Having It All

I've been doing a lot of thinking about my life.

This is in response to doing a lot of reading. I've scoured the library system to find interesting books I'd like to catch up on. Several of these are nonfiction books centered around politics and sociology.

I guess it started a ways back when I was retailing all I had on my plate:

Mom
Wife
Payer of Bills
Precinct Chair
Treasurer of the PTA
Drama Teacher
Church Employee
Coupon Queen
School Store Staffer
Science Program Chair
Copy Room Trainer

and so forth. Every one of those duties has made demands on my time, and of late the increasing demands have been a challenge to shuffle. My housework has suffered, of course, and I'm not as good a wife as I'd like to be. Sometimes I don't get calls made that I'd like to complete for work, and as for church, I've all but dropped off the radar, coming in only twice a month when scheduled and missing the extra events and meetings I ought to go to.

(To be fair about church, when I've gotten more involved in the past, I've been slapped down and made to understand my input is minimally valued, so I quit trying to change the situation and started doing just the minimum. That's a major character flaw in myself, and one I'm sure I'm paying for. Still, it is a bit difficult to dash one's head against the same brick wall year after year, hoping that it will magically dematerialize.)

But I thought about all I do, and how fortunate I am to be able to do it. We don't NEED a second income, but it is really nice to have it. The major bonus of the drama job, though, is that I love doing it. I have a skill set, and I can use it to pass on my love of drama to kids. I wonder if I'd feel the same way about it if I HAD to work.

Right now, the Little Critter is at her computer, playing a game after a hard day. Soon we will tackle Spelling together, and then have dinner and goof around a bit. She'll go to bed with both parents home at a reasonable hour, and with parents who have time to spare for her.

I remember working full time and putting the Bigun in an afterschool program about eleven years ago. I know she loved the program, and several of her friends went to the same program and enjoyed it immensely. Still, after a full day at a job I neither liked nor understood well, I had very little left to give her or JJ. She got my best for a half hour in the car on her way to private school, and then she got the hectic mom all evening until bedtime. I never found a way to balance working all day with doing everything else I had to get done.

Unbelievably, now I'm doing a lot more, and yet have more time for the family. I'm trying to wrap my head around it. I do all of the above, and also the occasional unscheduled school work or volunteer committment (just today I was asked by the Homeowner's Association to help count ballots for the Association Election) and still I have dinner on the table most evenings, and clean clothes and a full pantry. I'm sure part of it is the enthusiasm that comes with doing things I love doing. Another part has got to be my Late Onset Order Disorder, which manifest itself after I got married. All that means is that where once I couldn't juggle two things at a time, now I can easily handle ten. Often just in my head.

I laughed at Contrary when she said I rocked the multi-tasking, but I'm beginning to think it's not just pretty words because she's nice to me like that. But honestly, ask my parents; there is nothing in my history before we got married that would point to this as being the stuff of which I am made. "Fish?" they would say. "She's a little goofy, generally kindhearted (but not nearly enough,) a voracious reader and a bit of a dreamer, and not much to show for it. She's got potential, but she's not living up to it. Full of plans, but nothing ever comes of them. She's sort of coasting."

I don't know what they would say now.

We're getting closer

Nearly time for NaBloPoMo. I want to get in the habit of adding a little something in these spaces, but I hesitate to put down the mundane stuff I'm doing.

I went to election law training for election judges. I went to training on the voting machines, and have to repeat it because the team we got stuck training with on "fast track" moved agonizingly slowly. I got roped into helping with the Halloween event in the community center. I subbed for another teacher this week, and got to play with the older students, but I had about an hour's notice and barely time to read their assignments before stepping up and winging it.

I also got an e-mail from the Bigun's biodad, Boatman, about her emotional state. She feels "cut off" apparently, and not connected to the family. Hmmmm, when I have to go to WORK to see my daughter, that tells me she ain't around all that much to be seen and relate to. Other than that, I haven't laid eyes on the girl since her car had trouble weeks ago. Cut off? Come on!

I'm taking a parenting class, which really is fun, based around letting kids suffer the natural consequences of their behavior. Love and Logic, it's called. The premise is that kids making mistakes earlier in life over small things will cost them less in the long run. They get to practice making good decisions early, when the stakes aren't so high, so they will be equipped to make decisions when they have a lot more on the line.

An example: The kids are fighting in the car. You could:

a) Pull over and pick up a book and start reading until they finish
b) Tell them you charge $20 an hour to listen to fighting
c) Tell them to get out of the car and walk
d) Tell them the car only goes 15 mph when you have to hear them bicker

My personal favorite is b, but any of these would work. Now, I don't have kids in the age ranges where they are together enough to fight, so this never applied to me. But think of the possibilities!

"You can clean your room, or I charge $8 an hour to clean it for you."
"You can take your vitamins and wear your coat, or you can choose to pay the $30 copay when we have to take you to the doctor."

Hee! Imagine it! Submitting a bill to your ten-year-old for cleaning! I love it!

We're in the middle of the "stay up as late as you want, but get up on time" experiment. So far the LC hasn't made it to sleep before 10:30 any night for a week, but she has made it up and to school on time every day. That's been fun, because now JJ and I can watch Corner Gas in peace. Still, it feels so WRONG!

I'll report later on the results.

Paused

I'm taking a break right now. I mean at this very moment, I am not doing anything.

I folded some laundry earlier, read a chapter in my book, barbecued sausage and chicken for dinner tonight, took the LC to drama class and shopping, invited a friend to spend the night with LC, made a bank run, made a grocery run, worked school store today (selling a record $646,) chopped veggies for teacher birthdays, ran JJ to work, challenged him to a Sudoku match when he got home and helped recruit 3 new members for the PTA.

So now I'm doing nothing. In half an hour Corner Gas comes on and we're staying up to watch it. But at this very moment, all I am doing is setting it all down. It's quiet; only the fan noise and my pecking at the keyboard.


I think this, more than anything else, is why I want to move to the country. There just isn't the option of overscheduling myself. It's quiet there, just crickets and an occasional cow. Maybe wind blowing over the trees on the top of the hills. You can see stars out there, and feel a hush that sits on you gently but dares you to break it.

"But I'm not crazy!"

I teach, therefore I am... crazy.

Truthfully, I love my job. I'm teaching seven classes a week, with an occasional eighth or ninth thrown in when I substitute for someone else. Each class is an hour long, full of high-energy activities focusing on speech, movement and improvisation. The kids, while sometimes a challenge, are always coming up with interesting things, and no two classes go the same way at all.

It's the parents that kill me.

I teach at a particular school on Tuesdays at 4:30. The class starts exactly 1/2 hour after my first class at another campus ends, and I have to traverse a very busy boulevard to get to work at the second location. Sometimes I stop for a quick drink (Like Fanta, get your mind out of the gutter!) and then go to class. Yesterday I had to get a bite to eat because I'd be facing three more classes instead of my usual two.

So I arrive exactly at 4:28 and go directly to the school office. Apparently the school cannot spare a person for 5 minutes to walk my one student who attends school there over to my building. Picking this child up usually takes about 5 minutes because they have to find him. He is usually on the playground, so I am inevitably starting late.

Yesterday I go through this rigmarole and ask at the front desk for him. They clear me in to go get him, but another mom stops me in the lobby.

"When did you change the class time? The class starts at 4."

"The class always started at 4:30. I teach at another campus and I end there at 4. The class here CAN'T start at 4 because I'm not here."

"I know I'm not crazy. I get off work at 3:30 so she can be here at 4."

"Well even so, I can't BE here at 4. I'm teaching another class in another location until 4. I can't get here before 4:30."

"I always brought her at 4. I'm not crazy! I know the class used to start at 4."

"No, see here on my sheet? The time is listed, and has been listed since the 19th, as 4:30."

"No, it used to start at 4, and I want to know why you changed it."

"I have to go get the other kids. You can talk to my boss about it - I'll have her call you." And I went to retrieve my student and THEN make my way to class and set up and THEN start teaching.

So later, after I get home, the boss calls me. It turns out the lady argued with HER too, and also sat outside my class and railed against me to the other parents. She concluded her account to my boss with the statement that I called her crazy.

Now, pause a minute. In the above exchange, just WHERE did I do that? It was HER saying she WASN'T crazy. Or did I dream that?

So the jist of it is the boss called another parent or two. The first parent she called, when asked about the encounter (which only the school staff heard, but apparently the woman did go talk to other parents,) asked "You mean the crazy lady?"

Pow. Case closed.

So the boss talked to the woman who had to back down and admit she was wrong, and said she guesses (GUESSES?!) she owed me an apology. But she still wasn't crazy, she said.

It's a good thing I love my job. Especially since I have to deal with strange people. Because that lady? Man, she was crazy.

The Things I (Never) Said Today (aka I'm Cranky)

* Do it your own damn self.

* That's the meds talking.

* Why is this suddenly MY problem?

* I told you so (nearly did say that one)

* Why, yes, since the world does, in fact, revolve around you, I will certainly drop everything and do your bidding.

* If you feel disconnected, maybe you should plug yourself into other people's lives instead of sitting over there.

* How is it that when X has an attack of the vapors, suddenly it's incumbent upon everyone to keep from upsetting her?

* By the way, did you ever notice when others have a problem with X, they don't bring it to you? They just deal with it, suck it up, and move on.

More to follow as I make it up...

UPDATE: Oh, Miss Doxie is so very generous. She had a link to this site and I've spent the morning in LOLCat therapy. Try it.