Smiling Mom

I am a public school teacher and I work in one of stron­gest aca­de­mic dis­tricts in the Bay Area. The school I teach at rou­ti­nely ranks in the top five in Cali­for­nia. It’s that good!

My school is also a ‘choice’ school, mea­ning that it is stu­dents come from all over the school dis­trict. You have to choose to send your kids there. The­re­fore school admis­sion is based on a lot­tery. When a child’s num­ber is called a parent almost always pulls their child out of their current pri­vate or public school to enter ours.

I know what great teaching is all about. I’ve seen both sides, the good school envi­ron­ment and the bad.

This is the best.

So why am I fret­ting about school?

Sim­ple. I don’t live in the school dis­trict in which I teach.

Teachers can’t afford to buy a house there.

I have two chil­dren. My oldest will enter kin­der­gar­ten a year from Sep­tem­ber and he can­not go to the my school.

Kinda stinks, doesn’t it?

Often one of the bene­fits that many school dis­tricts offer their teachers is auto­ma­tic admis­sion for their chil­dren. On top of it being very con­ve­nient for us, it also ensu­res the dis­trict that we teachers stay put for the dura­tion of our children’s schoo­ling careers. Teacher reten­tion is quite a pro­blem in Sili­con Valley. It’s a win win.

But since my school is a choice school, my own chil­dren don’t even have an option of attending.

So I fret.

I’ve seen great. I teach at great. I want great for my kids.

The school dis­trict in which I live is alright. It’s neither great nor bad. My kids will pro­bably do fine while atten­ding school in this dis­trict. But then I think, Is alright good enough for my children?

No.

My hus­band and I have dis­cus­sed pri­vate edu­ca­tion, moving, public schools, pri­vate schools again.… But truth be told, two public ser­vants living in Sili­con Valley simply can­not afford a mort­gage and one pri­vate school tui­tion, let alone two tui­tions as my daugh­ter enters school.

So we’re stuck. Pri­vate school costs too much, while public school just might not be great enough.

When it comes down to it, I’m just as con­fu­sed as the next mom trying to do her best by her kids.

Any sug­ges­tions?

Ori­gi­nally pos­ted at Sili­con Valley Moms Blog

Do you ever feel like you are stan­ding still and the world is whir­ling out of con­trol around you?  When you were sober?

Hubby’s sur­gery was Mon­day.  He’d doing fine.  He’s a trou­per really.  He’s in a tre­men­dous amount of pain that the presc­ri­bed drugs barely con­trol.  But each day is slowly get­ting better.

Slowly.

Hubby is a terri­ble sick patient.  When he has the flu, I often want to flee the house for sun­nier pla­ces.  But usually we end up at the local ER for a bit of re-hydration instead.

Suf­fice to say I’d set the bar quite low for Hubby post-surgery beha­vior.  But, ama­zingly, he’s doing really well.  He’s set up in our bedroom with a DVD pla­yer and about a bazi­llion movies that he’s allo­wed to watch without much inte­rrup­tion.  He’s even been able to re-watch that dam­ned movie Blackhawk Down, that I watched once. only once. and will never ever watch again.  and make Hubby quit watching when I am home.  Ya that one.  It’s like he gets a vaca­tion from life, really.  Well except for that throb­bing shoul­der.  But whatever!

Any­way.  Back to me.

Life is crazy.  I’m ten­ding to three see­mingly hel­pless beings all day and all night long.  I’m tired.  And I’m a slave to the clock.  7:00 food, 7:30 meds/kids food, 8:30 more food, 9:00 meds.  10:00 snack 11:30 lunch, 1:00 nap 2:30 more food 3:00 meds, 3:30 snack for kids, 5:00 din­ner, 6:30 get kids ready for bed, 7:00 more food, 7:30 meds/get kids to bed.

Somewhere in there I need to clean the house, do laundry, sho­wer myself, my kids, and my husband.

I need to walk the dog take the dog for a quick bike ride around the neigh­borhood because she’s get­ting pretty board around here and has deci­ded to show her stress by eating full sized rocks and then thro­wing them up the follo­wing mor­ning.  Good times.

I think I need a nap.

I’m snappy.  The kids are bug­ging me.  And they are being com­ple­tely normal.

But Hubby’s doing well.  And he’s been able to watch like 15 movies in the past five days!  How cool is that!

So, he’s sup­pose to begin fee­ling bet­ter by about 6 weeks post-op.

The count down beings.

Only 5 weeks 2 days to go!

But I sup­pose I should just shut up and be thank­ful that I have two strong shoul­ders and no need for sur­gery.  Right?

BWHhhahaha

Please.

Have we met?

You know that it’s just going to be on of those days when:

You wake up at 4:00 A.M. without really slee­ping at all. (alarm is set for 5:15)

You drive to work and are sit­ting at your desk by 5:45 A.M.

Your hus­band calls and just holds up the phone so you can ‘expe­rience with him’ the joys of rai­sing two todd­lers. WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA x 2

When your hus­band calls to say that he’s on his way to Costco with the kids to buy you a Christ­mas gift, you rea­lize that you didn’t just think, but said aloud, “Make sure you don’t buy me a bunch of junk this year for Christ­mas…” and then pro­ceed to name off mul­ti­ple things he’s bought for you in the past that you dee­med “junk.”

You’re sit­ting in the staff room during lunch telling a story and rea­lize everyone’s is loo­king at you side­ways and it dawns on you that you arn’t actually spea­king in cohe­rent or com­plete sentences.

You rea­lize that your day is only half over.

Ya, it’s been one of those days.

So Wed­nes­day night I actually utte­red the words:

We’re home free in 15 minu­tes!  Kids are going to bed and we get to relax.

Mis­take Mis­take Mis­take!! (Never, ever say such a thing and expect the next 15 minu­tes to go smoothly!)

Hubby looks at eClaire and says:

Come on honey, I’ll read you One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish before bed.

eClaire was thri­lled.  She jum­ped up and went tea­ring around the cor­ner toward her room.  Just as she nea­red her door, she tripped.

I saw it hap­pen.  BAMM! eClaire flew head first straight into the door jam.

Hard.

Really Hard.

She stood up, held her breath and amped up for the scream of all screams.

By the time she began to run toward me, she was in full scream.  It was pac­ked with agony, pain, fear.

And so was I.

In a mat­ter of 5–15 seconds I watched a knot on her head deve­lop that was at least 3 inches high and 1 1/2 inch wide, and bright blue.

I began to panic.

eClaire was hurt.  Really hurt.

After about 3 minu­tes we rea­li­zed we nee­ded to take a visit to our local ER.

The long of the short of it is that eClaire is OK.  She’s fine. There is no skull frac­ture or concussion.

What did hap­pen though is she hit a blood ves­sel and it burst, cau­sing the ins­tant swelling.

Yes­ter­day after­noon I got home from work and she still loo­ked terri­ble, but her mood was quite improved.

Thank good­ness!

How does a mom do it?  How do you stand tall, keep your calm, and walk through these terri­ble moments with your child?  How?

Are moms allo­wed to retire when their kids are still young?  I’m loo­king to put in my papers next week!