Graduation

Three years ago, when Matt's job fell through and the job market was sucky, we decided that Matt should be a stay at home dad, go back to school, and that I should return to work. Four months ago, I quit my job to return home to take care of the kids. And, last week, Matt graduated from UVU with his bachelors degree in IT!

We are finally done with school! I say "we" because even though Matt has been doing all of the school work, I feel like this whole journey, the last three years have been a team effort. We have both just been working as hard as we can to get to this goal, to get Matt a degree and it is finally done. 

It doesn't seem real quite yet. Matt says he feels anxious every night because he feels like he should be at class. I feel anxious every day because I keep thinking that Matt has homework to do or that I have to have dinner made by 4pm so that Matt can eat before he goes to class and it simply isn't true any more. We haven't really had a break from school since Matt started three years ago because Matt did every semester, including summers. And, now that we are done, I just don't know if we know what to do with ourselves.

I feel like we have been in survival mode for the last three years, like we have been waiting for our real lives to begin while we work through this more challenging time and now it is really done. When we started this school journey, I cried a lot because our lives were so different, and I was pregnant with Dan. Now that we are done, I feel like our lives are changing fairly drastically again and I'm not crying, but it is weirding me out.

Matt and I are both really happy to be done. We will adjust to our new life and hopefully it will be awesome.   With me home all the time, and Matt not going to school every day, and Matt only working three days a week, it is going to be super weird for a while to have so much time together when just four months ago, we were lucky to get 6 hours a week together.

Matt didn't want to walk in the graduation ceremony, cuz he is lame like that. So, instead, we had all of our families over for a big barbeque to celebrate Matt's success. I am so proud of Matt for finishing school. It is not an easy thing to do college when you really don't like school. It is even harder to do college while also being a stay at home dad for two kids. Matt is amazing and has earned his degree to ensure the success of our family. A lot of people ask him if he will go on and get his graduate degree. I always respond with "H- No."