Anybody there?
Well hey, my friends... if there are any friends who still check back here for updates. I wouldn't blame you one bit for having abandoned me! I think this may have been the longest ever radio silence on the blog.
Those of you who know me know that shortly after my last published post here in August I interviewed for the middle school strings director position in our new school district, and shortly after that was offered the job. It's a 0.8 position, meaning I have one day off a week. However, when I was hired I had already committed to teaching at my previous employer one day a week, so that one day off from my new job is still a work day at my old job. This means I am now working full time, and still teaching a few private students in the after school hours. Needless to say, this has been the biggest shift in our work-family balance... well, ever. The adjustment period has been intense, which explains the dry blogging spell.
There are so many thoughts and feelings and updates I could go into; I hardly know where to begin. It almost feels foreign even coming back to this space at all, because my whole identity feels different, and this blog was created, for all intents and purposes, to chronicle the life of a "stay at home" mom (even though I was always working just a little bit through all those years). I think that has been the most poignant part of this fall's new life and new adjustment-- I really feel more like a career person right now than a mom. Having just left a year where I was completely home and so intensely MOM, it was (and still is) a pretty huge shift. There has been a good deal of stress for me professionally, being new to public school teaching and dealing with the pressure and expectations of starting a string program from scratch in a large district at four different schools, as well as teaching a few general music classes that I didn't know about until a few days before school started. I could basically be spending my whole life lesson planning and grading and emailing and researching educational methods if I chose to do that, but I am slowly learning how much I need to do, what stresses and pressures I need to feel and how to ignore those I don't... well, you working Mamas know, just generally trying to find the proper work-life balance.
M has swept in to fill in the parenting gaps in so many ways, and thankfully his job has slightly more flexible hours (he doesn't have a classroom of students to report to at 8:20 AM, for example, so it's okay for him to get our own kids on the bus at 8:01 and slide into work afterwards). We have barely had time to sit down and talk to one another about who does what, and when we were thinking about whether I should accept this job offer I worried about the mental load and whether I could manage it all. I should never have doubted the thoughtful, insightful Dad-of-the-year that is my husband, because he has shouldered so much of the burden of helping our own girls transition from being at home to being in school full time, while still in the first year of a new job himself. It's hard to even articulate everything that has had to happen-- all the logistical, emotional, physical, and mental support that we have all needed-- and he has simply unlocked a new level of awesomeness with all of that this fall. Beyond grateful.
The girls have been absolute champs, too. They slid right back into the routine of public school with very little turmoil, and have all already made some fast friends in our new community. They are fortunate to have some really wonderful teachers who seem to like them a lot. N's and L's reports have really all been completely positive-- C has maintained her quiet and steadfast way of not really talking too much about things, but I think things are going mostly well for her and whenever there's a real struggle we do eventually hear about it and talk through it.
J had a pretty rough time for about the first six weeks, but I think that's to be expected with the double adjustment of Mama going back to work and starting kindergarten at the same time. However, as you may have guessed, J is the type to process externally and never leave us in any doubt of her feelings. So really, she has been sorting it all out in a pretty healthy way despite many episodes of tears and some anger. At least she lets it out. Poor Dad was rejected on more than one occasion when she was angry and missing Mama, but in his wonderful way he won her back and that has been happening much less often. She definitely seems to be enjoying school more and more as time goes on.
It does break my heart a little that she brings home what I have come to refer to as a "Mom drawing" almost every single day.
And in a way, it feels well-timed and right that I should be cutting some apron strings with them now, finding my own professional voice again, and using my own gifts. As stressful as it has been, there are many days when I feel deeply fulfilled by my work, and privileged that perhaps I can make a difference for some other kids besides my own, too. It's obviously hardest to leave J because she's the youngest, but I do feel that, in the same way her older siblings were forced to grow into more independence when their younger siblings were born and Mama was busy, this is somehow good for her. Hard, but good. And she has such a loving nest of second Mamas in her older siblings, and her father as well, she rarely wants for care and attention.
Well, that's about all the thoughts I have time for tonight... this rare night when I'm sitting here with a full day off tomorrow, and no real pressure to get grading or lesson planning done as I wait for N and L to finish gymnastics and dance. I'll just share with you some photos now of some fun that we have had time to squeeze in this fall-- the fun family times that are all the sweeter because we have been apart more.
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