The Meaning of...

I have had a decent amount of frustration and dissatisfaction relating to my career lately. The stress is consuming at times and so I haven't had much motivation toward blogging. I also have been having some back and forth in my mind about the amount of my life that I put forth for the world to see. It is so easy these days with social media and blogging to have things become part of the "public record" and I don't doubt it when people claim that the internet never forgets. (Of course I challenge anyone to find my old UMBC webpage from undergrad. That sucker is long gone.) I seem to keep coming to one simple statement, what is the meaning of it all? I should be able to just live and enjoy my life without the need to share it with a whole slew of people, some who care and some who don't. I have two young boys being raised in the burgeoning age of social media and I do worry what that means for their future. This is starting to sound like the makings of a novel, if only I was a writer.

So far I have come to terms with the fact that my current job may or may not be the rest of my career. It may or may not be the means to an end that allows me to focus my attention more wholly on my family and their needs while still having a career and providing for them. I might still be here come the start of the next administration and things will either get better for me or I suppose possibly worse but I have engaged a plan to try to ensure that won't be the case. I think I can be successful but I have to really focus on some new projects. This is good because it will distract me from all the underlying stress. Here's hoping it works out or that a more perfect job becomes available to me.

So speaking of stress, we started potty training Declan this week. He will be 3 in 2.5 months so it is time. Whomever said you can potty train in a day or using a "bootcamp" method must have had a child who was either incredibly, overly ready, or just extremely cooperative. We are using a slower method in conjunction with our daycare provider and for the first 3 days things seemed to be going nowhere. Kiddo just had no interest in peeing on the potty and a lack of understand why this was necessary. Last night though, after some coaching from Daddy, the first drops hit the bottom of the potty and the process got real. He proceeded to go in the potty 3 more times but also had accidents. We've broken the hesitance of using the potty but still need to work on understanding the need to go and when to go. It's a start though.