Well, so there I was, thinking that I could easily blog, freelance and mother a toddler with all my free time after graduation! Uhhh, I was wrong, wrong, wrong.

The first thing I neglected to consider was that I had put my entire life on hold while in school. Going to college when you are 40-something is much different than in your twenties — I know, I’ve done both! See as a mother, wife, homeowner and fully-employed flight attendant, I didn’t have time to do the necessary things of maintaing a life, let alone a household AND maintain my over-achiever’s obsession with my GPA.

I knew our bank accounts hadn’t been reconciled since before Henry was conceived (probably longer if truth be told). I knew that I hadn’t picked up a mop, let alone a basket overloaded with laundry on any regular basis. I knew Mother Hubbard’s cupboard was stark. But I figured, hey, no problem, I’ll just do these things in place of my studying, right?

Uh, not so much. See, I was lucky, my husband had carried the bulk of the housework and childcare while I finished school and well, he made it look easy. I didn’t realize how much work those few things took. I had lived so much like a coed that I was oblivious to reality and the time it took to process reality.

Needless to say, the first months after graduation were a myriad of sleep coupled with more sleep and LOTS of time buried in paper, housework and feeling completely out of my depths.

The summer is over, and although I don’t feel completely like “I’m back to life, back to reality,” as epitomized by Soul II Soul’s lyrics, I am feeling more normal and starting to I recognize my life.

And quite frankly, I like the ‘reality’ of my new life.

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Apple did the right thing when it pulled an app that allowed users to silence a crying baby on a user’s iPhone by shaking it until the “baby” stops crying.

As a mother, flight attendant and avid Mac user I found this article disturbing to say the least. Yes babies cry; that is what they are supposed to do. Yes, sitting squished beside a wailing infant for  hours over the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean is also very annoying. And, yes, I love some of the more inappropriate games and apps available for my iPhone, but let’s get serious here: Shaking a baby is not funny! No matter how you slice it, it is very inappropriate and more to the point very unacceptable even in a game.

It’s easy to forget (because we don’t remember) what it was like to be little. We cried, we annoyed and we irritated. But seriously people it’s because we (and them — the current babies) CANNOT talk, CANNOT articulate needs or fears.

Pac World’s article describes the app and its use. You can read about it here:

Developed by Sikalosoft, Baby Shaker features a crude drawing of a baby, and the object of the game is to stop the baby from crying by shaking the iPhone until red X’s appear over the baby’s eyes. The description of Baby Shaker read: “On a plane, on the bus, in a theater. Babies are everywhere you don’t want them to be! They’re always distracting you from preparing for that big presentation at work with their incessant crying. Before Baby Shaker there was nothing you could do about it.”

It seems there is a demographic that is most likely to shake a baby until it stops crying or dies whichever comes first.  Reuters’ reports about it in a blog on the Apple application. Read the article here.

According to the Reuters’ blog, Sarah Jane Brain Foundation’s communications director, Jennipher  Dickens, whose 2-year-old son is a victim of Shaken Baby Syndrome and has irreversible brain damage, believes the demographic most likely to shake infants are also the most likely to download the Baby Shaker app.

Apple may have pulled the app but what about the young men who still find the need to shake a baby because they cannot take the crying? The answer is education. My husband pulled out a beautiful quote for me one day when I was at a breaking point with my son and I chose to walk away instead. The quote points out the difference between thinking an action and doing an action.

How did I know to walk away rather than follow my very base and animalistic desire to “stop my son” from crying? Because I know better. Because I have been given the tools on how to handle myself in such situations. Because the tools I have learned taught me to stop when such feelings start to turn into action. I learned these things from my village of moms, dads, grandparents and friends. I’ve also learned them in school. I have a minor in sociology and know the devastation out of control behavior is to a child and ultimately our society.

That’s why I walked away from a crying child who was testing my every ounce of patience.

But I believe in the end it all came from the person who taught me how to be a good mother, my mother. I am fortunate I can control my actions when my thoughts get scary. I credit the foundation for my actions to her tender ways of teaching me and my sister by her example of never ending patience. I hope to reach others by example and educate them with my words as a journalist of how important the care we give our little ones is to a healthy society.

As a mother of a young boy, I have a responsibility to him, his children and society to teach him well with patience and love.

Me and Dale on our way to Maui and lookin’ good.

K — the monkey suit and its accoutrement are lying about in puddles on the hotel room floor. A cursory look in the mirror and I see what looks to be a red rubber band around my middle, where the belt of the aforementioned has strangled me for the last five plus hours.

Ooh I love pressurization. I start to wonder if all the inflation and deflation that I have experienced for the last 23 years is what has caused the bags under my eyes to be as large as the ones I drag behind me (yeah and no, no pun intended).

Well, not one to dwell on the negatives for too awful long, I decide to take a breather on my balcony.

Hhhmm I cannot decide which direction to put my chair…

So, when in Maui what does one do? Well if you are a sleep deprived mommy such as myself you find yourself a nice little spot for dinner and maybe a drink with your good friend. Nothing like a good HOT meal, adult conversation and a beautiful veiw to refresh the weary.

On my run home from surfing in Lahaina I saw three manta rays just floating along near the shore. They were beautiful.