Life Changes

This is LONG and goes from here to there and back again. Good luck following :)

My first year of being a working mom is just about over. I have one week of school left and then it's SUMMER!! I am so excited to be done!

This year has been so incredibly hard. I have cried just about every morning. Leaving my babes has been excruciating! Too funny, I was never a cryer! Now I can cry so easily and SO much :'(. I hate crying...

I do love teaching, however, I love being with my babes so SO SO much more!

When hubs and I started to discuss whether or not I was going to go back to work this year there was so much to think about. As you know we decided that I should go back to work.

I did a lot of searching for where the babes should be during my work day. We started them off at what I like to call 'Baby School'. They were happy there. They ate and played and played and ate. What about slept you ask? Yeah that they did NOT do. My sleepers did not sleep at Baby School. They slept for about 10-15 minutes a day. I would pick them up from Baby School and they did not look like themselves. They were pale, snotty, and had red red eyes. I would get them home and they would take a nap, a 15hr nap. Neither hubs or myself would get to see them. They missed dinner, playtime, and most important (in my opinion) snuggle time. After 3 1/2 months we decided that Baby School was not working out for us. So dear old Ga (my mom, Grandma) had no job and was looking for one. She had offered plenty of times to nanny for us. I really was not comfortable with grandma watching the babes. Ga is a great mom and a great grandma, but she's grandma! NOT nanny! What is worse? Baby School or Ga? So many of you are probably thinking 'ARE YOU CRAZY!! Your mom is offering and you would rather them at DAYCARE!?!?! I know, I know...but we all have our own feelings, right?!

Hubs and I decided that we would accept Ga's offer and give her a job. I mean, who is going to love my babes more than their grandma! They get to stay home and I will even have more time with them. I don't have to waste 20 minutes to get them to Baby School and 20 minutes getting them home.

Ga has been with the boys now since December. The boys started back on their normal schedule right away and it has been wonderful. (Of course there are challenges that come along with this arrangement also).

In February hubs and I decided that we were ready for a huge change. We decided that we (I) was ready to move to where he is from...Minnesota. Oh I NEVER wanted to move there. I HATE the cold. I did not want to be away from my family. I did not want to leave my comfort zone.

When the boys were 2 months old we brought them to MN to visit. They met their 6 cousins. We had a blast. Hubs and I decided that we (I) would be ok with going after my brothers graduated high school. So in 2 years or so. (Just a couple of months after that my brothers decided to transfer out there to Hillcrest Lutheran Academy). So hubs thought maybe we could go sooner than later.

We went out to visit again for Christmas and I didn't want to leave. Well I did, I wanted to be in my own house, but I was more than OK with being in MN. This time we decided that we were going to get ready to make the first steps of relocating our family.

We got back to Jersey and we started the process of 'staging' our home. How in the world can you stage a little home and have two babes and ALL there stuff in there you ask? YOU CAN'T. Well maybe you can, but I couldn't. haha. Not to mention, if the house is being shown, how do you get two napping babes out, without totally disrupting them?

In February we decided to remodel our main bathroom. It really was the only room in the house that was left to be tackled. So my sweet little family moved into Ga's house. We have the whole upstairs (we share the kitchen of course) and she has the downstairs. Living in Ga's has been much easier for her. She doesn't have to leave so early in the morning, she doesn't have to get ready before coming over. She get's to roll out of bed and come upstairs once she hears that we are ready for her. (This is not my ideal way of living! - But it's what we think needs to be done right now in order to get to the next phase).

We finished our bathroom with the help of hubs rents. They so generously came out to help and of course spend some time with 2 out of their 9 grandkids. They even helped with a lot of the 'finishing' touches of staging.

The house is now on the market and we are hoping that it will sell sometime sooner than later. Of course in this market you never know.

Moving on....

My favorite part to share with you....

I officially resigned! Not only is my summer starting next Friday...my new life as a STAY AT HOME MOM will be starting.

This was such a hard decision. A decision that I think we made last year, but weren't brave enough to follow through with. One of the main reasons I went back to work in September was because I was afraid we wouldn't make it finically. So many teachers were let go (we were hoping that I would be one of them so the decision would be made for us - I wasn't). We knew that if I turned my job down and found out that we couldn't afford to be a single income home it would be SO hard for me to get a job next year when all the other teachers that were let go were also looking for one. I didn't want to let my first grade teaching team down. I didn't want to be a 'quitter'. I'm sure my list could go on.

Hubs said that if I changed my mind during the year then I should just put in my notice and leave. I told him that there was NO way that I would leave during the year, unless our plans of relocating happened fast enough for me to. I would not leave just because I made a poor decision. I whole heartily felt that it would be WRONG. I felt that it would be unfair for my 21 students. Unfair for my principal. Unfair for my district. Most importantly unfair for my students! (Yes I know I already mentioned them).

I struggled so much this year. My heart has been pulling in so many ways. Every second I am at work I am thinking of my babes, my family. Every second that I am thinking about them during the work day I have guilt that I am not as focused on my students as I should be.

Back in October we made our decision that this would be my last year working (prayerfully until all our wee ones are in school).

We have not shared the information of relocating or my struggles with work with anyone more than a couple family members. I felt that this needed to be secretive. I was afraid that my heart pulls would portray me as a poor teacher. I am some one that needs to have my students near the top of the priority list and they were dropping, dropping fast. With all my heart I can say that I tried my hardest to put my students needs and feelings first when I was at work. I even did what I had to do work-wise at home. Being with other peoples children and not my own was a very hard reality. Having to give them my heart, my time, when I had to leave my own children at home was incredibly difficult. It takes a VERY SPECIAL person to be able to do that, and I am not that special.

I am SO excited, that I am going to be a stay at home mom, but I am also SO nervous! I am terrified that we aren't going to be able to afford it, but we think this is best for OUR family so we will cut wherever we need to. I am nervous that I am going to be a big fat lazy stay at home mom! When I get a day off (shhh don't tell) I stay in my jams all day, (yes that means I don't shower...YUCK), I don't make dinner, never do anything that a stay at home mom does (or maybe should), I honestly stay on the couch and watch TV! Except when the boys are up, then I change their dipes, feed them, and play for a bit...then I hope they go back for a good nap so

I can go back to the couch (oh geeze, I did not say that out loud).

I'm really hoping that's because I'm not a stay at home mom. As of now I am a working mom. A working mom that does so many of the same things a stay at home mom does, plus work how many hours during the day, and at night when I get home, and the weekends.

My prayer is that I am a great stay at home mom! I hope that I can do more of the things I love. More playing with my babes, more teaching my babes, more snuggling my babes, more making yummy wholesome food for my babes (including my hubs), more making crafts for my family, more taking photos of my family and others, more baking for my family and others. Who knows how many other things I will enjoy now that I (MIGHT) have the time to look into them.

I mean seriously, why wouldn't I want to stay home with these two, and do more of this silliness.