motherhood journal
~ Friday, June 22, 2007
This page is now part of "shebazzle classic", and is no longer being updated.
Click here to go to the new shebazzle.com.
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~ Monday, August 30, 2004
Just a quick note, as we are all exhausted.
Alli had a good first day of all-day preschool. We all arrived at the Y around 7:15am, and she was the 2nd to arrive in her class. I stayed and read her a book, but had to leave by 7:30. I am still extremely raw about everything, and left in a pretty big pile of tears myself. Andrew stayed with her through breakfast, a few stories, the arrival of most of the class, and the morning snack -- he left around 9:30 with her willingly saying good-bye and hung around the area the whole day in case she needed him. We are told she was slow to warm up, but that she did well -- didn't eat much (which she sometimes doesn't at home either), spoke with one or two kids a couple of times, rested but didn't nap. Andrew and I arrived back together around 4:30, and she told us she didn't want to leave yet. We watched her sit for a story, and play a bit on the playground with the rest of her class, and then took an exhausted child out for pancakes and home for an early bedtime.
She seems comfortable enough to tell her teachers if she needs something, which is very quick for her to develop some amount of trust. Andrew and I are also comfortable with the quality of her teachers (we had met 2 of them before registering her there). Andrew is going to try to not stay quite as long in the morning tomorrow, and see how the departure goes. I don't anticipate that every day will be this smooth, especially when it becomes less of a novelty and Daddy can't stay with her in the morning, or on the days we can't pick her up before 5, but I was comforted to feel that at least in some basic ways, we did a good job in equipping her for this transition.
I still can't really even talk about it without breaking down, and don't know when or if I will ever feel truly comfortable with or secure in this transition. I am concerned about ensuring all of her needs are met and that she is happy, but this whole change has also represented my own life being turned upside-down, and she has become so much a part of me that I am in many ways lost without her. I'm continuing to allow the tears to come when they need to, keep myself focused on learning during the day at school, love Alli as much as I possibly can and make as much of the reduced time we have together, and just take it day by day.
How I'm going to fit the coursework for 3 classes on top of everything right now into all of this is presently a bit of an unanswered question.
Day by day.
~ Wednesday, August 25, 2004
Quick report: have had 3 days in school so far this week -- today was the first day back for the kids. Am working in a 1st grade classroom. It's been an overall good experience -- a welcoming mentor, an adorable if challenging group of kids, and I feel right about my choice to teach. However, it's been an unfathomably hard week for me as far as separation from Alli. I am struggling much more than she (thankfully), but much more than I even anticipated -- perhaps made worse by the harsh adjustment to the complete absence of personal time and flexibility during the school day. Fighting tears throughout the day, missing her terribly, missing the freedoms of my days with her, worrying about losing the connection we have made with each other, feeling unwhole without her.
Right now, I am continuing to take it one day at a time and push through it in the hopes that it will start feeling less painful.
Right now, I am continuing to take it one day at a time and push through it in the hopes that it will start feeling less painful.
~ Saturday, August 21, 2004
Just a quick note to celebrate the completion of an extremely busy and exhausting Summer, and the first phase of transition for us all. I've completed my first two quarters of graduate school. In just two short days, I will officially end my 3 1/2 years as a full-time stay-at-home parent and add a full-time working commitment to my already-begun schooling. My emotions continue to roller-coast between excitement and anxiety; between optimism and despair. Besides the obvious emotional and physical hurdle of transitioning Alli to a full-day preschool, the upcoming schedule promises to be extremely challenging -- led by the fact that I won't be receiving a much, if any, advance planning notice for schedule changes as I spend the first part of the school year rotating as an Intern among several schools. We hosted our last day of co-op on Friday, and I'm still processing the tears. We've been working very hard with Alli already to get her acclimated to her new school environment, which has been going better than we expected (she's expressing much excitement about it, and did fabulously when we sat in on class this week for a few hours) -- but we know her (and ourselves) well enough to be prepared for many tears on both sides when the transition arrives for her in another week (she has an interim time with both grandmas in town with her to enjoy first).
I am taking this one day at a time, still bolstered by the amount of interest and passion I have for teaching as a career, the future benefits we will reap as a family from me being in that career, and the knowledge that my time at home with Alli has given her a foundation that will help her with this new step. My involvement in her life is not ending, but merely undergoing a structural change.
At least that's what my brain keeps repeating in attempts to get my heart to listen...
:-)
I am taking this one day at a time, still bolstered by the amount of interest and passion I have for teaching as a career, the future benefits we will reap as a family from me being in that career, and the knowledge that my time at home with Alli has given her a foundation that will help her with this new step. My involvement in her life is not ending, but merely undergoing a structural change.
At least that's what my brain keeps repeating in attempts to get my heart to listen...
:-)
~ Sunday, August 08, 2004
I've officially joined the MOB. :-)
An uncharacteristically political entry, but one I believe in more strongly each day...
Mothers Opposing Bush
We are Mothers Opposing Bush because this administration is leading our country away from our core values of honesty, compassion, community and patriotism.
• We deserve a president who heals conflicts with conversation and cooperation, not by bullying.
• We deserve a president who will not gamble away our savings on tax cuts for the wealthy and an unjustified war that is leaving our descendants with an overwhelming deficit.
• We deserve a president who manages a budget that leaves no child behind, hungry, uneducated or impoverished.
• We deserve a president who believes sick people need equal access to quality healthcare, and that benefits for the elderly should not dwindle.
• We deserve a president who honors and protects our natural resources so that our own children can inherit, and pass on, a healthy planet.
• We deserve a president who respects the civil rights of every citizen, and leaves choices on God and marriage up to each individual.
An uncharacteristically political entry, but one I believe in more strongly each day...
Mothers Opposing Bush
We are Mothers Opposing Bush because this administration is leading our country away from our core values of honesty, compassion, community and patriotism.
• We deserve a president who heals conflicts with conversation and cooperation, not by bullying.
• We deserve a president who will not gamble away our savings on tax cuts for the wealthy and an unjustified war that is leaving our descendants with an overwhelming deficit.
• We deserve a president who manages a budget that leaves no child behind, hungry, uneducated or impoverished.
• We deserve a president who believes sick people need equal access to quality healthcare, and that benefits for the elderly should not dwindle.
• We deserve a president who honors and protects our natural resources so that our own children can inherit, and pass on, a healthy planet.
• We deserve a president who respects the civil rights of every citizen, and leaves choices on God and marriage up to each individual.
~ Tuesday, July 13, 2004
As I write this, one of our former co-op families is in Children's Hospital assisting their 3-year-old daughter as she receives her first round of chemotherapy. This little girl has already been given more challenges than a child (and her family) should have to bear, and she has now been diagnosed with Stage IV Neuroblastoma.
I think of her often, and hardly without tears. She, and her parents, are bearing this as bravely as I can imagine possible, but she is very weak and enduring much discomfort. I firmly believe this child is deserving of a miracle.
And I feel so selfish that a part of my reaction is extreme gratefulness for our family's relatively small burdens.
I think of her often, and hardly without tears. She, and her parents, are bearing this as bravely as I can imagine possible, but she is very weak and enduring much discomfort. I firmly believe this child is deserving of a miracle.
And I feel so selfish that a part of my reaction is extreme gratefulness for our family's relatively small burdens.
~ Friday, July 09, 2004
I'm four weeks deep into school. I've loved my first two classes, and am feeling cautiously optimistic that I can do this. I've also had several "in my groove" moments where I feel, for probably the first time in my life besides becoming a Mother, that I am on the path to do something that I am meant to do.
It's been hard, though, and I imagine that it's not going to get any easier for a little while. This Summer has involved a bit more juggling than I had envisioned -- keeping up with co-op, keeping Alli's days otherwise as occupied as they always have been, being in school 3 nights a week for 3 hours at a shot, doing an insane amount of reading, getting through several standardized and proficiency tests, making time for group projects and papers (including one large research paper which I have to get done by next week), and fitting in lots of field experience time in the schools (these hours are assigned in conjunction with specific classes and have to be fulfilled in accordance with class deadlines). I put in 2 mornings this week in Evanston's Summer School program, and will continue that for the next 2 weeks.
It's been pretty exhausting, but I'm making my way through it, and have lost much of the initial "no way can I do this" panic. I have no idea how the addition of working in the schools in the Fall will feel, and I'm starting to feel some probably normal fear and sadness at the prospect of taking the final leap away from being 24x7 with Alli, but I'm just taking it one step at a time, generally even one day at a time.
This week I sat in on 1st Grade and Kindergarten classes in Evanston. Summer school is an interesting animal, in that here kids who need Reading or Math development before being promoted to the next grade from all of Evanston's elementary schools go to a single school and are put in classes together. It's a very short day, 8:30-11:30, and the expectations of the kids and the teachers are in some cases pretty huge. At the same rate, being surrounded by kids who really need help is somehow a comfortable place for me to be, and one in which I think I'd like to end up. I have been there for 2 mornings, and have already had kids clamoring to tell me things or to ask me for help.
My first level of field experience hours are supposed to be mainly observation, getting involved in some one-on-one tutoring and some work in small groups. This morning, my first visit to the Kindergarten class, the teacher gave me a 30-second synopsis of the morning's activities and literally left the class in my hands while she went out to get some things done. Nothing like, boom! Here you go, start teaching! We worked on the alphabet, letter sounds, and "framing" words in a story.
Yesterday in the 1st Grade classroom, I was sitting at a table with a group of kids who were all asking me what I was doing in their class. I explained to them that I was going to school to learn how to be a teacher. One girl pressed for more info, and I told her that I had a different kind of job for awhile, then had a baby and stayed home with her, and am now going back to school because I want to teach. Her response: "You were in BUSINESS?" (said with an urban emphasis that you can only accomplish with an appropriate neck and shoulder movement). I answered that, yes, I was in business. "You retired?" she pressed. "No," I laughed, "I didn't retire." "I want to retire," she said. We then discussed that she'd have to finish school and get a good job so that she can then retire.
Later in the morning, during a writing assignment, I was helping her correct her spelling. She turned to me and said, "Look, you're a teacher now!"
:-)
It's been hard, though, and I imagine that it's not going to get any easier for a little while. This Summer has involved a bit more juggling than I had envisioned -- keeping up with co-op, keeping Alli's days otherwise as occupied as they always have been, being in school 3 nights a week for 3 hours at a shot, doing an insane amount of reading, getting through several standardized and proficiency tests, making time for group projects and papers (including one large research paper which I have to get done by next week), and fitting in lots of field experience time in the schools (these hours are assigned in conjunction with specific classes and have to be fulfilled in accordance with class deadlines). I put in 2 mornings this week in Evanston's Summer School program, and will continue that for the next 2 weeks.
It's been pretty exhausting, but I'm making my way through it, and have lost much of the initial "no way can I do this" panic. I have no idea how the addition of working in the schools in the Fall will feel, and I'm starting to feel some probably normal fear and sadness at the prospect of taking the final leap away from being 24x7 with Alli, but I'm just taking it one step at a time, generally even one day at a time.
This week I sat in on 1st Grade and Kindergarten classes in Evanston. Summer school is an interesting animal, in that here kids who need Reading or Math development before being promoted to the next grade from all of Evanston's elementary schools go to a single school and are put in classes together. It's a very short day, 8:30-11:30, and the expectations of the kids and the teachers are in some cases pretty huge. At the same rate, being surrounded by kids who really need help is somehow a comfortable place for me to be, and one in which I think I'd like to end up. I have been there for 2 mornings, and have already had kids clamoring to tell me things or to ask me for help.
My first level of field experience hours are supposed to be mainly observation, getting involved in some one-on-one tutoring and some work in small groups. This morning, my first visit to the Kindergarten class, the teacher gave me a 30-second synopsis of the morning's activities and literally left the class in my hands while she went out to get some things done. Nothing like, boom! Here you go, start teaching! We worked on the alphabet, letter sounds, and "framing" words in a story.
Yesterday in the 1st Grade classroom, I was sitting at a table with a group of kids who were all asking me what I was doing in their class. I explained to them that I was going to school to learn how to be a teacher. One girl pressed for more info, and I told her that I had a different kind of job for awhile, then had a baby and stayed home with her, and am now going back to school because I want to teach. Her response: "You were in BUSINESS?" (said with an urban emphasis that you can only accomplish with an appropriate neck and shoulder movement). I answered that, yes, I was in business. "You retired?" she pressed. "No," I laughed, "I didn't retire." "I want to retire," she said. We then discussed that she'd have to finish school and get a good job so that she can then retire.
Later in the morning, during a writing assignment, I was helping her correct her spelling. She turned to me and said, "Look, you're a teacher now!"
:-)
