"Changing my degree"

Well, I've been putting off starting a blog for a couple of years now for a couple of reasons:

1. I used to think is was just bored moms that didn't have anything better to do with their lives but talk about their family all day to random people on the internet.

2. I don't find my life interesting enough to post it publicly.

3. I wouldn't keep up with it.

Well now:

1. I'm a mom that is obsessed with my family and I want to talk about it to everyone.

2. My life still isn't that interesting but I'm going to get things off my chest and brag about my family anyway even if it's just for myself alone.

3. I'll try my best.

So here goes my first ever blog post. First off I probably will have tons of grammatical errors, random tangents, and half the post are either going to be me ranting/ talking about subjects that may be boring to an outsider party. I kinda have a feeling this blog will be just for myself and I won't have any followers but just in case I don't want to hear how poorly written my blogs are. It's just my brain throwing up and my fingers doing the communication.

I thought I'd start off with the biggest decision of my life that I have made so far. No, it's not my decision to marry my husband Tommi or have my adorable baby Iris. Those came pretty easy. It was my decision to quit school and to focus solely on starting a family.

When I was 17 I found myself in love. Twitterpated is more like it. I wanted to marry him as soon as I was old enough and that was my only plans I had for the future. I hung out only with him. I talked only of him. My life was him. We became engaged and for a while it seemed my "perfect life" was starting to pan out. Then he left to train to become and airman for the United States Airforce. It worked for about...2 months. Then each phone call was a fight, we never had anything nice to say, and he starting to seek solace elsewhere. Needless to say the relationship ended very badly. I went through not only a breakup of a relationship of 2 years but all my future plans were now gone. I had no back up plan. It was a pretty dark time for me and not something I want to continue talking about really.

Then everyone starting suggesting to me that I should seriously go full time to school. The more it was brought it the more it appealed to me. Independence, intelligence, and most importantly something entirely new that didn't remind me of my past life. So I moved out to Utah and starting school swearing to myself I'd focus completely on my studies.

Enter Tommi in a Navy dress uniform. We started seriously dating within 2 months of my being there. Which I justify by saying I've known him since I was 3 and always had a mad crush on him. It's not like he was a random dude trying to get hitched ASAP to the first willing female. Of course once we started dating I started to care less and less about my classes and more and more about my awesome boyfriend. We lived over 2 hours away from each other so I thought transferring to Utah State, the university 10 minutes from him would help me focus more.

Nope.

I became so wedding hungry. I just wanted to freaking marry the boy already! Grades started slipping and I didn't really care I blamed it on my hunger. Finally on Christmas day we became engaged! After that my hormones and 12 year old wedding fantasies calmed down. This time for REAL I would focus on school work.

And I really did this time. I went to study groups, had tutors, sat in the front of the class, asked questions, etc. Everything a good student should do. But no matter what I did I never liked what I was doing. From my Shakespeare class to Biology, nothing interested me. I was just being a robot being obedient. On top of that my grades weren't even doing that good even with all my effort. And I was only taking sophomore classes at this point. I knew it was only going to get worse for me academically. I started praying so hard for what I needed to do in this life so I could focus on that as my degree and be able to excel in it.

Then I started working at a restaurant that had adorable families by the dozens come in daily. Then I found out 2 of my sisters and a sister-in-law were expecting. Then the wedding was getting closer. Call it inspiration, coincidence, or just being baby hungry but I knew very clearly what my calling was. I wanted to be a mother. I needed to be a mother. I was falling more in love with Tommi every day and the thought of having a child with him made me explode with emotion every time I thought about it. I had been around children literally my whole life and have always loved being around them. Taking care of children, keeping a proper household, listening to Tommi's council, and having massive amount of love for my dear ones was what I did best. Convenient that this is what the leaders of my church say is the calling of women.

The wedding came and went and it was now the summer time. Registering for classes was approaching and the thought of doing another semester made me sick. Then I took a 3 long hour shower and seriously thought about it. Why am I in school? Have I enjoyed a single class I've taken? What would I do with my degree anyway if I always want to stay home with my children? I realized that the only reason I started school was because socially it was expected of me. And emotionally I wanted a new beginning. I now have the perfect new beginning with Tommi and who cares what society expected of me?

I called my dad and told him I was thinking about quitting school he fully supported me and said he has no problems whatsoever with his daughters wanted to be full time mothers. The small amounts of doubts and guilt I had were erased when he said, "You know how to cook and clean. Rear, guide, and love children. You and your eternal companion love each other. You have your degree in home making. Now you just need your on the job training which every graduate goes through. I don't look at you quitting school, I look at you as switching degrees." Man. I. love. my. dad.

So, we got pregnant in August and we have a healthy, beautiful, baby girl that has given me joy every single day I have been blessed to have her in my life. Which is something I never had going to school. I've gotten all the reactions to quitting school.

"You need to be educated"
"What if something happens to Tommi?"
"You can be a mom and a student"
and so on.

I am educated.
If something happened to Tommi degree or not, we'd figure it out.
I want to be the one who is there every day when my babies wake up. I want to feed them. I want to see every milestone they pass. I feel personally I could not do that if I was full time anything other than being a mom.

So there it is. That felt good to get that off my chest I've never spoken that out loud (or written it rather). Stay tuned for my "on the job training" story as my dad put it. AKA birthing story next. Get pumped.