For over a year now I’ve been a full-time stay at home mom and I’ve had Owen either by my side or sleeping a couple rooms away around the clock. So today when I dropped Owen off at the nursery of the preschool where I’ll be teaching for the first time this fall, I was feeling almost more sentimental than when we passed that first birthday mark.
I’m glad I’ve had the luxury of staying home with my kids for the first year of life and of choosing after that to work minimally. It’s not that we’ve got more money than the average couple – we’ve just found ways to be thrifty enough for me to be a mostly stay-at-home mom. But I have my yearnings to work a little too – and I’ve been dreaming and scheming for a while now about trying my hand at teaching preschoolers while my own kids are in their preschool years so that we can run on the same schedule. I also never realized until I had kids, how fascinated I am by their minds -- their creativity, their silliness, their storminess and their incredible ability to learn so much so quickly and so joyfully.
So instead of taking a break from kids I’ll be serving myself a quadruple-whammy of them. And somehow I’m really excited about that prospect.
But this blog is going to stay a blog about me as a mom to Will and Owen, not my adventures in teaching. Today though those worlds intersected as the beginning of my teaching marks the end of my serving as full-time mom to Owen. If I didn’t have somewhere to be, I think I’d likely keep him home one extra year. At least this way, we’re just separating for a few mornings a week.
It also helps that Owen’s happy to be around other kids. Today he had the good fortune of being in the same room as Will when I left them to go work upstairs. And I think he realized that finally, after so many experiences of accompanying me to drop Will off, he was going to get to stay. At some level, he knows he’s making steps toward big-boy status.
This morning, I gave him a hug and kiss goodbye, set him in front of a novel toy, watched him take a few of his very unsteady steps and darted for upstairs. And then I spent this afternoon giving him a few more hugs and tickles and story-times than I usually find time for.
So here we go, all three of us -- off to school...
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2 comments:
I'm a proud friend, Annie! It's a great Mom who considers all the pros and cons of working and chooses a job based on schedule for the children. I wish our society could work around mother-children schedules a little more. In the meantime, teaching seems like a perfect way to be home with your kids when they are. (and, in this economy, teaching seems to be a pretty steady job, too). Good luck!
Hi Annie,
I happened on your blog today while perusing the Ledger Enquirer website. It's funny my blog has the same layout as yours, you can read it at onekoomuddah.blogspot.com. Your blog is great, I've enjoyed reading it so far. Talk soon!
Val
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