Major life changes going on around here these days. We’re wrapping up preschool, and getting ready for Mama to join the world of employment.
The absolutely perfect job appeared just when I was starting to think about maybe I should go back to work in the fall. Now, having accepted said job, I’m not sure why I wasn’t positive that I wanted to go back to work once Julie starts school. I didn’t really think I’d be able to find the perfect hours, the right location, the ability to combine being available for after school and being able to work.
I’m starting on Tuesday, and I’ll work 8-10 hours a week thru the summer and then start the full hours once school starts up in the fall. I’ll be able to drop off in the mornings, and then be there for pick up on Mondays-Thursdays. Marc will do Fridays, because that’s the one day I’ll work the full day.
I’m confident about the job, and while I’m nervous about a whole bunch of things, doing the actual job isn’t one of them. What worries me is all the other stuff. I’ve been home full time since Sam was born. I did work similar hours when Jessie was a toddler (same number of hours, different configuration), but that was with one child. A toddler, who went to my sister-in-laws down the street from where I worked four days a week). My life is a lot more complicated now.
I think we’ll adjust fine. I hope we will. The impact on the kids will be negligible. I’ll be there for the morning chaos, getting them ready and dropped off at school. I’ll be there for the after school pick up, hearing about their days, nagging them to do homework and getting dinner/bath/teeth/bed done.
I’m a worrier. I like to think about all of the things that can/might go wrong, and then try to avoid them. It’s not necessarily helpful (although I’m secretly convinced it is), but it’s useless for me to try and stop. I’m just going to have to THINK about all of it and worry before I get it out of my system. While I’m going to still be there for the kids, I’m not going to have all the time that I’ve had up until this point. All the errands, all the writing, all the STUFF -the dishes, the laundry, the STUFF – I do a lot of stuff. That’s all going to be compressed into the time with the kids. And okay, yeah, it’s all been done with kids all along – but there was so much more time before.
I know that it’s all manageable. I know that it’s so exactly perfect, the job is literally everything I wanted, and I can’t wait to get started, but I still can’t stop myself from wondering how everything will work. Will Jessie resent taking on babysitting responsibilities? Will Sam feel abandoned, how much of his security was knowing that I was right at home, waiting for him? Will Julie grow up feeling slighted, because she’ll get a much more harried and stressed mom when she gets home from school, frantically trying to cram in a full day of at-home stuff into the hours between getting out of school and going to bed? Will I be a frantic, stressed out mess, with piles of dirty dishes, laundry spilling out all over the place and yelling all the time about chore charts and allowances?
I’m making myself just slightly crazy, I know that.
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