I do go by the mantra everything happens for a reason. Why do we do the things we do? As a new school year starts I feel a new sense of renewal of why I do what I do. Balancing a job as a teacher and the job of being a mother has its daily trials and tribulations. I always knew I wanted to be a teacher, I always knew I wanted to be a mother. As the first two weeks of my school year have come to end I think about why do I do all of this. Because this is what I want to, because this is what I am meant to do.
Every day brings new challenges. I have to learn to balance all of it. Sometimes I feel when I look at the clock at 5 on a school night, “oh jeez I need to leave to pick up the girls” what is the other part of my day going to be like? Balancing parenthood for real and balancing parenthood during the day brings on a whole new meaning of modes." I have the teacher mode and the mommy mode and sometimes it intertwines. For example this week, my older child (age 8, 3rd grade) and my younger child (age 3, preschool) had their own set of needs each day when we got home. My older one still needed to complete homework and the younger one required attention at the same time. What do you do? Finally a solution came to me. Something that would work for everyone. My younger one would have homework too. As crazy as it sounds I had to come up with a solution to keep my younger one from bothering her sister too much while she was actually trying to accomplish something. Much to my delight it WORKED! We had a pleasant evening without screaming and yelling between the two, “finish your work!” (To the older one), “Stop bothering your sister!” (To the younger one). My little one enjoyed doing her homework, even to the puzzlement of one of her teachers, “she said she had to go home and do homework?” I just had her trace letters and pretend she was taking a spelling test too. Finally and evening with out fighting and frustration in this new school year.
When I am in the teacher mode I feel like “What do I need to really accomplish in the next 45 minutes?” Sometimes it really takes some planning and other times you can come up with the idea in the spur of the moment. With the past two weeks full of meetings and deadlines, and this and that I have felt a bit overwhelmed at times. I have to say this though, through out my years of teaching so far I have never felt so calm. “Okay I need to do THIS, oh well I did not get THAT done.” Feeling a bit more comfortable in my skin helps. Teaching is like parenting, you get to know them, you try to nurture them, and you want them to succeed. I do feel lucky, and sometimes exhausted by my unique role in life. Knowing that I am making a difference makes me happy, even when the days are long and I don’t feel like doing too much when I get home. I want my children to be happy, be successful, and feel they have accomplished something too. My children at home and at school. I do all of it because I want to. I do all of it because I feel I need to. I feel that I have a purpose even when I don’t want to do everything I need to. It is all a balancing act. We all do it, we all need to do it, no matter what we do.
Happy Weekend!
