He he he, Ho ho ho, Ha ha ha

Well, changing up the pace of things in the Muldrow household, I am writing from a hotel room in Charlotte, NC. I came up super early this morning in order to attend a seminar that is a pre-requisite to getting my certification as a Lamaze Childbirth Educator. Although I had an amazing childbirth educator who was affiliated with the Bradley organization, I decided after some last minute issues came up that I wanted to go for the Lamaze certification instead of Bradley. The core philosophies are very similar, so I feel like I would be able to adequately instruct women wanting to achieve a non-medicated birth experience.

The seminar so far has been pretty good. I had to do a 10-minute mock teaching demonstration this morning that I think went really well. I had at least one other person in the seminar who is already a birth educator say she was going to use my activity in her next series of classes and the seminar leader had some very positive feedback. And then the day kind of went flat. First of all, there are a couple of people in the seminar who seem to think we have all gathered so that they can talk about their personal birthing experiences (or the personal experiences of their sister, since they have no kids). These are the people who have no concept of staying on task or topic. They just stop you wherever they feel most inspired by the topic and add anecdotes of little or no relevance and - since they love to hear themselves talk - they never seem to give you time to answer or respond.

I hate them.

The other downside is that it seems like much of this stuff could be presented online and the parts which need to actually be presented in person could be done in one day.

Not that I don't like a fun night in a hotel away from home, but today was extra hard to deal with because I got a call from my mom about 3:00 that Lilah had a fever of 101.7. She said she had been touching her ear and saying, "Ow," so I'm guessing she has some pressure in her ears. I'm just hoping it doesn't turn into a full blown ear infection. She's never had anything like that before, just a couple of colds, and I hate, hate, hate being away from her. I know my mom can adequately take care of her - Lord knows she took enough care of me when I was a kid. But she's MY baby and I want to be there to touch her and hold her and take care of her! So I'm not much enjoying my night away from home, because I'd much rather be there.