Thirteen years ago, before Darby was born, the plan was that I would be a stay-at-home mom until the kids were older, and then I'd actually use my education degree to earn a living. Well, the time is here. In a little over a month, I will be teaching English Language Arts to 10th and 11th graders.
I'm excited and nervous and scared to death. But I'm sure I'll do fine. I just have to keep telling myself that: "I'll be fine; I'll be fine; I'll be fine..."
I'm worried about being a working mom. Spending time with each of the kids, taking them to their activities, volunteering at church, keeping up with the housekeeping. All this while working full-time. How do you working moms do it? I've never been a good housekeeper. In fact I'm a horrible housekeeper: even as a stay-at-home mom. I've always believed that the mess will be there tomorrow, but the kids will leave someday. So I spend more time playing Pictionary and Scrabble Junior, and not so much time dusting and mopping. Now, I'm wondering how I'm going to get it all done. Any help out there? I never took to Flylady.com, although I think she's brilliant. Sidetracked Home Executives was pretty good with their 3x5 cards. But I have a hard time sticking to a system. Maybe the structure of working will help with that. I'm open to suggestions.
There are so many changes in my life right now, I'm more than a little stressed. I keep reminding myself that this will be good for the family, good for me, good for our finances, good for our marriage. But change is hard, and I'm having a hard time keeping up with it all.
I keep wishing that I could go back in time 13 years and do it all again. It feels like I'm leaving a part of me behind. Ever since Darby started walking at 10 months, I have known that every step is a step away from me. Now I feel like I'm stepping away from them and it's a little scary. I'm sure that in a year I'll be saying that it was easier than I'd feared, but right now, I'm not sure I'm ready.
1 comment:
When I was 16 or so, I started remarking that I was looking forward to leaving home at 18. My mother smiled and said "Yes dear, I'm looking forward to that too." Now that I am 54, she likes me to visit as often as possible, and when I leave she always asks, when will we see you next? She did manage to hold part-time teaching jobs, and one with the 1970 census, while keeping a clean house. Partly, that's because we all walked to school, and walked, rode bikes, or took the bus to our own activities. A neighbor once called my mother to say she had seen my little sister walking to school. Yes, she does that every day. But its raining. Yes, that's why we got her a raincoat. I did learn that if I walked down certain streets at certain times, especially in the winter, a friend who got a ride to school would stop by and pick me up.
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