Balance

Isn't this a great picture? They look so little. I love Joel's feet, and the fact that even though it looks like he's got his hand on his sweet brother's arm, he's probably trying to remove it from around his shoulder.

A few thoughts on being a working mom. Up until now my hours and days were set up perfectly. With Gabriel going to school all three days at the same time I was working, and Joel now going two of the three, it didn't seem like any of my time with them was affected. But starting next week I will be working an extra day, so now I feel like I will be missing out. There's a constant, pressure-filled tug at me both ways. I know how much we need the money I make. But I also know how much I miss being able to relax more around the boys, when we didn't have to go anywhere or be up at any certain time.

The thing is, it's not really the actual work time that gets to me. It's the time it takes to get all the stuff unpacked from the current day and the making lunches, picking out clothes and packing up for the next day. That takes an hour of my time away from them. At least I'm home, and am still accessible to them if Gabriel has a question about the solar system or if Joel wants to show me which letters and numbers he's learned from school. And at least I'm getting faster at it now that we've been doing this for a year(!). I've come up with a few methods of saving time for them, like sorting and folding all laundry after bedtime. All I really have to do each day is throw a load in when we get home. Then I make sure to spend at least an hour playing with them before starting dinner. The thing I still haven't figured out how to squeeze in is housework. It'll get done eventually.

Having to shell out the money that it will take to send both of them to private school has been weighing heavily on my mind. One of the hardest things about being an older parent is that you think waaaaaayyyy too much about the future, like the fact that you will never really be able to retire. Ick. I was even seriously considering home-schooling for a while. I have never believed that home schooling is a real good idea. The lack of social life just seemed crazy to me. Now there seems to be many opportunities for home-schooled kids to have a social life, at least with other home-schooled kids. But Jav pointed out to me that it takes a certain kind of relationship between the home school parent/teacher and kid/student to make it work well. Like maybe one where the kid doesn't already, at the ripe old age of five, think that he's smarter than his mother? Yea, like that. Oh well, obviously not for us.

But now that I've really been thinking about it so hard my head hurts, the bottom line is that I just don't believe the Texas public schools will provide them with a good education, let alone keep them safe. So, I need to quit bitching about it and just buckle down and figure it out. I think I've done pretty well, considering I wasn't really supposed to work at all until Joel started kindergarten. My pay is good, my hours are perfect, and because my mother- and sister-in-law are so wonderful about keeping the boys, none of the money I earn has to go towards day care or a babysitter. And I don't have to worry about who's keeping the boys. That peace of mind is priceless.

I'm also coming to grips with the fact that when I go back to work full-time, I can't really do whatever I want to do, but need to stick with accounting because that's where the money is. This has also been a hard pill to swallow. I really wanted to work with special ed kids in some capacity. But to do that without further education will mean hardly any pay. And we can't afford to send me back to school. So the world of debits and credits will have me around for a long, long time. Sigh.

I just have to keep looking at those faces in the picture above. They will give me the strength and determination I need.