Changes

From about the time we were four or five years old people have been asking us, "What do you want to be when you grow up?"  In about a month and a half  (October 29th to be exact) I will have spent 36 years on this earth.  And of those 36 years, I'd say about 31 of them I've been trying to decide the answer to that very same question!  I have done some interesting and some not so interesting things in my life but to no avail had I been able to actually say, "This is what I want to do!"

While in high school, my English class was instructed to write a paper on that very topic--well, almost.  We had to write a paper about what we wanted to do as a profession after graduation.  I always knew that I loved kids and that kids flocked to me for some reason so I knew that my calling was to work with children.  With that in mind, I decided that I'd like to help kids in some type of way.  I knew from there that I NEEDED to help troubled kids and decided I wanted to go to school for Psychology.  I wanted to become a Child Psychologist and help children!  My goal, my mantra almost was, "I want to counsel children because if you get them young enough you can mold them to the way that they'll be accepted by society.  Adults are pretty much set in their ways and are more unwilling to make a change."  With this way of thinking, I went to college and decided to major in Psychology and minor in Social Work.

Needless to say, I went to school and partied hard!  Yes, I skipped class to sleep in.  Yes, I went to all the parties.  Yes, I failed classes and didn't study.  And yes, I was put on academic suspension which made me lose my grant money, scholarship money, and I had to leave school.  I decided I'd work and the type of work I was doing was NOT what I wanted to be doing for the rest of my life.  I met a great man (who is now my husband), had a beautiful daughter, and continued to work.  It was not until after my daughter turned a year old I decided to go back to school to finish and get my degree.  My motivation...my daughter!  I wanted to get my degree and show her that all things are obtainable no matter what!  So yes, now I have my Psychology degree...but now, I feel like counseling in that sense is NOT my calling!

I have been working in a public library for the past eight almost nine years and I have been doing programs for children birth thru 18 for the past five years (six in September) which has mostly consisted of reading books, story telling, dancing and just allowing kids to have a good time through stories and song.  After doing this for as long as I have and being so well received year after year, it finally hit me!  This is how I'm supposed to reach children!  I have such great rapport with them and I know that I can do more than what I'm doing!  I have had such a positive effect on the kids I deal with! When they see me out and about they smile and speak and sometimes hug me.  The teens look for me!

Since my realization, I have written a children's book and have been working on the second.  I have yet to find someone who can draw for me the way I want my pictures in my book to look.  I have written original puppet plays, finger plays, rhymes, come up with crafts...just a menagerie of things that I have used.  With that being said, I want to become a published author of children's books and I want to be able to spend my time going to share my stories with children and their parents/caregivers all over! It took me a while to figure out what I wanted...but hey!  It's never too late to start your career (unless you die first).