So we took the dogs to the vet yesterday. This post is not about how much money we spent ($488). The one good thing about tax return time is the extra money! It is about how much I miss it! Every time I am in that environment, I miss the one thing I love that I am not doing at this stage in life.
Animals, medicine, an income, adult interaction, different animal cases.
Now that I have been staying home 5 years exactly, I have learned that their are many things I would have loved to pick as my career; ultrasound tech, ER nurse, labor and delivery nurse, Kindergarten teacher (big difference between one and four, right?!), opening my own kids' clothing store and I could go on! I love lots of things. But the one thing I love most and am most dedicated to is my kids.
The day I quit my career as a veterinarian assistant, I cried like a baby. I was nervous, excited, and really going to miss what I was best at, what I had been doing for 5 years.
Now, when I go the vet, as a dog owner and not an employee (I don't take my dogs to either of the vets I worked for), I look at things. How clean do they keep it, how up to date is there equipment, what are their medical policies, how friendly are the people and so on. Yesterday, I went back to the back with the vet so he could type my info into the bloodwork machine (Patches bldwk came back perfect, btw) and was admiring it. He didn't have to spin down the blood, pick out all the different slides of all the different organ functions he wanted to check (I can't think of the word), spend 10 minutes entering it all and dropping serum into the machine. That was the process when I was surgery assistant 5 years ago. It took him like 2 minutes to do the new procedure of filling one small disk that already had all those slides already in it with whole blood, and type in a few lines on info.
I am missing my job as vet assistant again. Altho I think of all the other things I would like to do, I always go back to vet assistant. I do think I will return one day, Lord willing. Right now, I am raising my kids. I would love to be able to just go to work once or twice a week to get out of the house. Living in WV, I am 20-30 minutes drive away from any vet so I almost have to work full time, or close to it, to even pay for my gas getting there and home a couple times a week!
This may sound like I can't wait to get away from my kids and I have to keep reminding myself that they are most important. That is so not true! I would cry if I had to go back to work tomorrow and send Abigail to a babysitter or Mamaw. When I was working and Hannah was little, I missed a lot of the first 3 years. I wanted to be the one raising her and I was so upset that I wasn't. Now that I look back, we could have made it work but neither of us had the faith for me to quit. But I know that everything happens for a reason. I love where I am now! I want to always be able to say that!
I think every stay at home mom goes through what your post is about. In the 21st century, we're raised to think staying home to take care of our children isn't "doing anything" and we should be out earning money to buy more stuff. While it's not possible for everyone, and I honestly believe not all women are called to it, for those of us who are, it's exactly where we're supposed to be. I struggled with finding purpose though, so I branched out with volunteering. Nothing as cool as your Bible club, I count the tithe every Monday morning at church. I dress up like I would for work, get a sitter for Kara, work for 2 hours, then I'm done for the week. :-)
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