My husband’s grandmother passed away. My husband is very private, he reads this blog, and I am not sure how much he’d want put here about this experience. But it feels disingenuous to write about our summer without acknowledging this sorrowful life event. She lived a long life, suffered a long illness, and is now at peace. My son carries a lot of her features in his lovely face – we will be sure that he knows about the Gran who gave him his brow and smile.
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The summer is coming to a close. While we continue to provide non-stop fun for the boys, I am increasingly caught up in thoughts about what is coming at me. With the end of summer comes the beginning of school/daycare for the boys, and a new job for me. I’m really not sure how this is going to shake out, what with the Professor being in another city three days a week. My excitement about beginning work at a new place that I really like is tempered by my consuming fear that I’m going to fail my work, my family, or both, especially because I’ll be alone much of each week.
We had plans to arrive in the area at the beginning of this month, to move in completely, to suss out grocery stores and pediatricians and become well known in our church, to develop for ourselves something of a support network before my demanding job begins. I wanted the boys to feel settled in their house before daycare, and then settled in their daycare before I start going to work. I am sure that their inevitable stress over the move will manifest itself in poor sleeping, and I’d hoped to work through that before I have to be wakeful and rested for work. I wanted Jack to see his new ophthalmologist, them both to check in with the new pediatrician, all of us to get our teeth cleaned . . . . I wanted to cook several meals, purchase a deep freezer and stock it and the pantry, and in general just shore up our lives so that I’d have a little fallback when it inevitably falls apart a bit during the first months of a new job.
Instead, we’ll have just two weeks in the house before work starts – and for much of that time we won’t even be there, we’ll be traveling to various work trainings, places where our stuff has been scattered and stored this summer, and to family things. It sounds so whiny and pitiful – we’re about to move into a brand new gorgeous house that we got to build ourselves, we have an actual spot in a good daycare that only costs an arm (not an arm AND a leg – haha! bad joke!), and most of all in this day and age, WE BOTH HAVE JOBS. But I just feel like I’ve been zooming pell mell from one stressful situation to another, with nary a break to regroup. This break at my family’s house in Tennessee is enjoyable, but I can’t do anything to get us ahead of the game from up here. I just have to sit here, twiddle my thumbs, and see my start date hurtle towards me while my New Home Task List gets longer and longer.
I would feel easier if I had more local support, more help down there. But I don’t – we don’t know a soul. So I just have to pray that the boys don’t get constantly sick in their first few weeks of daycare, and that we can get all of our appointments scheduled for Mondays and Fridays, when the Professor will be in town to attend them. This is the toughest thing about being a non-traditional law student. Were I younger and childless, I could spend these early career years establishing myself, working late hours at the office as needed, and “purchasing” the flexibility that a person with young children requires. But now I have to walk right in and tell the boss that I can’t stay any later than 5:30 Tuesdays, Wednesdays, or Thursdays. I can, and plan to, work at home after the boys are in bed. I’ll make sure to send emails to everyone under the sun when I work at night, to prove I’m not shirking my duties. But . . . you know.
My stomach churns when I think about it. I’m resourceful, and am good at making things work out one way or another. But still – ulcers are forming. I won’t rest easy until I’ve survived the first few weeks of it.
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I tried potty training Liam. After a completely unsuccessful week, I quit. He still asks to go potty all the time, but all that he’s interested in is unrolling the TP, flushing, and washing his hands. He’s pretty young. We’ll try again later. It did make me laugh, though, that he now grabs diapers and says “throw dis AWAY. Dis for BABIES. Big boys go potty in da potty, not in da DIPUH.” He’s got the concept down intellectually, at least!
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Pictures of Summer Fun: Mini Golfing Edition
County Fair Edition
The pictures are so cute! Love the egg one and the kiddie roller coaster.
I’m sorry about your husband’s grandmother. We just attended a 90th birthday party for my husband’s grandmother and every time we tell her something like, “We’ll be back in town in 2 weeks and will come visit you,” she replies, “God willing.”
Don’t beat yourself up too much in the coming months. It won’t be perfect every day, or every week. At times you probably (almost definitely) will feel like a failure at work, family, or both. Just try to take some time to breathe when you can, give yourself a few months, and look back and see if you need to make any changes. You have so many transitions going on at once.
Such cute pics!!! I totally feel you on not being able to work late and “establish” yourself when you have kids. It’s hard, for sure.
Oh and when you said this:
My excitement about beginning work at a new place that I really like is tempered by my consuming fear that I’m going to fail my work, my family, or both, especially because I’ll be alone much of each week.
I felt like I could have written that!!