Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Blogging from the Second Half of Childhood

I could say that I just don't know what has gotten into me, but that wouldn't really be true.  I know exactly what has gotten into me and why I haven't posted on my blog in over two years and have been ignoring fb for almost an equal amount of time and now I am "suddenly" back.  Three years ago this October, I made a career shift, I went from being a clinician to teaching clinical skills to graduate students in the speech and hearing sciences department at a major university.  I seem to have underestimated the amount of time that it would take me to get up to speed and how this career change would influence my entire social outlook. 

With the change in work came more time during the day spent on the computer and a huge amount of time teaching and editing students through the professional report writing process.  Needless to say, as I am highly sensitive to sensory overload, I avoided the computer at all cost during my down time.  Additionally, the energy spent directing the professional report writing process for students was in direct conflict with my creative writing process.  Since I can now toss out jokes during faculty meetings to which even senior faculty members chuckle, I am becoming very comfortable in this environment and am now feeling ready to push myself back into cyberspace for my own well-being.

At the time of my last post, my eldest child was entering middle school.  She graduates from middle school this Wednesday and enters high school next year.  During this time she has defied the national trend and continues to get better and better at math the older she gets, last state standardized test score for math, 565 out of 565, highest possible, "yes," I am proud.  She also transitioned from ballet into jazz and lyrical dance and auditioned for and got onto a competitive dance team in which she competed all last year.  Now she is set to try out for the high school drill team and is excited to wear her very high heeled sandals and fancy dress to her upcoming graduation ceremony.

My younger two will leave elementary school behind, as will I, thus the title of this blog post, I have officially moved to the "second half of childhood."  I consider this applicable to myself as well because I have gone through one rollicking middle age crisis in the last couple of years. 

Today I even thought that I might start a new blog, maybe one devoted to professional interests or parenting stories.  In my bio I know that I state parenting probably wouldn't be a part of my blog, but it is, and the older that my children get, the more it probably will be.  I am not longer in the phase of universal advise regarding developmental milestones by age, but am in the full throes of adolescence here in the hormone house.  More on that later.  So, I imagine I will be around from now on connecting from one side of childhood or the other.