The Real Jenn is Back

It is official! I have completed the academic portion of my DPT degree.  I am beyond excited, but at the same time it hasn't truly hit me yet.  The last three years have been a rollercoster of emotions for me.  There were many nights of tears, many nights of only 3 hours of sleep, many times I wanted to put my hands in the air and call it quits, and to put it bluntly probably the worst three years of my life.

I've felt like as a mother I have missed out on so much with my children, even though I haven't actually missed hardly any of their special events.  I just could never relax when I was with them and focus every ounce of my attention on them because deep down inside I was worrying about what I needed to do for school when I had 10 minutes kidless.  It wasn't fair to them and all too often they would say, "mommy, you must have a test, you are crabby and there are notecards everywhere." It was hard on both Michael and Mary-Ann, however, especially hard on my sensitive little man, who over the past month has been my own personal cheerleader.  In the mornings before I left for school he would say, "mommy, how many more days until your done? I know you are going to pass! Good luck Mommy!" Today, as I received emails with my final grades, they would both cheer with glee as I said, "yeah, I passed" They would both scream, "mommy passed her test, YEAH!!!" It was precious!  I can't wait to be able to enjoy my time with them, live a somewhat normal lifestyle of a working mother, sleep a full nights sleep without heart palpitations (i hope) and waking up whipping out a book to check something one last time. 

The extremely dark tunnel I have been stuck in for the past three years is slowly starting to shine light. Without my truly amazing parents, husband, friends, and children I would never have been able to get through this.  As my "normal" life begins again, I look forward to being able to eat dinner as a family, put the kids to bed, READ A BOOK (first one being 50 Shades of Grey), Exercise on a regular basis, bake and cook again, watch reality television, do my photo albums, and play with my beautiful children.  I CAN'T WAIT!!! Here's to my "new normal" life!