Time... luxury... loss

Right now, as I sit watching the clock during my stint as a test proctor, there's a song playing on repeat in my head. I've forgotten the real lyrics and I hear it wrong, but the sentiment is there (don't ever drop my name for Don't Forget the Lyrics, okay?).

For the sake of accuracy (and to reduce embarrassment for my ad lib), I looked up the lyrics. Would you believe that even typing in my mistaken line, it produced the correct Steve Miller Fly Like An Eagle lyrics?

"Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin'
Into the future
Time keeps on slippin', slippin', slippin'
Into the future"

I think the funk I'm in has become ubiquitous - spreading through the internet like a dastardly virus with no cure and no way of containing it. Blame it on the weather - late sunrises, rain storms, gloom. Heck, blame it on the a - ah- ah- alcohol (or lack of it, in my case).

Did I mention my thoughts are surging like a BING search commercial that I can't escape.? I think 'funk,' and next I'm thinking Michael Jackson's Thriller (insert creepy narrator voice).

Anyway, now that I seem totally bonkers, I should find a point and stick to it. Or stick myself with it? Hmmm.
I'm thinking that time is a luxury that I'd really like to possess. I miss the lazy, carefree days of summer. We're a month into my work year, and I'm exhausted. And yes, I know that as a teacher I'm blessed to have that "extended vacation" with my kids.

I also know, firsthand, that there's a lot of sacrifice during the year that my children make - when I'm stressed with the operation of my classroom, with the feelings of failure I often am plagued with, or with the burden of being an inadvertant counselor (and praying that I do the "and other duties as assigned" role justice). I come home often feeling both terribly guilty and blessed. I'm sometimes so emotionally drained that I feel I fail as a parent, and I'm the only 24-7 parent my kids have.

There's also a monetary sacrifice being made. With my education and abilities, could I be pulling in some six-seven figures? I choose not to explore other options because I enjoy teaching. I also greatly value my precious, uninhibited time on breaks. I can't help but wonder, however, if the coexisting, constant struggle with finances is a good trade. And to do my job well, there are hours outide of my seemingly lovely "contract hours" spent planning, studying, training, reading and editing. With an average of 150 students on my roster, I read a book of essays every time I have a writing assignment - and we're not talking pretty, polished prose or carefully crafted and meticulously researched nonfiction.

My funky mood must be projecting, because I'm at war with my child's daycare. They've a seemingly personal vendetta against me concerning allergies and EpiPens that is both unnecessary and unnerving. When all is done, I suspect I'll be paying significantly more for care where my child is not being forced to acquire prescriptions for an allergy that has never been confirmed by medical officals. If someone had ever mentioned that playing precautionary mom and requesting that a child not be exposed to allergens known to cause issues to a good number of children would mean forever supplying medications I would never use at home for treatment, I'd have avoided this current ridiculous endeavor of Catch-22 type absurdities. I should've known not to Cliff Notes my way through that blasted novel in high school AP English. It might've warned me...

Alas, I find a little peace in venting in poetry and prose. Poor, poor unfortunate readers herein must now understand why I ramble on and on (redundancy purposeful) about topics no one but I truly care to know about.

And, once freed from the confines of the testing classroom, I shall seek further to loose this foul demeanor's hold by returning to those uber cool mushrooms growing in prosperity and abundance along the morning commute route. I hope they're still standing in little defiant bursts on that lawn. My camera and I need a little time to reconnect.

Signed,
Melancholy Mooded, Morose Mother.

Hey School: bring it on!

We've organized our closets. We've pulled out the clothes that no longer fit and made our donations to charity. We've shopped for the preschool and fourth grade must-have class lists.
We've posed for Mommy's obligatory back to school fashion pictures. And discovered (luckily) that the skirt Chi wanted to wear on day one does not fit at all - first day tragedy averted.

A few dozen sloppy kisses from little brother to annoy big sister. It worked like a charm. And then, he began to plot.

A couple of escapes in our mock "walking to the bus stop" photos.
Then, big sister leads the way and provides a secure hand to hold.

We've got this before back to school thing down. Mommy will go off to work to prepare her classroom and organize her lessons next week. There'll be no school buses for our crew again this year. When the actual first day of school arrives, we'll commute to our respective learning spaces in the pre-sunrise morning. And we'll work hard to continue the success begun last term.

Oh yeah, school, bring it on!

** Taking our back to school photos days before school starts is becoming an annual tradition. As a teacher, I don't have the ability to walk my kids into their classrooms or to wait for buses with other parents and caregivers. So a couple of days before the official First Day of School, we pick out our first day outfits and venture outside for a trial run of the first morning. Of course, Ya wears a uniform when his school year actually starts, so his outfit is only his choice during the summer session at preschool. The luxury of staging this event is that I can wait for the perfect light of mid morning.