Application of Brown v. Board of Education

This is a discussion post I just wrote for my Constitutional Law class.  I found it topically relevant to the goings on of the day and thought I'd share it.

The question: "Both the majority and the dissent in Parents Involved v Seattle claim the mantle of Brown v Board. Which side has the better argument?" 

My post:

              A state of emergency was declared in Ferguson, Missouri yesterday after violence ensued during Sunday night’s protest marking a year since police killed an unarmed black teenager.  At the same time, demonstrators gathered in Arlington, Texas in remembrance of an unarmed black teenager who was shot on Friday night.  At the demonstrations, people could be heard chanting “black lives matter” and holding signs stating the same.

              Yesterday is the most recent example I can give of racial tension and unrest in America.  To pretend we live in a society that is no longer concerned about discrimination based on race would be foolish.  It is with that in mind that I approach this discussion question. 

The unanimous Court in Brown v. Board of Education handed down an opinion that made it clear that de jure segregation (segregation as a matter of law) was a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause and therefore unconstitutional.

              The case of Parents Involved in Cmty. Sch. v. Seattle Sch. Dist. No. 1, 127 S. Ct 2738 (2007) involved two school districts who were being accused of violating that same Equal Protection Clause through the use of their student assignment plans.  Each district considered student race as a deciding factor in student assignment to schools in certain situations.  The goal of each district was to keep the schools in the district racially integrated.   

              The opinion of the Court in Parents Involved found the assignment plans unconstitutional, and the dissenters sharply disagreed with the logic of that decision.  Each side referenced Brown v. Board of Education although clearly disagreed on the implication of the decision in Brown on the case at hand.

              In his dissent, Justice Breyer made some compelling arguments.  To Justice Breyer, context was key in matters argued under the Equal Protection Clause.  He stated in his dissent:

This context is not a context that involves the use of race to decide who will receive goods or services that are normally distributed on the basis of merit and which are in short supply. It is not one in which race-conscious limits stigmatize or exclude; the limits at issue do not pit the races against each other or otherwise significantly exacerbate racial tensions. They do not impose burdens unfairly upon members of one race alone but instead seek benefits for members of all races alike. The context here is one of racial limits that seek, not to keep the races apart, but to bring them together. (Parents Involved 2818)

              Justice Breyer continued with his argument that the Equal Protection Clause was to be viewed in light of context when he said, “The Equal Protection Clause […] has always distinguished in practice between state action that excludes and thereby subordinates racial minorities and state action that seeks to bring together people of all races.” (Parents Involved 2834-35)

              The dissent made it clear that the outcome in Brown should steer the Court toward allowing assignment plans that aimed to prevent re-segregation of the schools.  The school districts argued that the assignment plans at issue in Parents Involved were designed with the idea that racial integration was the desired outcome.

Justice Breyer believed that the reason behind the plans (or the context) achieved the outcome desired in Brown.  He pointed out that Brown v. Board of Education issued a “promise of true racial equality—not as a matter of fine words on paper, but as a matter of everyday life in the Nation's cities and schools.” (Parents Involved 2836) 

              The dissent did not believe that the intention of Brown was to just make it a legal principle that schools were not to be segregated but to make absolute certain that schools were, in fact, not segregated.  The argument for the dissent was that any plan that sought to achieve schools that were actually racially balanced was allowable and was in the spirit of what was intended in Brown.

              Chief Justice Roberts delivered the Opinion of the Court in Parents Involved.  The point the Chief Justice made which I found most salient was when he said, “As the Court explained in Rice v. Cayetano, 528 U. S. 495, 517 (2000), ‘[o]ne of the principal reasons race is treated as a forbidden classification is that it demeans the dignity and worth of a person to be judged by ancestry instead of by his or her own merit and essential qualities.’” (Parents Involved 2777)  To that I would add “and individual needs.”

              According to the decision in Parents Involved, the decision in Brown did not have anything to do with the “context” of classifications made by race.  The argument put forth by Chief Justice Roberts was that it was the mere separation of children on the basis of race that generated a violation of the constitution.  It did not matter what the intention was behind the racial classification.  It did not matter if the goal was to keep schools balanced.  The only thing that mattered was that there was any sort of classification based on race.  “What do racial classifications at issue here do, if not accord differential treatment on the basis of race?” (Parents Involved 2778)

              The assignment plans at issue did not look at students as individuals.  Instead, the plans classified students by race and used that as the sole “tie-breaker” on a student’s choice of schools in one district and as the deciding factor on a request to transfer in the other district. 

              One of the students who was affected in Seattle wanted a placement in a biotechnology program to which he had been accepted.  He was diagnosed with ADHD and dyslexia and was having success with hands-on learning, and it had been decided (by his mother and middle school teachers) that the biotechnology program was best for his continued success.  Despite his acceptance to the desired program, his placement at the school hosting the program was denied based on his race.

              In such an instance, the assignment plan did not factor in what was best for the individual student at issue.  There was just a blind placement made on the basis of race without regard for his individual needs for success.  It makes no sense that the Court in Brown would seek to maintain racial balance at the expense of what is best for the success of each individual child.  The Court in Brown was interpreting the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection clause as insuring that people are treated as individuals without consideration of the color of their skin.   “As counsel who appeared before this Court for the plaintiffs in Brown put it: ‘We have one fundamental contention which we will seek to develop in the course of this argument, and that contention is that no State has any authority under the equal-protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to use race as a factor in affording educational opportunities among its citizens.’ Tr. of Oral Arg. in Brown I, p. 7 (Robert L. Carter, Dec. 9, 1952).” (Parents Involved 2778)

              The Opinion of the Court puts forth a better argument than the dissent in Parents Involved in Cmty. Sch. v. Seattle Sch. Dist. No. 1 with regards to the application of Brown v. Board of Education.  I disagree with Justice Breyer’s assertion that “the limits at issue do not pit the races against each other or otherwise significantly exacerbate racial tensions.”  Any classification of people based on race has the potential to pit races against one another and exacerbate racial tension.  Reducing individuals to nothing but their race for any reason (and certainly to make a potentially life-altering decision for them) has the potential to create tension amongst people.

The goal we should seek in education is to treat students as individuals and do what is best for each student regardless of race.  The public school system should seek to train students to be individuals who are able to obtain the education necessary to succeed.  Diversity is absolutely important to the success of students at any level.  We cannot learn and grow to our full potential if we are not exposed to people of different backgrounds, races, cultures, sexual orientations, religions, etc.  That does not mean that children should ever be reduced to nothing but the race they marked on a form and placed in a classroom strictly to achieve a certain number of students of each race in each school.  That was not the purpose of the decision in Brown v. Board of Education, and that should not be the way we determine where we will educate children.

WORKS CITED

Parents Involved in Cmty. Sch. v. Seattle Sch. Dist. No. 1, 127 S. Ct. 2738, 2818 (2007)

...she is fierce

Michael is basically getting the boys every weekend this month.  I assume because he is supposed to get them for an entire month in the summer, but you know, work.  They don't go to daycare/preschool anymore, and we live an hour apart, and it isn't exactly convenient to go out of your way every morning to drop kids off at their mom's house when you have to be at work at, like, 5 a.m.

The why on the removal from preschool:  Gavin is an asshole too frequently for a structured setting, and we cannot afford to pay both the daycare and a nanny, so no one gets to go to preschool anymore.  Yes, I'm a terrible mother for being realistic about my 2 year old's atrocious attitude and calling him an asshole.  But really, there is no other way to describe it.  I have lived terrible twos, and this is far beyond that.  We got called to come pick him up one day because he was on such a rampage he tried to break a TV.

We turned our lives upside down earlier this year and got new jobs, and we have no vacation time, no sick time, no your-child-is-throwing-another-tantrum-and-has-to-be-picked-up time.  We don't work; we don't get paid.  And the audacity of those loan holders and electric companies, they still want their money every month.  So, now I pay someone an outrageous sum of money to come to my house and color and watch movies with my kids every day (I realized the other day that she literally gets paid to do what I do on my days off...).

Anyway, back to my original point before I sauntered off down the rabbit hole that is Gavin's crappy attitude.

Vivian has been having quite a lot of time as an "only child" lately.  It has given me time to really observe her and watch her personality flourish and pay attention to the little nuances of who she is and how she interacts with the world.

We are all smitten with her.  She and Gavin fight just like brothers and sisters are prone to do, but oh how they adore one another.  Silas takes care of her and intervenes when she and Gavin get into it to mediate and bring peace.  I knew Jimmy was going to just be right in the palm of her tiny hand, and he is.  What I did not know was that I would be too.

I had always heard that moms were more drawn to their sons and fathers to their daughters.  I suppose I expected to not be really tight with Vivian until she got older and started wanting to shop and wear make up and what not.  Sort of like how a lot of dads don't really start getting close with their sons until the sons get old enough to do cool stuff.  I could not have been more wrong.  She has just as tight a grip on me as my sons.

There is one noticeable difference though.  I feel more confident in where she is headed as a person.  By that I mean, I worry incessantly about my boys heading off down a wrong path.  I'm afraid they will become teenagers and just lose their minds and I'll be at my wits end and have to send them off to do a scared straight tour and pray that it sticks.

I don't so much worry about that with Vivian.  I think that is because I lived the recipe for what it takes to head down a path to the need for scared straight as a female.  I would be horrified if Vivian was anything like who I was as a teenager.

Last night, I was thinking back to who I was and what I did, and I just wanted to take my 33 year old self back to my 14 year old self and intervene and put me on a better path.  I turned out okay despite my best efforts to be a total train wreck of a human being.  But, that was through the sheer grace of God.  I could very easily have been a high school drop out, teenage mother, strung out on drugs, and wound up murdered by my brutally violent live in boyfriend or raped and overdosed and left in a ditch.  Perhaps you think I'm being dramatic, but I am not.  I put myself in some awful situations growing up.  Just as an example of how it could have been me: my closest friend from the age of 13 was murdered and left in the woods when she was 16 and I was 17.  I was friends with and introduced her to the man who murdered her.

When I should have been spending time with friends and learning about who I was and enjoying my life, I was caught up in chasing boy after boy after boy desperately wanting to be loved.  It was all wrong, and it stemmed from childhood abuse and abandonment and having a father who was too sick to really be a father.  My mom was dust in the wind, and my dad and step mother had absolutely no relationship with any of the people in my life or their parents or me.  My dad did not really care what I did, and my step mother was only interested in controlling stupid things and not really in making sure I was genuinely okay.

Obviously, I do not know what will happen between now and when Vivian reaches that point in her life.  However, I feel pretty confident that (as long as we are still alive), she will have two parents.  Not just that there are two names on her birth certificate and two people contributed to her DNA.  She will have two parents who would never dream of letting her become who I was.  Two people who would intervene and do whatever it took to get her off a path like I was on.  Two people who will pay attention to what is happening in her life.

I think I worry less about her than the boys because she is a girl, and I made every mistake that she could make and know at least the very basics of what she needs to thrive as a person and what to watch for as she develops.  She needs love.  She needs a strong father and a mother who shows up and mothers her when she needs it.  People who are involved and pay attention to her and make sure she is genuinely okay.  I know she has that.  I know that no matter what happens, if we are alive, she will have those things.  Plus she will totally have two older brothers who I imagine will do their part to keep her in line.  And if she ever gets into a relationship with a Jason of her own, I doubt he'll survive long enough to leave bruises on her or slam her into very many lockers.  Gavin would probably have the guy eating through a straw before Jimmy even got wind of it.

I want normal and happy and NORMAL for all of my kids.  I know they all have parents in their lives who love them and care about what happens to them.  (Michael interrogates me about every choice I make for the boys...in the most obnoxiously loving and concerned way he can).  He is consistently concerned for their safety and their education and all the things parents are supposed to be concerned about. And I'm obviously a nut bag who overthinks everything.

So, maybe I won't have to send the boys to scared straight.  I just, you know, have never been a boy.  Despite all the tomboyish things I do.  I don't know what causes boys to wind up on Intervention and First 48 and Dateline and stuff.  I pray the right recipe for success is present in their lives and they grow up into accomplished and happy men.

I just feel a little more at ease with what I see in Vivian.  Her sass and confidence and larger than life personality combined with the love she is surrounded by make me feel like she is going to be okay.

Hi. I'm here to talk more about my psychological crap. You've been warned.

Let's just get it out of the way.  I am fairly certain I stopped blogging because I started going to traditional therapy.  It was in therapy that I realized this blog has been my "therapy" for quite some time.  It has been a few weeks since I told my therapist I was going to take a hiatus.  (Because therapy costs money but so do kids and houses and car payments)...(Ugh. Do I make myself sound like a ridiculous cliche with my antidepressants and therapists?  This post is not going to help that.  Eh, it is what it is.)  I find myself in need of an outlet once again.  Here goes:

While I was unemployed, I started seeing a personal trainer, and I was killing it in the gym.  Seriously killing it.  Feeling like a bad ass.  Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut...I was not killing it with my nutrition plan.  It was pretty strict, and I'd do well for a while and then just lose it and eat everything in sight.

This is nothing new.  I have been doing it since I can remember.  I'll put myself on a really strict diet and lose a bunch of weight and then get sick of my really strict diet and go nuts on the junk food and gain it all back.  It's weird and embarrassing and emotionally draining.

I don't really like to eat in front of people because I feel like they are judging me (for eating too much, for eating fried food, for eating fast food, for eating chocolate, whatever).  My husband is super thin and, like, only eats when he is hungry (weirdo).  And, so, sometimes I sneak into the kitchen and stuff my face with a bunch of junk when he goes outside or falls asleep so that he won't see me do it.   There is not a soul on the planet who knows I do that.  Well, I guess unless someone reads this.  I have always had a seriously weird relationship with food, and I'm not setting a terribly good example for my kids.

While I was seeing my personal trainer, he kept telling me I had an eating disorder, and I kept laughing him off.  Hello, I have an anxiety disorder.  I'm not a walking embodiment of psychological issues.  I'm not anorexic, and I never purge after I eat, so I don't have bulimia either.  Those are the only two eating disorders.  I don't have an eating disorder.  Case closed.

And then I found out those aren't the only two eating disorders...well, crap.

While watching television last night (instead of studying like I should have been), I connected so deeply with this woman who has binge eating disorder.  (Click the hyperlinked words to read about it if you wish.)  Evidently, it is the most common eating disorder in the U.S., affecting 3.5% of women, 2% of men, and 1.6% of adolescents.

So, anyway, I am watching this woman talk about working in therapy on this disorder and then she says, "it took me a while to understand that it is just the chemistry in my brain."  Holy hell.  I have traveled that road before.  Anxiety and depression are just a chemical imbalance in my brain.  Guess what lots and lots of people who have eating disorders are also diagnosed with?  Yep, anxiety and depression.

So, I start quietly bawling to myself as this woman's story unfolds because it is like I am watching this super secret part of my life on screen, and my husband just reaches out to me and says, "just tell me what you need from me.  I will do whatever I can to help you."  Perhaps it hasn't been so super secret as I think.

Only, I don't know what I need from him.  I don't know what I need at all.  I feel like I am spending my 30s peeling back all these layers of myself and finding so many avenues that need work and attention.  It's like I plug up one leak in the dam only to have a new one spring forth.  But that's okay.  Better to figure these things out and work on them than have them festering below the surface wreaking all kinds of havoc on my brain and body.  Once I finally wrapped my brain around the whole anxiety disorder thing, I figured out a way to stay on top of it.  It's just part of my life now.

I got a degree in research.  (Seriously, that is what an English degree is, and that is basically what I do as a paralegal).  It's my thing.  It's how I make sense of the world.  And that is what I plan to do now.  Try to figure out if I actually do have an eating disorder (although, if I were a magic 8 ball, I'd say "all signs point to yes.")  And then try to figure out how to make it another part of my life I manage on the daily.

I don't have any expectations for this blog or the people reading it. I don't even know that I will take up writing with any sort of regularity again.  I once wrote it as a way to keep up with the kids, etc.  But it has evolved from that.  It is just my outlet now, and I understand that people may get sick of me spewing my psychological problems on the internets.  So, don't think I'm going to quiz you on whether or not you're reading my blog.  Read it if you want, but it is genuinely okay if you don't.  

So, I don't work right now

Y'all, I have read two articles in Cosmo two consecutive days in a row that I have taken as a sign from God that I was right to quit my job. (Did you really think I had ceased to be panicky and neurotic just because I'm medicated?)

Yes, you did just read that I think God is speaking to me through Cosmo. Can you try to not get hung up there?

Ok, if it will make you feel better, He's sending me a thumbs up through my mom too.  She gushed today about how happy she was that I am going to be able to spend so much more time with the kids. And when your momma is on board for your decisions, you can be pretty confident that you're on the right track.

I can't remember if I have already said this or only mentioned it to people aloud (and I'm too lazy to look), but I feel I'm hearing "Be still and know that I am God" all over again. And so I pray. And I plan things that allow me to make memories with my family.  I feel free, and I feel like I have the world before me and like I never want to just settle for a paycheck again.  I want to enjoy what I do and contribute in a positive way.

Moving along to the children...

Is anyone else's child obnoxiously obsessed with Minecraft? I say "obnoxiously" because you cannot have a conversation with Silas without hearing a play by play of some Minecraft video he and his dad watched on YouTube. Thrilling as those conversations are, I TRIED to watch him play this game and just do not understand the appeal.  From what I could gather, it's about spending an exorbitant amount of time building something and then setting it on fire...?

I don't understand it and Silas doesn't understand why I don't understand it...I think he thinks I'm not very bright...he may be onto something there...But I'm just chalking it up to that is his and his dad's thing...

Gavin. Oh my dear, sweet, angelic, hateful-gutted, angry, stubborn as a mule 2 year old. There is no other way to describe him. You need to cover all the bases. Because he is an absolute angel...of death and chaos and destruction...and love and rainbows and snuggles. If my lot in life is to raise up children who are progressively more willful as they enter their "terrible 18 mos to four years old" (kiss my ass whoever coined the phrase "terrible twos". It's misleading.), I'm going to need your spare room in 6 months when Vivian morphs from the smiling princess of unicorns and fairy dust into a cupcake baked by the devil (Lydia of Rants from Mommyland calls her youngest that, and I completely understand what she means).

Vivian's first birthday is Saturday, and I have buried us all in Minnie Mouse everything. I called and ordered a ridiculous cake while my husband took his sister to lunch the other day (as in he was out of the house and couldn't argue that we just needed to grab a sheet cake from Kroger) and then held my breath when he commenced interrogating me about the charges on the online bank statement. Somehow, he managed to skip over the three digit charge from a bakery, so I suppose it was his way of silently agreeing to let me have my last ridiculous first birthday party in peace. I mean, let Vivian have her very special day with all the bells and whistles. (She literally has no idea it's her birthday, sigh.)

That's where we are. I'm sitting here drinking a smoothie with ingredients like kale and almond butter (it's not good, y'all. Kale tastes like raw broccoli and don't be fooled by any smoothie recipe that tells you that you won't taste the kale. You get a mouthful of finely minced leaves with every sip. YOU TASTE THE FREAKING KALE!) The why behind the stupid smoothie is another post for another day. For now, we'll say I'm trying to gather the energy to get us ready to go on our family mini-vacay tomorrow. We are taking the kids to Great Wolf Lodge (big indoor water park resort thing). And there are swimsuits to find and bags to pack and children to chase while doing it.

Mr. Minecraft just piped up with, "don't worry, chickens don't die." I think that's my cue to engage his brain in something else.

Happy Monday.

No turning back

I just quit my job.

Not threw-things-and-stormed-out-in-a-huff quit.  Just quietly warned my direct supervisor and then handed in my letter of resignation.

It's exciting.  And scary.  Mostly, um, well, both.

That firm has been an enormous part of my adult life.  I have worked there for coming up on eight years.  It was my place of solace during my divorce and after giving birth to every one of my kids and going half crazy for various reasons each time (I started 2 months after Anabel was born).  

So many people have become true friends.  One of my attorneys literally officiated my wedding.  So, there are absolutely things I will miss.

And then there are things I won't miss.  At all.

Like accounting for every second of every day in six minute increments.  Good riddance, billing!

And like the commute.  I'd say that is 78% of the reason I finally just pulled the trigger and took this leap of faith.  It has become unfathomable to me why I spend so much of my life in my car.  Time I could be devoting to any other part of my life.  Like my kids or my studies or my husband or my house.  Hell even to Netflix and junk food binges.

It finally became impossible to talk myself into believing it was a reasonable choice to make every day.

And I have prayed and talked to Jimmy and a couple of close friends endlessly about what to do.  And yesterday when I was half out of my mind pleading with my two year old son to put on his boots while he lay screaming in the middle of the kitchen floor because I was so stressed about making it to a meeting in my office that is halfway across the earth on time, I just realized, "Enough.  It is insane to keep putting myself and my family through something that just is not working."

Right, so, now I'm totally just going to sit around and drink margaritas all day in the sunshine.  The end.

Except not really.

Actually, I have been offered a new position doing something completely different.  (It was offered a couple of months ago, but I've been very busy freaking out over what ifs and talking everyone's head off.) 

I'm going to wrap things up for the people who depend on me at the firm, take a couple of weeks to help my kids transition into daycare (+Netlix+junk food+novels) and then plunge into this new endeavor.

It's scary.  And maybe I just made the biggest mistake of my life and I'm going to fall flat on my face and wind up homeless.  

But maybe I'll do well and it will be exactly what my family and I needed to make life a little more about quality time and a lot less about staring at tail lights and getting home after dark.

I hope and pray it's option two.  

Like I said in my last blog, every thing is changing right now.  It's incredibly scary, and I ask (once more) that you say a little prayer for us and we start this new journey (and maybe clear out your spare room...just in case.)

Changes, changes

Things are weird.

Not bad weird.  Just weird.

There is a significant amount of change happening around me, and I'm not quite sure how I feel about any of it.

We have decided to transition the two babies into daycare (no, I will not stop calling Gavin a "baby" no matter how much people around me insist he is not a baby any longer).  They will attend the same school Silas has been going to for the last year but at a campus that is closer to our house.

The decision was gut-wrenching.  You have to understand that I have been turning my kids over to the same person day in and day out for 5 years.  The woman has helped raise them.  Her whole family is like my family and my kids' family.  If Gavin is having a day where he misses me, they just FaceTime me so he can see me and hear my voice, and it's all better. If something is going on with one of them, I know I can trust her to keep an eye on it and give me an honest report.  She sends me adorable pictures of them and treats them like she would if they were her own.  It's kind of an amazing thing to have.

So, the impending transition is tortuous.  I dread getting them all adjusted.  Silas to new friends and teachers and the babies to the entirely new experience.  Handing Silas over to the school last year was hard enough, and he was able to talk better than any child I have ever met ever.  So, yeah, handing over my babies to total strangers knowing that they can't tell me if something goes wrong?  So much anxiety.

Nextly, my husband's job.  He's starting a whole new endeavor that is going to be significantly more money, but he has left the security of this huge corporation with benefits and retirement for the far-less secure world of working for a small business owner.  It's this whole leap of faith, and we feel at peace that it's the right thing to do.  But, hello, it's still scary.

Then there is some weirdness with my own employment situation as well.  There is the possibility of me taking my own leap of faith soon, and that leaves that familiar feeling of the brick sitting on my chest.  Every fiber of my being is screaming, "times up!" with regard to being where I am, but all of those pieces of me that hold me back are saying, "you can't leave your security blanket.  You can't leave a place you have been for 7 years.  You can't leave the insane amount of work you put in to get to where you are in this company.  You can't.  You can't.  You can't."  But if I have learned nothing else in the last three years, I have learned that it is unacceptable to settle for the status quo out of fear.  Sometimes you have to take that leap and see where you land.

What I'm trying to accomplish with all of these changes is a better life for my entire family.  Yes, more money would be nice, but that is not even what I'm seeking.  What I'm after is time.  I'm trying to get us all in the same (or at least adjacent) zip code so that I'm not trying to cram all of the things I have to accomplish plus quality time into the hour or hour and a half I have with them before I have to put them in bed so that I can drag them up and out of the house the next day to do it all again.  

I cannot even count the number of very serious conversations I have had with Silas in the car because the babies were asleep and I knew it was the only quiet time I was going to get with him that day. 

I have been praying and weighing and agonizing and trying to figure out what to do for so long.  All I kept thinking was, "I have to find a way to have more time for the important things."  And by important things I mean time to read them more stories and time to break the "no balls in the house" rule and play soccer with them in the front living room that no one uses anyway.  I already have to give the boys up every other weekend.  So, it just seems like a waste of time to me to be gone from my house and away from my family for 12 hours a day.  And for a paycheck.  I know that money is necessary to keep our world spinning, but there has got to be a better way.  The way I'm doing it now just isn't good enough for my kids.  And so, I have been seeking to find a better way.  And, maybe - and it really is just a maybe - that solution is drawing near.

My first class toward my master's degree is finished.  There is the grading of one paper standing between me and knowing my final grade.  As of right now, I have an "A".  Hopefully it remains an "A" once the final grade is added into the mix.  If not, I can absolutely still hold my head up high knowing that I gave it my very best.  There are 11 classes to go.  This journey - in case you haven't figured it out - is part of the trying to make a better way and more time for my children.  Broadening my knowledge base to make myself more marketable.

And of course, there are my children themselves.  

They change constantly.  

Vivian can walk.  Every time I see something that says, "Though she be but little, she is fierce" I smile and think of my girl.  She is this tiny, incredibly beautiful girl with the biggest personality.  She is all at once soft and sweet and angelic and at the very same time a total force to be reckoned with.  

Gavin's vocabulary is rapidly expanding.  And I thought the terrible twos were unbearable with Silas, but Gavin is making Silas' twos seem like a trip to Disneyland.  And, yet, he is somehow still an immense source of happiness in every one of my days.  There is so much sweetness and love oozing out of him that it more than overwhelms his tantrums.  

Silas is basically a grown up in a child's body.  He has the kindest heart and the most awe-inspiring imagination.  I love how creative he is.  The more I watch him the more I think, "he's probably going to spend a lot of my money pursuing a degree in the arts so that he can get a job making little to no money doing something he absolutely loves."  And I will be over the moon for him if that's the choice he makes.

There are literally no words to describe the amount of love I feel for them or the amount of joy they bring me.  Watching each of them grow up and noticing the areas where they are similar and the areas where they are fiercely different is fascinating to me.  I just want them to be happy.  I want them to look back on their childhoods fondly and know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they were so very loved.

The gist of all of this is I don't want to look back on my own life and realize I wasted it focusing on the wrong things or being afraid.  I want my choices to reflect what is truly important when it's all said and done.  My family and my friends and the time invested in making memories with them.

Try it, you might like it

I don't generally do blogs about products, but I feel compelled to write this one.

As I have mentioned, I have incredibly terrible eczema and wash my hands neurotically (which exacerbates it).

My sweet boy Gavin inherited this lovely skin disease from me as well.  His is worse than mine because it breaks out all over his little body (whereas mine is pretty much limited to my hands, ears, and eyelids).  

Anyway, I have been seeing doctors and dermatologists and buying lotions and creams and cortisone and filling endless prescriptions for years now.  I can keep mine mostly under control if I follow a strict regimen of creams and lotions, etc....except my hands.  They just crack and bleed and hurt constantly.

I took to putting my prescription and lotion on at work and then wearing a latex glove over that hand to keep it from wiping off.  My coworkers thought I was crazy, and it didn't work.  Still cracked.  Still very painful.

Gavin's stays under control as long as I can coax him to let me bathe him in lotion and cortisone at least twice a day.  I'm not sure if you've ever tried to convince a two year old to sit still for any amount of time twice a day, but good luck.

Anyway, I had pretty much convinced myself I was doomed to cracked hands and wrestling my toddler for the rest of forever.

A couple of weeks ago, I finished studying and pulled my headphones (I wear my headphones for the gun range when I study) off my head to Jimmy grabbing the remote and saying animatedly, "You need to watch this!"

"This" was an episode of Shark Tank he had recorded while I studied.  On it was a woman who had spent much of her childhood fighting eczema.  At the age of 11, she figured out a formula to a sugar scrub that rid her of her skin problems.  She had formed a company (Simple Sugars) to sell the scrubs and needed an investment, etc., etc.

The girl was very likeable (spell check tells me it's "likable" but that looks wrong, so I persist) and convincing, and when she stated the price of her products, I immediately went to my laptop and searched out her site.  (Um, they're very reasonably priced).

I placed my order and waited for it to arrive.  After a week or so I got my package in the mail.  Since it is a small business and had just appeared on Shark Tank, I was pleasantly surprised that the product arrived so quickly.

I had ordered a body scrub with the addition of emu oil, a facial scrub, and a foot scrub.  I read the instructions and the packaging said the products are gentle enough to use every day.

So, I began using them once a day.

I gave Gavin a bath and did my best to use the body scrub on him that night.  You're supposed to "scrub" it until it dissolves.  Well, of course that wasn't happening.  So, I just did the best I could to get it rubbed on all of his rough patches of skin, rinsed, and patted him dry.

The next morning, his eczema was gone.  Completely gone.  ALL. OF. IT.  It has been a week now, and it has not returned.

My hands?  Absolutely no cracking or bleeding.  I have made a point to only use the scrubs and none of my prescribed or previously purchased products during this time in order to see how well the scrubs work.

The face scrub leaves my face feeling baby soft (maybe even softer than Viv's...I'm just saying), and the foot scrub leaves my feet feeling like I just got a pedicure...like literally just got out of the chair.  This is not after several uses; it's the very first time.  The scents I ordered smell incredible (strawberry for the face scrub and green apple for the body scrub).  

My people are getting this stuff for Christmas, y'all.

Now, the site (and the owner) does not claim that the product will cure skin diseases.  There is no guarantee.  All I can tell you is that these products worked for me and Gavin, and they are well worth the minimal price even if you don't have a skin disease you're looking to annihilate.  

If you'd like to check out the website, it is here :http://www.simplesugarsscrub.com/