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When I was a little girl I never wanted anything *more* than to be a stay at home mom. I have loved children and babies since I was old enough to toddle towards anything smaller than me yelling, "BABY!" When other girls were out dating, I was babysitting. By the time I was 17, I was booked four months in advance and had set days for different families. Those children were a very important part of my life.

So, when I had my children, it was the most natural thing in the world for me to settle into the role of stay at home, homeschooling mom. And I loved it! To this day, nothing I have ever done will be as important to me as the six precious blessings who call me "Mom".

But life doesn't always work out the way we thought it would. In November of 2002, my husband, a long-haul truck driver, was injured in an accident with a drunk driver. Our lives changed overnight. When the truck stops moving, the money stops coming in... but the bills don't. Now, in addition to caring for the children, I had to take care of him, too.

So, I dusted off my CNA license and got back to work. And work. And more work. Supporting seven, and then eight, people on a CNA's pay takes lots and lots of overtime. 12 hour days of backbreaking work five and six days a week, just to make ends meet. And I knew that if I didn't do something, that would be what I was doing for the rest of my life.

So I went to nursing school. It is something I always meant to do "someday", but now someday couldn't wait. So, still working as many hours as possible, I did my pre-reqs. I got into nursing school. I studied and I worked, and I worked and I studied and somehow I managed to not totally lose touch with the very people I had spent twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week with just a few short years earlier.

Now I am a pediatric RN. It suits me, because in many ways it is simply an extension of my life as a mother. I mother my children. I mother my patients... and often, I mother my patients' mothers! Would I stop it all for the chance to stay at home with my children full time? I would... but that isn't an option life is going to hand me. I'm blessed right now that with three nights a week gone... nights they sleep through... I make enough money to keep things on an even keel. We aren't rich by any means, but there is food on the table and gas in the car. I have a lot more time to spend with them now, and now I truly understand how precious and fleeting that time is... because when I put my head down to the grindstone, my oldest daughter was eleven. Now she's almost sixteen. I've missed too much, and I don't intend to miss a single moment more that I don't have to.

Learn more about this author, Elisabeth Halligan - RN.
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