Im Lacking Experience...just so you know...

Today let's go over the latest episode in the sitcom that is my life.

"Caroline Looks for a Job"


After 14 years of spitting out babies and mothering said babies, Caroline finds herself excited and ready to join the workforce. With no "work experience" other than being a preschool teacher for the past decade, she knows her work is cut out for her.

Setting:
Late at night in a darkened den. Caroline sits in front of laptop staring at her uncompleted resume.

The work experience section is glaringly small. Apparently, the "mom" experience is not as transferable as she had hoped. Surviving children's hospitalizations, emotional turmoil, and school struggles are now equated with "time not working." Uggh. Too bad she's so darned honest. Oh how she'd love to lie!

Setting:
Inside the conference room of a local non-profit. Other than the room being bitterly cold, Caroline feels confident. She knows the likelihood that this job will be able to fit her needs are nil.
She goes through with the interview out of curiosity.

The two people doing the interviewing are so extremely personable, Caroline feels as though she is talking to old friends. As they further discuss the job, it becomes evident to her that regardless of pay, the sporadic schedule would keep Caroline from being able to accept. She politely makes it known to the interviewers. Surprise of surprises! The Director of the nonprofit begins talking about "creating" a position that she would just thrive in. Instant Ego Boost. Interview ends with promise and agreement that Caroline would contact Director for further inquiry into "new" position.

Setting:
Inside a small, cluttered office of the direct supervisor of the position being applied for. Caroline is wearing a new dress and freshly painted toe nails. Confidence is still high from the week's earlier interview. This, however is the position Caroline is hanging her hopes on.

The supervisor begins to inquire as to why Caroline is interested in the job. A well spoken, thought out answer is forth coming as Caroline secretly tries to read the expression of her interviewer. After several minutes of discussion, the Director joins the meeting whereas Caroline is asked to repeat her earlier comments. Panic! Panic! Panic! Everything seems so much less sincere the second time around. The Director seems warm and familiar and Caroline begins to relax once again. As the two interviewers go over the job description, Caroline feels confident in her ability to successfully perform the duties in this ENTRY LEVEL POSITION.
Soon the Director begins addressing Caroline's lack of office experience. With rapid fire succession, Caroline is forced to answer no to questions asked about experience with specific functions inside an office environment. Deciding it would be a bad idea to scream out, "I KNOW I HAVE NO EXPERIENCE BUT THIS JOB ISN'T ROCKET SCIENCE!!!" Caroline politely tells her new "friends" that while she has no office experience, (once again) she is an intelligent college- educated woman who will be quite capable of learning the process they have developed.
A crestfallen Caroline is walked to the door by the supervisor who tells her, "If you don't hear back from us and you want to know, feel free to call the office." Translation: when you don't get THE call from us, you can call and we will be happy to let you know the job has gone to someone else. (with experience)

Caroline sighs. Heavily.

**************************************************************************************
So here I am. Not quite jobless, as I still have my position at the preschool, but also far from being able to be self sufficient which is my ultimate goal. (not to BE self sufficient, but rather having the ABILITY to be)
Consequently, I did return to the non-profit to discuss the created position but the compensation was not even close to my lowest anticipated pay. It is such a shame. I really was quite fond of the Director. He would have been a great person to work for.

So, one place was willing to create a position for me while one place had me feeling like a complete loser. This job hunting stuff is just crazy. The idea of sitting in front of someone and being essentially judged is simply exhausting. AND...I have to keep going...

The Incarnation of Who They Are: Part 4- Patrick "Patch" Bryan Hearn

From the moment we found out that Hearnlet #4 was on his way, our lives have been a wild ride. Such is life with Patch.
Even though I was only 29 years old when I got pregnant for the fourth time, I felt like an old veteran. This baby-making thing had become old hat and I was an expert. Don't you just love how God allows ourselves to be lulled into that false sense of knowledge before He REALLY teaches us something!
As with my previous two pregnancies, I bled frequently in my last that required somewhat frequent ultrasounds. It was at around the 16 week mark when the ultrasound tech cheerfully told us we were expecting a girl. I have to be honest. I was a little disappointed. I wanted Charlie to have in a brother what the girls had in each other. It just wasn't meant to be. He would be our only boy and we would welcome our third baby girl with open arms. Clara Bryan. Clara was the name of one of my Grandmother's aunts and Bryan is my brother's name.
Having already found out our baby was a girl, the normal gender identifying ultrasound at 20 weeks was to be no big deal. Tucker didn't take off work and I just went to my appointment by myself anticipating seeing a larger version of the little girl we saw a month earlier. The appointment was very routine. They measured bones and fluid and all kinds of technical stuff that was unrecognizable to the untrained eye. At one point I asked very flippantly, "So is she still a girl?" Without an ounce of emotion or surprise in her voice, the same professional who four weeks earlier told us we were having a girl, said, "No, this is a boy."

WHAT!!!??

That's right. Our daughter had grown a penis. Well, more accurately, our SON just finally showed his. One of the greatest moments in my adulthood came when I called Tucker after the appointment. I played it cool and told him everything went well and the baby looked fine. I was just dying for him to ask about the gender. I could barely breathe! Finally he said, "So, did they confirm the sex." I said "Yes." So naturally he said, "girl?" That's when I very excitedly told him we would be a family of 2 and 2!

Of course we had no name for this baby boy. Nothing seemed right. All of the names we considered with earlier pregnancies fell short in our minds. For a time we reconsidered Geoffrey, but it just didn't feel right. None of our unborn babies had ever gone so long without a name. I was beginning to get agitated. In April we were to go to the beach for Spring Break, and I told the family we were not to return to Columbus without a name for our baby.

Of course at this time, The girls were almost 10 and almost 6 so it was impossible to ignore their input. All week long we tossed around names, even buying baby name books in the beach gift shops! Finally one night, as we ate dinner at a quaint, outdoor Mediterranean cafe, our baby was named. Patrick Bryan. But there was to be strict stipulations.

Tucker has always loved the name Patrick, but I resisted out of fear that Patrick Hearn sounded so uniquely Irish, that people might suspect us of trying to be "clever." (I don't even know exactly what that means, but I was really hung up on trying not to sound like we were claiming some strong Irish heritage) Lou had had a little boy in her class named Patrick, and was extremely concerned that her baby might be called Patty or Pat. (concerned to the point of tears, people!)
A friend of mine in Charlotte had a nephew named Patrick, who they unofficially had nicknamed Patch. I was in love with it! I loved the idea of having a Patch. It felt comfortable and familiar. We would name our baby Patrick with the understanding he would go by Patch.
Patch. Patchy. Patchy-poo. Patchy-pooser. Pooser. Pooser Bear. Patch is just one of those names that really lends itself to variations. Everyone who knows him, knows him by all of his names. He of course prefers "Power Patch," his super hero alter ego.
Never could there be a name that fits my silly, crazy boy better, and never has there been someone more in love with his name than he is. Patch- It's not just a name, it's a legend!

The Incarnation of Who They Are- Part 3: Charles Tucker

Two down, two to go...

Charles Tucker.

After I had had two daughters, and my sister had had two daughters, the general consensus was that the Broodno sisters killed male sperm. There was just no way either of us would ever beget a male child. So naturally, we began discussing girl names. Amanda Rollins was to be our third daughter.
When I learned I was having a boy, I panicked. Forget the fact that I was married to one, they seemed like foreigners to me. What in the world would I do with a boy?
The little guy was coming whether I was ready or not so we needed to come up with a name for him. Tucker always wanted a Junior. I just couldn't go there. The whole "little Tucker/ big Tucker" idea just got to me. All the names we considered as possibilities had the girls been boys were completely void for some reason this time around. Back to square one.
Just as I had images of what I wanted the girls names to conjure up, I also had an idea of what I wanted my boy name to project; friendliness and happiness. I wanted a name that that sounded friendly above all else.
Charles Tucker.
There wasn't one slam dunk reason why we named Charlie what we did. The name definitely fit my friendliness criteria. This is probably most likely due to a close family friend. "Uncle" Charlie was half of the couple that had been my parents' best friends forever. Uncle Charlie was a larger than life character. People were drawn to him and he had tons of energy. As I grew older seeing them became much more infrequent but Aunt Dale and Uncle Charlie were really happy memories of my childhood.
It was also later discovered that Caroline is actually the feminine of Charles. So, Charlie wasn't named specifically for me or for Uncle Charlie but both were factors.
In fact, I wasn't even positive I LOVED the named Charlie. I remember asking Tucker if he was POSITIVE that he liked the name. He loved it unwaveringly and I felt since I had strong armed my way to the girls' names, I should "let him have this one."
Fast forward to February 16, 2004. After quite an eventful delivery, (as in Tucker and the nurse pretty much delivered the baby before the doctor sauntered in) I finally met my long awaited baby boy. When I looked down at my itty-bitty darling boy and saw a full head of furry orange hair, I knew instantly that this angel was indeed and without any doubt a Charlie.

The Incarnation of Who They Are- Part 2: Elizabeth Barrington

Hearnlet #2

Elizabeth Barrington aka Lou

Contrary to what most people believed, Tucker and I were thrilled to learn we were having another girl. Sisters!
In addition to all of the challenges that are present when you name your first child, a special obstacle exists with the naming of subsequent children. You need to make sure the names sound good together. For instance: If someone named their first child Marilyn, then naming a son Mason might result in scary images of large breasted male rock stars. (ie, Marilyn Manson)
We knew we wanted to stick with the traditional and feminine, but I really liked the idea of having the strong sounding middle name as we had done with Emily.
Elizabeth's name actually came about pretty easily. Tucker and I each have one sister. My sister's name is Beth (Elizabeth Louise), and his sister's name is Barrie (Anne Barrington). Merger!! We get both the sisters covered in one fell swoop! My sister has NEVER gone by Elizabeth, so there was no concern over confusion. In addition to Barrington being his sister's name, SHE received her name because it was their paternal grandmother's maiden name. Home run! Beautiful and strong. Elizabeth Barrington.
Irony here- Sometimes it just doesn't matter what we parents decide. When Charlie was young, he began calling Elizabeth "Lou Lou" because he couldn't say Elizzabeth. He outgrew that eventually- but not before Patch was born and caught onto it. So Patch learned to call her Lou Lou. It wasn't long before we all were going along with it. It got to the point where whole groups of people only knew her as Lou. About a year and a half ago she told Tucker and I she actually perferred Lou to Elizabeth. This year she went by Lou in school, and friends who have known her as Elizabeth for their whole lives caught on quickly. It really was pretty easy. She just really is Lou. That being said, there will be no trips to the court house; her formal name will always be Elizabeth Barrington!