Summer in the Rear-view...

In my very first post I gave credit to my beautiful cousin Laura who had started a blog for 2011 (she is quite the talented blogger! check it out: Life of Lu) and inspired me to start my own to chronicle Addison's first year of life. Who knows? It may morph into a chronicle of our family life after December. Well the Life of Lu blog has once again inspired me to stop and take a moment to reflect. What my cousin and I have in common is that our mothers are sisters and both of them are in "serving-others" professions. Laura and I both married our high school sweethearts, received NC Teaching Fellows Scholarships, and became teachers. Also inspiring me this week has been the loss of two members of our church family. Both women were cornerstone members in my mind, part of what defined our church. And I am reminded that these changes in life come when we are least expecting.

And so as summer comes to a close and has already been in the rear-view for a week now (we started marching band camp the day after we finished graduate classes), I have been contemplating my life as a Mother, Wife, and Teacher - in that order - and gaining perspective on who I have been, who I am now and want to be. (I say that I am Mother before Wife because Eric and I both have agreed that should one of us "go off the deep end," it is our job to protect our children first, then help our spouse.)

I know this blog is generally filled with pics of our precious baby girl, so rest assured we will resume regular programming soon! =)

This came about as Lu was reflecting on how different she is in the summer, able to stay up late, be spontaneous, carefree, and blog! I have to admit I feel the same way about myself. It's not that I don't love teaching, I do! But pre-baby me got so used to giving everything at work, that there was little left of me when I was at home. Now this was not as noticed by my husband as Lu's because Eric and I work at the same school, and even in the same department, and often give our time to each other's programs. But, the effect of "throwing yourself into your work" was doubled in our case because, before Addison, our home was at work and our work was at home. We were together no matter where we were, so it all seemed to meld together.

As we were preparing for the arrival of our baby girl, I knew that things were going to need to change. The summer before her birthday, I was doing a presentation in one of my graduate classes and literally broke down in tears with the struggle of finding a happy medium between great mother and great teacher. When you come from my family, you know nothing else but to try to be the best at everything you do. Not because any less will cause you to be unloved, but because we take pride in knowing that we achieved the very best that we could.

As a high school performing arts teacher, this means LOTS of time spent outside of school hours in rehearsal and performance...now DOUBLE that when both the husband and wife are running their own programs, and trying to support the other's. So dear readers, you see our dilemma, and why I might be trying to "pump the brakes" hard-core as the first workday comes closer and closer.

In the spring when I went back to work, I could play the new mother card, and pretty much tread water through the semester. I was still proud of the work that my students were able to do, but I had set up a decidedly very limited rehearsal schedule for our musical, and did what I could to survive. Looking ahead, I don't have the "newness" of it all to fall back on, and am faced with setting up the new definition of my work-self. So in reading and reflecting I have come to my conclusion. I will borrow a quote from myself in my advice to my cousin:

"Remember, we started so young that our retirement should last longer than our career! Our families will be here longer than our students, and the LOVE with which you deliver those lessons is ultimately going to be what your students remember about you that what was actually IN the lessons. And you can only Love them if you Love you, and you can only Love [your Summer self becomes your Year-Round self] ."

So dear readers, pray for me as I go into the school year. So many before me seem to have been able to "conquer it all," give their all at parenthood and teacherhood, but I simply don't know if it is possible for me. I choose my family first, work second - as close a second as possible, but still second. A wise classmate has said, "You will never regret putting your family before your work," but the same may not be able to be said for the reverse. So pray that I might be able to stay true to this version of me, for my child and my spouse. And for my students, because ultimately I have to love my whole self to be able to give as much of that self to them as I can.

Thanks for sticking with me. Here's a vid of her CRAWLING, taken August 6th, to tide you over!