Mixed Feelings

It's kind of sad but I feel like just now the kids and I are getting into our Summer groove.

I feel like we've found out how to push each other's buttons and we're both learning not to do that so as to keep everyone happy.

I feel like we're finally getting a grasp on discipline and that, even though it's only been a few days, it's working.

I feel like if I could send my daughter away for a week, my son would stop crapping his pants and start allowing his feces to swim in the potty.

I feel like Summer just started and yet two weeks from now I'll be back at work.

I love my job. Seriously.

I love my kids. More than anything.

I do NOT love my job more than my kids.

Sometimes I feel really bad about the fact that there is a piece of me that wants to go back to work. That is excited to get back to my classroom and my desk and my lesson plans and even those ridiculous faculty meetings.

Sometimes I love being home. I love playing outside all afternoon and into the evening with my kids and the other kids in the neighborhood. I love running errands with the kids and going to the park. I love going to the beach and visiting with friends. I love having this freedom to go and do or to not go and do.

Other times I think if I don't get back to those things at work I'm going to rip my finger nails out one by one because it will be less painful than being home all day.

I have very mixed feelings.

My son has been saying over the past few weeks that he misses school. He says it to me. He says it to my mother. He says it to my husband. He says as we're walking through the supermarket.

When he says it my stomach lurches and I almost want to cry.

It makes me feel so good that my son loves his school so much that he wants to be there.

It hurts me that my son loves his school so much that he wants to be there, and not with me.

He has never said that he wants to be at school instead of home but in my version of mommy guilt I take it as implied.

The other night at my parents my mom told me that the boy mentioned, again, that he missed school. In that moment, that moment that she shared that info with me I was in the midst of attempting to get my son to eat something that he did not want to eat. I had been "fighting" with him to eat his dinner. I had been "arguing" with him to stay in his seat. In that moment, I missed his school, too.

My kids didn't go to school this Summer because we can't afford it. They didn't go to school this Summer because I'm a teacher and I'm home all Summer. My kids didn't go to school this Summer because as much as I would have liked to have a day or two kid free to get things done, I would have felt incredibly guilty doing that. Even though they probably would have had a ball. My husband even tried to encourage me to see if school would take them for one day a week, we'd swing it financially. I balked at that idea!!

Now the Summer is ending and I'm sad. I'm sad for a few reasons.

I'm sad because it went by so fast. It went by the way that it used to when we were young. When we couldn't wait for Summer to start and then all of a sudden it was the Saturday before school started and we still had all of our Summer reading to do. It was that fast.

I'm sad because I wish we had done more. I wish we had seen more. I wish we had gone more. And we did a lot. We saw a lot. We went alot.

I'm sad because no longer will I wake up each and every morning and have two big brown eyes staring at me. No longer will those eyes be laughing at me in the early morning sun (except on the weekends). No longer will those eyes be frowning at me letting me know it's time to change the pull-up. No longer will there be a remote banging against my face asking for Noggin.

Soon, I'll be back to getting up at 5 in the morning. Soon, I'll be back to tiptoeing through the house in the dark early morning hours making sure not to wake any little people still sleeping. Soon, I'll be packing lunches and setting out clothes for the day as I run out the door for the day.

I'm sad because sometimes the prospect of those things. The prospect of work makes me happy. The idea that I get to go and teach and be with my students and co-workers/friends all day is nice for me, it's exciting, it's what I enjoy. I'm sad because sometimes I think that I shouldn't be happy about that.

Shouldn't I want to always be with my kids all the time? Isn't that why we had kids so that we could raise them and spend time with them and dress them up like little Croc wearing dolls?

Ok, maybe not the last one.

Deep down inside I know that working makes me a better mom. Deep down inside I know that it's perfectly ok that I am excited to get back to work. I also know that it's ok to not want to get back to work. I know that I'll miss being home but it will make the time that I am home even better. Deep down inside I know that my son loves being home with me more than he loves being at school. And what he's really saying is that he misses his friends. He misses the crafts and toys. He misses being apart from his sister a good portion of the day. I know that.


I think he also knows that some days, I miss his school, too. And that's ok.