Back by Popular* Demand

*Popular- Meaning two friends said "you should blog again"

Ok, so here's the thing. I went off the grid (offline? Absent? not sure what the proper blogger lingo would be) for a while. I missed it but at the same time I had nothing to say. Nothing good to say anyway. Yep, I was in that deep dark hole of depression again. Maybe I can write about it some day, but not right now. I can say that I'm in a much better place right now.
Husband has found a job he likes (he and his coworkers are having a robot building competition for fun). Alex has his own room (which he loves), he's sleeping much better and he eats more than just yogurt now. I'm still a stay at home mom but went back to work one day a week, good for me, great for Alex to get a guaranteed full day of daddy time. I weaned Alex from the boob, so, hello? Wine. Nice to see you again!

I'm getting out more! By myself! At night! One stormy night as I left the house my husband asked "so you're going out in a storm to go downtown to meet a bunch of strangers in a hotel that you met on the internet?". "Yep, don't wait up!" I answered as I left to meet up with a lovely bunch from the Dooce Community (AKA Doocebags). I came out of my shell for a bit and I liked it. Last night I stay out until 1 AM at a baby shower for a lovely friend. I chatted, I drank (a bit), I bought an awesome cake (story for another post) to go with the equally awesome food everyone brought, and I smiled. A lot.

It's a good thing.

Alex, my little Baby Gap model. Mama needs to be more like you.

Ok, I'm trying not to panic

This is not what I planned. I thought I had everything figured out. When I got pregnant with my son, the plan was that my husband would be graduating from university just as I had my son. I didn't plan for a global recession to hit, right as I got pregnant. Engineers were in high demand before the recession but now companies have laid off thousands of employees and have hiring freezes. My husband took an internship position with lower pay because it was better than nothing, plus I was still getting my maternity benefits (thank you government of Canada!),

So now, his contract is up in a week, my maternity benefits just stopped. On top of that, my husband had to delay graduation last summer because they only told him a few weeks before graduation that he was missing a class. Since last year, the university changed the course requirements, and because he's graduating this year, he's not exempt from the changes. He's missing one credit. Fuuuuuck. So now he has to scramble to write a 20 pages technical report BY MONDAY in order to graduate. The alternative is delaying graduation yet again. My poor husband is so stressed, I can easily see him giving up and not finishing school because of this. I'm trying to stay positive (and stay out of his way) but I'm finding it hard.

He's come so far it would break my heart if he didn't finish school. Just as as was finishing up my master's degree, Rick went back to school. High school. He had never finished because he got in with a bad crowd, and I suspect a bit of a learning disability too. So I worked not in my field to help support us as he went back to school. Only fair since he had supported me through (too) many years of university. He got his high school diploma at the age of 32 and started university.

You can see why I don't want him to give up when he's so close.

I was supposed to stay home with Alex for a few years. Now I'm thinking I might have to go back sooner. I can't even go back to my not-so-great job where I was under paid, under appreciated, and over educated because my employer had to replace me with three people. I worked so much overtime that three part time employees took the place of one full time position. So now what? I don't have a daycare lined up and I don't even know where to start looking for a job.

Hopefully Rick can find a job sooner than later. I really don't want to have to move in with my dad. I shudder at the thought of it.

I keep singing "just keep swimming, just keep swimming". Ah Disney has all the answers.