Second Verse, Same as the First

I don't talk about my feelings much on here anymore because that's gotten me into trouble. I guess honesty is a tough pill for some people to swallow. But I'm going to take a leap here and revisit an old topic.

Disclaimer: I love my job. I love my students. I don't think I could ever do anything else for a living. I have spent more nights lying awake and trying to think of ways to fix things, fix my students, than I'd like to try and count. I've sat in my assistant principal's office in tears because I hurt for my students and I feel helpless. I forgo my lunch half the time so I can work with my students and help them. I find enormous joy and learning most of the days I spend in the classroom. I love what I do, and I was born to do it.

That said, summer is a bittersweet time for me. I'm pretty sure I could never be a housewife--one of those women who stay at home after the kids are all off at school. I want to teach. But more than that, I want to be home. I want to be with my son. Two years later it still hurts to leave him. He is well cared for and loved, and he will grow up fully functional and attached. But I miss him when I work. So this is my bittersweet summer: I soak in every moment, I drink in the hugs, the kisses, the playtime. Sure, we have rough days. A couple of days ago I opened my door because I heard Brandi outside, and I offered her my child. There are days when (and here's that unfortunate honesty, again--avert your eyes if you can't take it) I don't like being a mom. Careful--I'm not saying I don't love my son. There is never a moment when that's true. But there are days when parenting is work, it feels like an exhausting job, and I'd like to clock out for a bit. So sure, it would be nice to take a little vacation from motherhood at times. But on the whole--this is where my heart is. And I leave a chunk of it behind in September.

For anyone judging me because I yearn for summer during the school year, or because sometimes I say I'd rather be home than listening to adolescent whining, I'd love to remind you that I have yet to meet the person who doesn't get excited about not going to work and going on a vacation for a while. It's fair. We all have bad days at work, and we all have pieces of our jobs that are unpleasant. That's fair. But at the end of the day, I love teaching. And while I'd prefer to not be a working mom, if I'm going to be one, I've got it pretty good. I love what I do, my hours are perfect, and I have a lot of time off throughout the year. I can't imagine leaving my little man behind to go to a job I don't like nine hours a day, five days a week, twelve months a year.

This is clearly diverged into a discussion that I was not intending. Sorry for the treatise. I shouldn't have to defend myself, or make my blog private, or try to avoid the occasional messy emotional rant. But I guess I do it anyway.

But here's what I wanted to say: I'm just about at the halfway point of my summer, and I'm already just about to break down in tears at the thought that it will end. It doesn't have anything to do with the work to which I'm returning--it has everything to do with one of the two greatest loves of my life, and my complete devastation that our Adventure will ever draw to a close. I know, of course, that the Adventure doesn't end in September. And I think I do a pretty good job of sucking the marrow out of my limited McNugget time during the school year. But I will miss him from 7:30-3:30.

Until then, I will drink in every sweet and sour moment I can.

"Life is like playing a violin in public and learning the instrument as one goes on."--Samuel Butler

Crazy

These last couple of weeks have been pretty insane. Well, it's probably been longer than that. Like a month. But these last couple of weeks have certainly dialed up the crazy.

This week is my last week of school, and I was in my best friend's wedding on Sunday. That may not sound like the ingredients for crazy, but if that's true you clearly have never tried both at the same time. Being in a wedding (especially as a bridesmaid) is a lot. Please don't misunderstand--I LOVED being able to stand with my bestie on her wedding day, and I was ridiculously honored to do so. But bridesmaiding (yep--I just made it a verb) can be quite time consuming. For a working mom, that's rough. I already spend roughly three to four hours a day with my kiddo--adding bridal showers, bachelorettes, weekends away, rehearsals, and dinners was challenging. In the last month I have literally been gone most weekend days and several weeknights. And the finishing the school year--well, if you're not a teacher you can't know what a beast that is. A glorious (because it's almost the end) but draining beast.

And then my friend passed away. Since she was a teacher at my school, I couldn't take a day off to cry (not fair--if we all did that, no one would be there to work). So I had to be happy teacher all week, comforting sad kids, grading final projects, answering for the 325,675 time the "what can I do to bring my grade up [on the last few days of school after I haven't tried for 36 straight weeks]" question, finishing BTSA, cleaning my classroom, and planning for next year. All while trying to hold in the molten lava of grief that is threatening to consume me, but I can't let it. Then I go home and play happy mommy, because I can't cry for several hours when I have a toddler who needs me, and one who is coming unhinged because I haven't been around for a few weeks. Then I'm being a happy bridesmaid at the rehearsal and dinner (after an 8-hour day at an amusement park with a couple hundred seventh graders). Come Friday I was literally in tears in the shower, partly because of the grief and sadness that just refused to wait for yet another week, and partly because I was so freaking overwhelmed with things I needed to do that I couldn't see straight. And, if I can be selfish and insensitive here, on top of it all the ONE DAY in a month I have to spend with my family is claimed by a funeral.

This week I may or may not have:

...allowed Ben to watch TV for an unreasonable quantity of time while I took a long, sobbing shower.
...allowed Ben to watch TV for an unreasonable quantity of time while I played on facebook.
...neglected to cook or clean for pretty much the whole week.
...forgotten to bring a promised movie as a reward for my students.
...snapped at my students. Kind of a lot.
...put coffee grinds in the coffee maker and walked away expecting coffee to be there when I got back. No water, didn't turn it on...just coffee grinds. TWICE.
...neglected to bring lunch to work AT ALL.
...forgotten to take my gigantic bridesmaid dress in to get it altered.
...forgotten to get shoes for the wedding.
...forgotten to get a necklace for the wedding.
...on the day before the wedding, sat down with my mom after the memorial service and done the alterations ourselves with mismatched thread.
...taken Ben to the shoe store on my way home Friday to get silver shoes for the wedding while he rearranged the entire size eight section.
...laughed and taken pictures instead of stopping him.
...purchased a $5 necklace at Target the day of the wedding.
...purchased a couple of small toys for Ben while we were at Target because I felt guilty for orphaning him in the last month.

I am positive there are many more things I may or may not have done in the last week or two. But before you judge me for being a terrible wife, mother, daughter, and teacher, let's all remember this: sometimes life sucks a little bit, and it happens to everyone.

But there have been a few moments during this special time that have kept me from the brink. My mom being savior of the world (or at least the wedding) by helping me take my dress in, for one. If she hadn't done it I would have continued in my plan of doing it myself. That would probably have turned out very badly. Super-husband put himself up for World's Best Dad taking care of Ben for the thousand hours that I was away, and he was graceful and loving and took great care of me while I fell apart, despite stress of his own.

And Ben. Sweet Ben. The day Jill passed away I cried in the car while I drove us home. I'd JUST found out, and I hadn't gotten to the point yet where I could suck it in. When I went to pick him up he was crying because he'd just fallen. He ran to me crying, Mommy, and jumped into my arms. I missed him so badly. And all I needed in the entire planet was to hold him close. We needed each other. And when I cried on the way home, he said softly from the back seat, "Mommy owie?"

Yes, baby. Mommy has an owie.

A few days later I was praying with him. The lights were out, we said amen. He sat up and faced me and said, "Mommy happy?"

Yes, baby. Mommy's happy.

Celebration of Mediocrity

Hi. I’m Shannon, and I’m an overachiever.

The first step is admitting it, right?

I’m addicted to my own success. Not in the sense that I’m arrogant and conceited, but in the sense that I have such a deeply rooted fear of failure that I am obsessed with succeeding. I am well aware of the origins of this “thorn in my flesh,” but that doesn’t seem to curb the crazy. I’m so afraid of failing that for me “failing” has come to mean anything short of perfection. An A-, if you will. I once had a class in college where my professor gave us a printout with everyone’s grades on them (with ID numbers instead of names), and I noticed that while I had a 97.4% someone else had a 97.6% and I was actually really upset. He also accidentally entered in one of my grades wrong, a couple of percentage points lower (still in the A range), and I actually asked him to change it, despite the fact that it would do nothing to my grade. When parents and students send me emails about something they disagree with about my teaching I cry. When I got a B+ in Calculus in college I dropped Math as a major. I’m out of control. Teaching, a profession in which you are constantly evaluated by a solid 200 people every day, does not help.

Except that I think it does.

I have been driven to tears and, at times, downright insanity, a few too many times by “failures” both large and small since I entered my career. I like to say I open to criticism so that I can grow as a professional (and for any administrators reading this, that’s the party line), but in reality I’m crushed by any hint that I’ve somehow fallen short of Teacher of the Year. Part of this is fueled by the large mass of people who have spent my life telling me that I am, in fact, beyond extraordinary. You’d think all that hyperbolic encouragement would be good for me, seeing as I grew up being told I couldn’t do anything right. But the two contradictory messages have sent me into a tailspin in those moments that I am not, in fact, perfect.

But now I’m finding that because of the proliferation of “failures” (let’s be honest—it’s probably not as much as I think it is, but in my head all I do is fail), I’m starting to take them less seriously. I think ever since Angry Mom, I’ve accepted shortcomings. I’ve accepted the fact that sometimes I do something wrong. And not only have I accepted it, but I’ve come to expect it. Not in the “oh, I’m so awful, I’m just assuming I’m going to fail” way, but in the good way—like I know that sometimes I’m going to fall short of perfection, and that’s okay. I will probably not get fired because I sent my drama kids to film something and they were caught being somewhere they should not have been. I’m probably not going to get fired because I pissed off a parent, or because one of my 180 moody adolescents doesn’t like me, or because I can’t seem to get my BTSA homework done on time.

So, much to my surprise, when my assistant principal came this morning to “reprimand” me, I didn’t cry. I didn’t fall into the throes of emotional self-flagellation and bemoan the loss of my administration’s respect and the end of my teaching career. I simply said I was sorry and it wouldn’t happen again. Then I let my kids in, smiled at them, and started class.

Growth, baby.

Square Peg, Round Hole

I am an introvert. There, I said it. I find comfort in solitude. I re-charge my batteries alone. I need Me Time to survive and thrive. Being around people is work. I’m not a misanthrope or anything; I like people. I even love many of them. But I need time to myself in order to remain sane. I think this is something much of the world doesn’t understand, and therefore judges. Any time a perceived difference in a human being is detected, that person is declared “weird” and “wrong.” But I’m just going to put this out there: introversion is not a disease. It is not a form of social retardation. It is not a personality defect. It is simply a characteristic that is hardwired into certain individuals.

End of Public Service Announcement.

Now that we all are in agreement that being an introvert does not merit a scarlet “I”, let’s talk about the effects of too much socializing on an introvert. You know how when babies are overstimulated they start crying and getting aggressive? That’s what happens to introverts (or at least this one) when the alone time doesn’t happen. I cease to function. I do not get recharged and I shut down.

So that is where I stand today. I’m not sad, I’m not hurting, I’m not depressed. I’m simply overstimulated and in desperate need of solitude. Being a wife and mother (two roles that I love and wouldn’t trade for anything in the universe) necessitates a significant decrease in Me Time. Living in a tiny home doesn’t help. Add a week of near- constant social time with teaching, three amusement parks in three days with a half a dozen people and a cranky toddler, and a birthday party? Oy. I broke down after park #3 on my way to the birthday party, which I ended up missing because I was a disaster. I am not built for this.

Please don’t misunderstand: I enjoyed the time spent with family, and our whirlwind tour of the Best of Southern California was fun-filled. But at the end of it all, I am an empty shell of a person that is hiding in the corner of her classroom while her students do an independent study project because if she has to talk to one more person, particularly a hormonal adolescent, she will throw up and cry, partly because of the talking, partly because of the throwing up.

I need a square hole to crawl into, STAT.

I wrote this post on Monday. It is now Friday. That's the kind of week it's been.

One Life

It is a beautiful day. Well, it's dry, hot, and windy, so my allergies are out of control. But after being in the snow and freezing cold for a few days, I'm actually grateful for the "spring" in Spring Break. Ben slept in. I watched TV, sipped coffee, and knitted. I got Ben up, we ate breakfast, and I showered while he watched Sesame Street. He played while I cleaned his bathroom. I came out to the living room to check on him before starting our bathroom. He was happily and busily playing with his cars. He didn't even notice me. I started to move away to clean the other bathroom, but I hesitated.

It's Spring Break. I have three days alone with my mini muffin. Clean the bathroom, or sit with him while he plays.

I grabbed my knitting, plopped down on the floor next to the couch (I can't sit on the couch when he plays with his cars--it's his track), and watched my little man play.

I have to go now. He just made me bacon and spaghetti in his kitchen.

Crafty

I am not crafty. I do not have a crafty bone in my body. When I took Home Ec in junior high we were supposed to make all kinds of crafty crap. My sequin shirt was the ugliest thing I’d ever seen, and a solid half of the sequins had come off by the time I got it home. The hole in the top of my tissue box cover was too small to pull Kleenex through (which wasn’t a huge problem since the cover itself was just a smidge too small to hold Kleenex boxes anyway). The frog stuffed animal? Limp and decidedly NOT cuddly. Once I tried to make my own dress. It was lopsided. I have attempted cross-stitching, latch-hooking (I think that’s what it’s called), and knitting. All projects elicit a solid “ummmmmmm…..I think I see what you’re going for, but…..maybe not quite” response. Probably because I abandon most projects 30% in because I either get tired of making the effort or the product is just sad with little hope of revival. My knitting actually seems to be taking a turn for the better. I’ve started at least three blankets for Benjamin since I got pregnant. I abandon them quickly because, again, a third of the way through I realize that they are awful and need to be abandoned before I waste any more time crafting a sinking ship.


BUT this fourth attempt at a blanket is, with the exception of a few gaping holes that I THINK I’ve figured out how fix and to avoid making again, the blanket might actually become a blanket. I feel like I should get some kind of award for this. But maybe we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves; it’s only a quarter of the way done.

I have crafty friends who design birthday parties for their kids that are out of control. We’re talking hand-crafted decorations and party favors, carefully coordinated themes, and professional photographers. Their parties seriously look like they came out of Pottery Barn and Martha Stewart catalogues. For Ben’s first birthday I blew up some balloons. And put out bananas and stuffed monkeys. For a monkey theme.

I digress. We’re not talking about my varsity knitting or party planning skills, we’re talking about my complete lack of skill in all other crafting genres. So naturally when we were asked to have team shirts for the upcoming jog-a-thon at work, I said to myself, “why don’t I just make them myself?”

Bad plan.

Obviously I waited until the last minute. My primary objective in life has recently been cleaning food off the floor, which my child has generously used to decorate the kitchen (and Molly’s dining room, and restaurants…but that’s another post altogether). The important thing to note here is procrastination. If I wait long enough, the t-shirts will make themselves. But seriously, how hard could it be? I buy shirts from the 5 for 10 t-shirt warehouse, get some iron-on transfers from the craft store, ba-da-bing, team shirts. Um, no. I got the shirts last night. Turns out adult ones are 3 for 10. I also cleaned them out of bright yellow shirts. I’m sure they’re bummed. On to Michael’s, where I purchased aforementioned transfers. So far, okay. The only catch is that you have to use an inkjet printer, which I don’t have at home, only at work. No big deal; I’ll just bring my iron to work, print them out, and iron them on. Ba-da-bing, team shirts.

Um, no. The logo that my student designed was a little off-center and jumbled. It took me a solid 20 minutes to figure out how to adjust it. The time? 8:05. School starts at 8:30. Then I was supposed to print them out in “mirror image.” Couldn’t figure out how to do that. I emailed it to Matt at 8:10, who emailed it back to me all mirrored at 8:15. This kind of bummed me out. I was hoping that Superhusband wouldn’t be able to do it so that I could legitimately quit. No go. So I printed one out and did a tester. It came out great. 8:23. Hey, maybe this won’t be so bad. Ba-da-bing, team shirts.

Obviously not. I let the students in, thinking I would do their shirts one at a time. Terrible. This is when things really fell apart. Last week I had the kids sign up for sizes, and I bought the exact number of shirts they signed up for because by the time I had to purchase them only half had paid and I didn’t want 15 bright yellow shirts on my hands that I couldn’t return. Obviously the students did not take the size they signed up for, several kids who hadn’t signed up for a shirt at all showed up with money wanting one, and the next thing I know tiny little girls have large shirts because beefy boys have grabbed the smalls to be funny, and I don’t have enough shirts for everyone who wants one. Oh, and in the meantime school has started, I’m supposed to be teaching, and instead I’m printing logos out on regular paper because the ink ran out, I had to get a new cartridge mid-way through the printing, printed a test page on regular paper, and then forgot to put the transfers back in the printer. I printed 20 logos on regular paper before I figured it out, then tried to consol the sweet, sensitive student I put in charge of the printing and reassure him that it was my fault and not his. Then I re-loaded the printer, laid the logos out to dry around the room as they printed, cut them out, then ironed them on the shirts, all while trying to get the students to work on the study guide for their big test tomorrow. Within ten minutes students were coming to me because their logos were coming off their shirts.

Someone please stop me if I ever decide to get crafty again. No joke. Lives are at stake, here.