Back to school blues...

I guess I should be excited to head back to school, especially since when I am there, I really am happy to be there most of the time. The thing is, I just feel like the end of summer came in a whirlwind, and I wasn't ready. I mean I still haven't finish posting events from this summer and we are already heading into a new school year? Seriously time, quite messing with me.



I know two of the reasons I struggle to head back are the cute little blond boy with a captivating imagination on the top of this page, and that sweet faced brunette whose smile is nothing shy of dazzling. I know that any working Mom struggles with guilt, and I know that I am doing what is best for my family given the choices we have made. I know that it has been my choices that have led me to this moment in time, and most days I wouldn't trade it for the world.



And yet, when I had to go back to school this week I felt sucker-punched. I wasn't ready to put my little guys back in "school". I wanted to be selfish...I wanted more than anything to be their every moment teacher more than the teacher to 130 students I haven't met yet. I felt torn in two one side to the passionate educator I was who started teaching 10 years ago, and the other to the all encompassing role of Mom I've become since. I started to feel sad...sad that I have such difficulty embracing them both, seeing that one impacts the other, and that together they have great power.


I am lucky. My kids are in daycare three days a week. Three days because I have help. They are never going to have to go to daycare in the summer, or a summer camp if they don't want to. They will have their Mom home all during their school vacations, and afterschool to get them off the bus...at least till high school. They are lucky...so why the guilt?


I guess I know that time is fleeting. I see it in Matt's every movement. In the fact that he is no longer a baby, but a boy who is learning to talk, assert himself in this world, and express who he is. I see it in the size of Zach, his features shifting from the chubby roundness of yesterdays to the more defined features of a little boy. His mind is racing, with questions, and dreams,memories and stories of his very own. "Play with me Momma" he will say, and I know too well that soon, it won't be me he turns to for entertainment. Their world is getting bigger every moment, and I worry that in a blink I will have missed it. You know the time when I was their world, their home was their playground, and their lives were simple. I think maybe Moms who stay at home might even feel this way sometimes...filling their days with all of the other responsibilities it takes to run a household, they probably go to bed sometimes wondering if they made the most out of their day with the kids. Add in being gone for 8 hrs, and coming home on 1/2 empty and things get a little dicey sometimes. Some nights I am ready for bedtime to come 30 minutes after I walk in the door, and then with that thought comes the guilt. How can I love them so much, and value time with them above all else, and still be so willing to give up the precious time I have with them on work days?

I guess as a working Mom you have to be "ON", all the time. Doing your most with the four hours you have in that day because there is no buffer time, which is why its hard to look forward to school this year. My students want the best of me, my sons want the best of me, and they both deserve it. Its just that today I am wondering...will my best be good enough? I sure hope so...but only time will tell.