Anxiety

A job.  It's been something of a mythical figure in these parts for some time now.  I've heard that they exist, that the economy is getting better, and yet it still seemed impossible to find.  Kind of like the leprechaun and his pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

There have been times that I looked hard and times that I hardly looked.  And I have had what certainly feels like more than my share of rejection over the past 15 months.

When I was first laid off from my previous position in December 2010, I assumed that my investment career was over... sure, there was an opportunity with Merrill Lynch last summer but I just couldn't see myself selling.  It might be great when the markets are performing well and everyone is making money, but what happens in the year when your clients lose half of everything they have.

I interviewed for several positions for which I had no real experience and maybe moderately transferable job skills.  On more than one occasion I was told that 'we really liked you, but we had a candidate with years of direct experience'.  I can't argue with that and I certainly couldn't compete with it.

In the end, I found a job.  And it happened pretty much the way you hear most jobs happen... a friend knew of an opening at a local investment firm through a friend of his and mentioned me.  He emailed to ask if I would  mind if he sent in my resume (of course not).  There was a phone interview, a lengthy sit-down interview, and then an offer.

Once I accepted the offer, Mommy panic set in.

What will I do with the kids after school?  What will I do with them all summer long?

Turns out, that part wasn't as difficult as I expected... they'll spend three days a week with a neighbor across the street and the other two days with a babysitter (a second mom will get them off the bus and keep them until the sitter arrives).  Yet another mom has offered to keep them before the bus comes on the mornings when nobody can take them to the bus stop.  I live in a fantastic neighborhood with good friends and I am so, so very grateful for that.

Summer was pretty easy too.  When I told the kids that I would be going back to work, they didn't tell me that they'd miss me.  They asked if they could go to summer camp.  Sure!  Summer camp sounds great.  I filled out paperwork and left $1,000 in deposits around town (which, considering I haven't earned even one paycheck yet was a little painful).

Next up - a more professional wardrobe.  One of the best things about my former employer was the very casual dress code.  While I would never have done this, I could have gone to work in sweat pants.  After a week of shopping (which I quite frankly grew quite tired of), I've got enough work clothes to get me into the fall. 

Now the real anxieties begin, the ones that I am sure will persist for a while.

I'm not worried about the job itself.  It's with an investment company so it's familiar territory and I know that I'll learn the ins and outs of this job quickly and easily.  Instead I'll worry about how the kids are making out at their friend's house or with the sitter.  I'll worry about how I will get done all the things that I did during the day (and without the kids) now that I'll be out of the house 40+ hours each week.  Things like laundry and grocery shopping and cleaning.  While I'll do significantly less with Centre Volunteers in Medicine, I'll still have my role as Treasurer of the school PTO and co-leader of Cathy's Daisy Girl Scout Troop.

And then there are sports... Matt's playing baseball this spring (his first season) and practice time is often scheduled at 5pm.  Inconvenient for any working parent in my opinion.  And Cathy starts soccer after Easter.  Add in scout meetings for both kids and it's going to be an  adjustment at our house for sure...

Despite the anxieties, I am still excited.  I am looking forward to getting back into the workforce.  I love my kids and I am (mostly) grateful for the time I had with them, but I am not stay-at-home mom material.

This will ultimately be really good for me, and that in turn will be really good for them!

Maryland Science Center

Of all the places we went over spring break, the Maryland Science Center was my favorite... located right on the Inner Harbor, we easily spent a full day here.

The MSC is closed on Monday - that's a large part of the reason we went back to the Franklin Institute, so we planned to spend Tuesday and Wednesday in Baltimore.  Adult admission is $14.95; Children 12 and under are $11.95 each, a savings of just under $54 thanks to that Pittsburgh Children's Museum membership that I have been having such a good time using! 

Using a pulley.

Many of the exhibits had a very general theme to them while others highlighted things that were specific to Maryland or the Chesapeake Bay.  

Clouds... or dry ice.

We started off in Newton's Alley where we once again were able to explore many of the principle's we've learned about thanks to Sid the Science Kid (I really do love that show!).   Pulleys, levers, vortexes, gravity, electricity.  All in one very interactive room.  This is a room we came back to several times and seemed to have the most fun playing tug of war.  It's much easier on one particular side... if you want to know how that can be, you should go and check it out!

We watched a catapult launch rubber chickens at plastic laundry baskets... Angry Bird style, before heading upstairs for a while.  Harry's Big Adventure is a limited exhibit and gave us the change to explore a house looking for various bugs - we founds roaches under the sink, bedbugs in the sheets, fleas in the dog's bed, and ants crawling through the kitchen window, not to mention the termite damage to the structure of the house.  It was fun!

Your Body, the Inside Story was a place that we returned to several times simply because the kids got such a kick out of the bed of nails...

Of course I tried this out too... I found it a little uncomfortable in my shoulders - something I am told many women seem to complain about.  I'm going to guess it has something to do with the extra weight of my chest...  

Aside from the bed of nails, the coolest thing for little kids is an exhibit of digestive sounds - swallowing, tummy grumbles, burping, farting, pooping.  How could you not love it???

There's an exhibit called Follow the Blue Crab that didn't hold much appeal for the kids, though it was interesting to learn about how crabs develop and what sort of predators are a threat to them (seems I am one of them since I had crab for dinner Tuesday night... but that's another story). 

One of my favorites was Dinosaur Mysteries.  Some life-size replicas of dinosaurs that would have lived in Maryland were included and there were many interactive activities.  The kids were able to do dinosaur tracings, use computers to create their own dinosaurs (since there's no real proof what sort of coloring, markings, etc. dinosaurs have, the kids were able to imagine their own).

This is a big one!!!

We took another shot at seeing a show in a planetarium - this one with a Sesame Street theme.  This one went much better than the Franklin Institute's show on Black Holes and it held both kids interest the whole time. 

Experimenting...

Everyone had a chance to throw on lab coats and goggles and do a few experiments to determine what a few unknown powders were... things like baking soda and laundry soap.  We tested to see whether things were acidic or basic, how they reacted to a solution being added (some bubbled, some didn't), etc. and were able to identify four powders.  It was just like high school chemistry, minus the scary teacher and the high failure rate!

Overall, it was such a fun day... we stayed until the museum closed at 5:00pm then wondered around the Inner Harbor for a bit before meeting a college friend and her family for dinner at McCormick & Schmick's.  Fantastic seafood and kids that behaved much better than I would have expected considering it was more formal a restaurant than we typically take them too.

Goofing off in the Inner Harbor!

Next up:  A Surprise Destination...

The Franklin Institute... part 2

After a day spent with family, we got back to the serious business of spring break... museums.  At the kid's request, we spent Monday exploring the Franklin Institute (our first repeat destination since purchasing the Pittsburgh Children's Museum membership last summer).

Our first visit (you can read about it here) was last July - a day that was unexpectedly crowded.  It seemed every day camp in the Philadelphia area had a field trip scheduled the day we visited, not to mention the five friends and two moms who joined us there.  This time, it was significantly less crowded, which made for a much more enjoyable visit.

There were several areas of the museum we missed the first time around, including The Franklin Airshow, which does a nice job teaching about the principles of flight.  We were able to sit in the cockpit of an Air Force plane, learn about the Bernoulli principle, try out wings in a wind tunnel, use wind to lift bottles and balls, and fly a simulated kite using two pulleys.

One thing I miss... when taking trips to the Franklin Institute when I was young, there used to be a plane outside the building that you could walk through.  That would have been fun.  But, that's still available at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington DC, so perhaps we'll have to plan a trip there again this summer...

Flying the kite!

The Giant Heart is also a favorite exhibit... though we were terribly disappointed that the 'scale' that lets us know how much blood we have in our bodies wasn't working.  Individually, we each had six cups.  Together?  Six cups. 

Instead, we rode bikes.  We listened to noises to see how they might affect our heart rate - screaming making it go up, calm sounds keeping it low.  And we went through the heart.  Several times.  I never grow tired of this part of the museum!

We went into the train room long enough to ride the Baldwin 60000.  Matt and Cathy were the only kids on the train and so they were able to 'drive' it.  Matt was the engineer, while Cathy was the fire person. 

We also caught a show in the planetarium about black holes while we were downstairs.  It was not the best choice for the kids... so if you have little ones under eight, I'd say skip this one and look for one that focuses on constellations instead.

Another highlight was being able to play more in the sports room... someplace that was just too crowded last time around.  The kids raced wheelchairs, pitched balls, scored soccer goals, surfed, climbed a rock wall, tested their reflexes in starting a drag racing car, and compared their vertical leap to NBA players (we all stink in comparison).

Cathy even posed with her favorite baseball player!

One last highlight - also a new room for us was Sir Isaac's Loft.  Cool optical illusions, and the contraption below.  Something that reminds me of the lobby down at CHOP (a place I am happy to say I don't miss at all!!!) and that both Matt and Cathy seem drawn to whenever we see one. 

Overall, a fun day.  We stayed until closing and then hit the road for points south.  We stopped in Wilmington for dinner - now the kids can say they've been in DE - and then drove on to our hotel in Baltimore. 

Next up:  The Maryland Science Center

DaVinci Science Center

The DaVinci Science Center is located in Allentown (on the campus of Cedar Crest College).  Despite having parents that live only 20 minutes, I had no idea that it was there until I found it on the list of reciprocal Science and Technology Centers.

The museum is open from 9:30am to 5:00pm Monday through Saturday, noon to 5:00pm on Sunday.  Adult admission is $11.95 and $8.95 for children 4-12.  The Pittsburgh Children's Museum membership saved us $41.80.

Among the highlights:

The kids were able to pet a snake.

We went through a 'vision tunnel' where you could not see a thing, giving everyone a good sense of what it would be like to be blind and an appreciation for that fact that while most of us have terrible vision, we can still see.

Everyone had a chance to build a bridge out of paper and then test it using a group of washers.  We learned that paper becomes much stronger as it's folded than it is as a flat sheet of paper.

And speaking of paper, there was a station that provided step-by-step instructions for building a number of paper airplanes.  I'm embarrassed to say that many seemed to complex for me, though I was able to build a plane that soared pretty well.  After watching another family toss their plane from the second floor down to the first, Matt and Cathy must have done it a dozen times.

Cathy has an obsession with Sid the Science Kid.  One of our more recent videos deals with levers and pulleys and we had a chance to learn more about each of those things here.

The kids were fascinated by a display that included a thin sheet of frozen water, a powerful magnifying glass and a tube of water.  It was fun to look at the ice crystals, melt it, then watch it freeze again.

There is a fairly cool weather display - videos that talk about different types of weather - hurricanes, tornadoes, snowstorms - and a chance to do a weather forecast.

One surprise - the museum is currently featuring Keva planks for building and designing various construction projects.  I was sure the kids would spend a lot of time at the exhibit, but they lingered for just a few moments before moving on to other things.

Overall, it was a fun way to pass a few hours.  And with a ASTC membership, I'd go back again on another trip to SE PA. 


Next up:  The Franklin Institute.

Spring Break...

One of the perks (if you want to call it that) of living in a college town is that the school district schedules a spring break to coincide with the university's break.  Mind you, unless you are a professor at the university or an employee of the school district, all spring break means is that you are going to shell out cash for child care or use up vacation days to stay home with your kids.

If you know anything at all about me, you know that I don't sit at home with the kids all that well, so it should come as no surprise that we loaded up the car and got out of town for a few days.

The idea went something like this... 'let's hit the DaVinci Science Center up in Allentown.  It's covered by our Pittsburgh Children's Museum membership (man, are we getting our money's worth out of that thing).  We'll spend a night with Grammy, head into the city to deliver all those girl scout cookies Cathy sold at Christmas time on Sunday, go to the Franklin Institute (covered) on Monday, and then drive to Baltimore.  Once we get to Baltimore, we can go to Port Discovery Children's Museum (covered) one day and the Maryland Science Center (covered) the other.'

No doubt it was an ambitious plan and we did everything on the list.

We had dinner with a college friend and her family on Tuesday night.  And on Wednesday morning, we got a phone call from her husband asking if we'd be interested in using his firm's corporate membership to check out the National Aquarium.  Never one to turn down an opportunity to do something new, we jumped at the chance.

The trip was so much fun... and exhausting.  And, it looks like I'll have five blog posts to write instead of just four.

Stay tuned...

Back to the Basics...

When I started the blog last summer, I was a stay-at-home mom looking for a way to maintain my sanity through my first summer without a job since I was in high school.  That's not as long ago as my friend Jaime likes to think, but it was still a long time ago.  The idea was that the kids and I would spend the summer finding fun, memorable ways to spend our days, then I would write about it here... what we did, how we liked it, that sort of thing.

Putting both kids on the school bus last fall certainly cut down on the number of things I've done with the kids, but it didn't put an end to our adventures.  While we aren't running around at the same pace we did all summer, we made it to the Lancaster Science Factory, ExpERIEnce Children's Museum, the Academy of Natural Sciences last fall.

I just didn't write about them. 

But we're rolling into spring break and that means road trip... and a week or so where I'll head back to the origin of the blog.   While not set in stone, I think we'll be off to the Da Vinci Science Center in Allentown, the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Port Discovery (a children's museum in Baltimore) and the Maryland Science Center.

It should be a fun trip and I am looking forward to exploring some places we have never been.

And who knows... once I blog about the week, maybe I'll go back and blog about those neglected excursions from last fall.

THON

Just as Penn Staters came together in late January to say good-bye to Joe Paterno, they will soon come together again to support a cause that was important to him.  They will come together--15,000 volunteers, 700 dancers, and countless others cheering in the stands--with the hopes of saying good-bye to childhood cancer.  It's one of the things that makes me most proud to be an alumna of this university.

The Penn State IFC/Panhellenic Dance Marathon, more commonly known as THON, is a year-long student-run effort to fight pediatric cancer.  Monies raised go to support the Four Diamonds Fund at the Penn State Hershey Medical Center.

For those unfamiliar with THON, the capstone event is a 46-hour 'dance' (and I use this term lightly, as it's really anything BUT a dance) taking place on the University Park campus next weekend.  The students raise funds throughout the year, from a 5K race on campus that draws thousands of participants to canning weekends, to door-to-door solicitations throughout this community.  Thousands work tirelessly to market the event, secure corporate sponsorship and donations, coordinate facilities, and support the dancers during THON weekend.  

Though it wasn't really the case when I was an undergraduate here, THON is truly a part of the Penn State experience.  Roughly one in three students has some type of involvement with the event.

"When they say 'We are Penn State', this is what they are talking about." - Joe Paterno at THON

THON has become the largest student-run philanthropy in the country and it's something that all Penn Staters can be proud of.   Especially at a time where everyone is pointing their fingers at Penn State, constantly rehashing the Sandusky scandal.  Over time, the world will see that it's not something like the horrific revelations of last fall that define this university, but it's students selflessly and tirelessly working for a common and most worthwhile cause, working for children and families they've never met.  Doing it For The Kids.
 
I recently saw a statistic that one in five children diagnosed with cancer will die.  One in five.  When you think about the mortality rate of adult cancers, one in five does not sound bad.  There are many cancers for which that sort of mortality rate would be considered a great success.  But even one child is one too many.  It's why Penn Staters come together each year to work toward a cure.

As an undergraduate, I was a member of the Student Nurses Association of Pennsylvania (SNAP).  We learned in the fall of 1992 that our organization would get four spots for dancers in the February 1993 THON event.  All we needed to do was raise $480 per couple.  That's just $10 for each hour we'd be on our feet (the event used to be a 48-hour one).   I assumed my classmates would jump at the opportunity, if for no other reason than the fact that we had done our pediatric clinical rotation in Hershey.  We saw these kids, cared for them, watched them in their fight with cancer.  It took on a more personal meaning.

While it took a little begging and pleading, I managed to recruit three others to dance with me and the four of us became the first representatives of the student nursing group at THON.

It was a long, sometimes difficult weekend.  The exhaustion of standing on your feet for 48 hours is so much greater than anything I have ever experienced, including having two babies in a 15-month span of time.  It's one of my best Penn State experiences and I have many great memories.

Here are just a few:

The night before... the Tavern Restaurant opened its doors to all THON dancers with an all-you-can eat pasta night at a really great price.  I remember sitting with the other three SNAP dancers talking about all the gory things we'd seen as nursing students.  One friend was talking about packing a wound as another wound her fettuccine alfredo around her fork.  Without missing a beat, she holds out her fork, covered in that thick, white sauce and says "but was it pussy?"  

Location, location, location... THON certainly wasn't the big deal it is now 20 years ago.  It was held in a gym in White Building, there were small bleachers which were often packed (especially at 2:00am when the bars closed down), but nothing like the 15,000 who fill the stands of Bryce Jordan Center these days.  We made our own banners to be hung on the wall (and we did this while sitting at the Shandygaff on a SLOW Tuesday night while our pal Scott played some great 80s music).  Our drunk friends came in to visit each night after the bars closed.  Dancers were separated from spectators by that flimsy plastic you see on the side of the road in winter time.  As THON grew, it's location changed twice.  And while I think the environment of BJC and the enthusiasm of all the students cheering from their seats is fantastic, nothing can top the intimate feel of White Building for me!

Powder slides... there were regularly scheduled bathroom breaks during THON weekend.  They'd call us by our dancer numbers, we'd stand in line, do our business and then we'd head back out to the gym floor by running across the floor, sliding onto our bellies, and lining up in a row.  Volunteers would massage all the achy parts we had before we were back on our feet again.  Believe me when I say toward the end, you ached EVERYWHERE and couldn't care less who was touching you or where.

Line dance... I think the song was Move Every Mountain... something that we were taught movements to in the first couple of hours of THON; it was cued up hourly for the remainder of the weekend and gave us a much needed burst of energy.  In all honesty, I like the way the dance is done now much better.  A group comes together and writes a 'song' about everything that happened in the world over the past year, continually brings it back to the idea that they are doing it "FTK" or "For the kids", and then adds movements.  If you search on Youtube for THON line dances, you can see years past. 

Family hour... this is traditionally the last hour of THON and it's the hour when Four Diamonds' families come on stage and share their stories.  Many are about kids currently in treatment, about what THON means to them.  Some do not end in happily ever after.  But every story is beautiful in its own way.  They tell stories of hope and gratitude and sometimes heartbreak.  I cried through all of them.  But hearing them made me feel so good about what I had just done for them.

The final tally... the most anticipated moment of any THON is the moment they share the total amount raised.  It's the very last thing they do.  One by one they flip over cards showing the dollar amount. $1,336,173.59... only the second time THON raised more than $1 million and it was a record that stood for four years.  They raised more than seven times that amount last year. 

Going home... when it was all said and done, I'd been awake for roughly 55 straight hours.  My first stop when I got back to my apartment was the shower.  Only I was too tired to stand, so I sat.  And fell asleep there.  My roommate made me something to eat and then I crashed.  I'd made the mistake of scheduling an all-day nursing conference at 8:00 the next morning.  While I managed to get out to the hospital and sit in the lecture room, I nodded off on several times and even apologized to the speaker during a break.  Luckily for me, she totally understood.

In 1999, THON moved to Rec Hall and in 2007, the 35th anniversary of THON, it moved to its current home at the Bryce Jordan Center.  They've added nearly 200 dancers since the year I danced.  And they've quite simply become a fundraising machine.  Last year's amount, $9,563,016.09, broke the previous record by roughly $1.5 million and there's every reason to expect that this is the year the event could surpass $10 million.  Because the students volunteer their time and talents and solicit donations from local and national businesses, virtually every penny they raise goes directly to the Four Diamonds Fund.

In turn, the fund provides financial assistance to families with a child undergoing treatment for cancer, covering expenses that insurance does not.  The fund also supports much needed research to find a cure through the Four Diamonds Pediatric Cancer Research Institute.

For this year's dancers, I would say this... really listen to the families when they talk and pay attention to them as they move around the floor throughout the weekend.  They are a great reminder of why you are there and they'll inspire you and give you the strength to continue when you can't imagine how you can possibly stay on your feet another minute.

Wear your most comfortable pair of shoes and change your socks.  Often.

And stay in bed Monday morning.  Catch up on your sleep.  There's no doubt you will have earned it!