommy time (haha what's that?!?), etc. I know not everyone has the same wonderful support system as I do, or that others need to work more than 20 hours, but this is just one insight.
My Fall 2013 Schedule
Monday -- Wake up at the crack of dawn with my children (hopefully will get later as we get out of summer!) Spend the day together, playing, walking, eating, cleaning and laundry...okay that will likely be just me. Try my damnedest to get them all...that's right, ALL 3, to nap at the same time. If that fails, let the oldest play quietly in my bedroom on the bed with puzzles, books, etc...yep, some might say bad parenting BUT can't pass up this opportune time to study! Wake up and repeat the morning, find time to attempt to pull together a real dinner, eat, clean, bedtime prep, bedtime x 3, and feel guilty as I relax with my husband for an hour or so, instead of study or scrub the toilets, and fall, exhausted into bed.
Tuesday -- Get the girls up earlier than the crack of dawn, dress them, feed them a little snack while I try to sneak in at least a third of a cup of coffee, take them to daycare/preschool, and get to my school by 7 a.m. so that I can fit in an hour of homework/studying/research/sanity increasing facebook time/etc. Start graduate assistant hours at 8 and work till 1pm at which point I will rush quickly to my 1-4 pm class followed by some sort of quick scarfing of a meal (and likely last minute assignment completion) before the start of my 5-8 pm class. Head home...and, sadly, if needed spend a couple hours in my local Starbucks completing my daily caffeine quota and finishing up any homework or papers due the following day...of that night by midnight (I can be quite the procrastinator.) Get home, check in on the girls who were picked up by either my husband or my in-laws, fed dinner, and put to bed, cuddle up with them when they inevitably wake up and...
Wednesday -- REPEAT Tuesday morning, but work till 5 pm followed by another 5-8 pm class. Also, I am going to work early so I can bank time for possible meetings that will be scheduled from 11-1 on Wednesdays for my program, research team, graduate studies, etc...
Thursday -- Wake up at the crack of dawn with the girls, try to pull something fun out of my big bag of Mommy tricks (a.k.a. Pinterest) or do a fun outing (Library, Zoo, etc.) so that I can force myself to keep my attention focused on them and not my school work. IFF I'm a really good wife that day, I may even try to throw some sort of crockpot something together for dinner that night. Meet my husband or in laws around 4 pm so I can fight rush hour traffic to arrive to my final class, out of breath, and likely a few minutes late. Come home and try to have some sort of conversation with my husband that lasts longer than 5 minutes and is in the form of spoken language and not text.
Friday -- Wake up around 5, kiss my girls goodbye as they will spend Fridays with their dad and/or grandparents, chug some coffee, make it to the gym for at least a once a week workout...or a quick nap in the sauna..., and to work from 8-5.
WEEKENDS -- It is my goal to protect my weekends as best I can for family time. I intend to do as little school work and as much coloring, hiking, singing, small board book reading, and swinging as possible on the weekends.
I will also try to fit in as many work outs as possible throughout the week, as they are pretty much my only "me time" and it's always capped by a child free shower--which is heaven! Additionally, our gym provides two hours of child care per day, so it is the perfect place to go for last minute homework assignments to be completed when the girls refuse to nap or I just am cutting it too close. As long as I make it to the gym with the girls twice a week it is more cost effective to use the gym than a babysitter...and we try to go on the weekends as a family to swim or climb.
Well, there you have it, the schedule as I believe it will be. We will see what it actually looks like come the last week of August when the fall semester begins. I will keep you guys updated on the reality of this schedule and the obvious and hidden difficulties and blessings of having three under three (well, three three and under) while pursuing a PhD.
Click in next week to see why I chose to accept the 20 hour Graduate Assistantship instead of the less time intensive 10 hour Tuition Grant.
Feel free to post any questions or comments, but please refrain from posting snap judgments to myself or others who have posted. Thank you!
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