First day

This post has three parts. If I had been less busy/more on top of/in the mood for blog-posting in August, these parts would probably be three separate posts. But I'm combining them. After all, would this even count as a Shaina-post if it was less than 1,000 words?

Part I. Left behind

My Thursday, August 23rd journal entry, written the day after Jeff went back to work for the school year. Reading through it now, I guess I was feeling rather rhythmic and even slightly poetic amidst my ache when I wrote it:

The back-to-school ordeal always leaves me in a funk. It is hard when Jeff goes back to work after a summer of having him around all day every day. I miss him! It is hard that he goes back to work a week before the kids start school. It is hard when the kids start school. I have been thinking about why all of these normal events are so hard. It's definitely not because the kids are little angels at home, or that during summer the five of us spend every minute together. We don't.

The school year transition is hard for me because I am left behind. All summer we explore and adventure together, but when school starts everyone else goes on a new adventure without me. Everyone in my family is starting something new and I am left behind at home, doing the same mundane household stuff that I have been doing for the past decade.

I have always wanted to be a mom. Even in college I didn't have lofty aspirations for a career. I was not one of those promising young women who sacrificed her career and laid it all aside to nobly bear and raise babies. I got my degree, but planned on having kids. Having children was my plan, my number one career aspiration.

Fast forward ten years. I am done bearing babies, and now my main job is to bear with those fast-growing babies.

It is a:

massive stressful breathtaking

messy painful confusing

scary beautiful exhausting

intense full defining

CHALLENGE.

It's more than a career. It's a lifetime full-time commitment. I don't necessarily aspire to MORE than the title of Mom. I don't even want an external non-mom responsibility right now--that would stress me out! I still have Amber at home full time and young kids to drive around. Plus, I am very much an introverted homebody. I like being at home.

And yet...at the beginning of each school year when the kids are starting new classes and Jeff is learning, growing, and furthering his experience as a teacher and a coach, I am still at home.

I am still at home.

Washing the same dishes

Sweeping the same floor.

Practicing the same piano songs.

Running the same routes.

Folding the same clothes.

Cooking the same food.

Wiping the same table.

Fighting the same kid battles.

Etc.

I am still at home.

It is hard feeling left behind in the whirlwind of life-progress. Yes, I do my best to study, ponder, and grow personally, but mixing that in with everyday kid chaos is [still] uphill work. I have written before about how my main job is to be here for my family, and I stand by the value of the stability I can provide. But it is still hard to be left behind.

My conclusion to this melancholy missive is inconclusive. I am not unhappy with my current stage of life. In fact, I fully realize that I am living my dream right here, right now! But even the dreamiest dream has hard parts.There is not a one-size-fits-all answer to my annual left-behind dilemma. I wrote this more to acknowledge the difficulty at hand rather than to solve it, because lots of challenges aren't meant to be solved; they are meant to be survived. Borne. Experienced. Endured.

Growth does not occur merely from the difficulty of the task, or even from the noble act of enduring a challenge. The most profound, lasting growth comes from how we choose to endure. Will I choose to endure it reluctantly or endure it well?

Hello, refiner's fire, we meet again.

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Part II. The whirlwind

Five days later: Tuesday, August 28th, (the day before the first day of school), I received a phone call from Jeff. He NEVER calls me while he's at work, so from the minute my phone buzzed with "Husband" on the screen, I was very curious. Here's how our conversation went:

Me: Hello?

Jeff: Hello, gorgeous, how would you like to be my assistant cross country coach?

Me: Wait, what? Can Val not do it after all?

Jeff: No, his new job requires him to be at work every afternoon for the next three weeks, so he would miss too many practices and I need a second adult asap.

Me: Well, sure, I guess so...

Jeff, aside to someone in the room with him: she says she'll do it. [then to me] I'm sitting in the athletic director's office. He thinks you are amazing for saying yes so quickly.

Me: we can make this work with our kids, right?

Jeff: Yes, we already figured all of that out over the summer the first time we thought Val couldn't come back as the assistant.

Me: true, true. We did. Ok, so what do I need to do next? [...]

After that phone call, I hit the ground running (pun intended) and have hardly slowed down or caught my breath since. That same day, I filled out volunteer forms at the district office to be legally allowed to attend cross country practice immediately (the volunteer paperwork is faster than the apply/hire process). Once the previous assistant coach sends in his official letter of resignation, the district will post the job and I will apply (and hopefully get hired). Nepotism has nothing to do with it, thankfully, Jeff says I am the most qualified person for the job that he can think of, especially on such short notice.

[Note: over the summer, we weren't sure if Jeff's former assistant would be able to come back, and after much consideration, we decided that I could be the assistant cross country coach. We mapped out several plans to take care of Jay, Rose, and Amber during cross country practice and felt pretty good about how it all came together.]

A few minutes after Jeff's phone call, I called my mother-in-law, Leslie, and she agreed to renew the arrangement that we proposed over the summer. Since this is the internet, I'm not going to detail our kids' afternoons, but so far so good there. For the short two month cross country season, I will only be away from them for a short time after school each day.

I never would have sought out even this short 2 month job commitment on my own. Since I am prone to gut clenching stress, I do my best to minimize those stress factors, and working two jobs (mom-ing plus any other) has never appealed to me. But after my first almost week "on the job," I have cooked dinner every day more consistently than I have in the past year (the trick: cook it at lunchtime). I have felt more productive during the day and was more mindful and grateful during my time with my kids. I'm not saying that getting a job made me a better mom, but so far it sure has forced me to be a more proactive, organized person!

Obviously this is not the last I will write about this subject, but that's enough for now. Suddenly I have a JOB and somehow I simultaneously feel:

·        Mom-guilt-sadness about not being there to greet my kids the instant school lets out for the day.

·        Elated, interested, and invested in helping/watching the high schoolers get fitter and faster.

·        Scatterbrained and slightly stressed as I figure out how to fit in this cross country commitment while still keeping up with my main job (running the White house).

·        OVERJOYED that I get to actually SEE Jeff in the afternoons!! We first met 13.5 years ago on the SVU track team, so coaching together feels like going back to our roots. It's fun! We are a good team. Jeff said "this is going to be the best fall ever!"

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PART III. The first day

In the midst of my personal scrambling to get ready for cross country, Jay and Rose had their first day at their new school, Chief Kamaikin Elementary (CK for short). Jay is finally attending the much-anticipated highly capable class there for 4th grade, and Rose is in second grade. It feels so good to finally have our kids in a school that actually fits their needs. We went to meet your teacher night a few nights before the big first day, and everything felt good.

The night before school started, Jeff gave each of our three kids a father's blessing. It was simple and sweet. I am thankful for the priesthood and for my good husband.

On the first day of school, we are typically early with everything from getting ready to getting out the door. But I got carried away with my cub scout spreadsheet (prepping it to pass on to my partner, who will be taking over as the main leader due to my involvement in cross country). Suddenly it was time to go! We managed to squeeze in the traditional, if hasty, first-day-of-school pictures. The irrigation sprinklers were blasting two sides of our house, so we went out back into the shade of the tree behind our house to take them instead of risking being soaked by non-potable water on the porch.

Rose said the sweetest family prayer in the car before we left for school. She said: "please help me to feel confident at school if I feel shy and Jay too. Please bless Mommy and Amber to be okay at home while we're at school." Rose may be strong willed, vivacious, and demanding, but she has a tender side that about does me in when it peeks out from behind her lofty demeanor. This is only the second time in her life that she has deigned admit to feeling apprehensive of a new situation.

We barely made it to school on time, just as the whistle was blowing. I walked Jay and Rose to their classrooms per their requests (even big 4th grade Jay still wanted me to walk with him, although he did not hold my hand. He clung to my shadow though, while I towed along the bouncy, capering wild-Amber-child. First we dropped Rose off at her classroom, then we walked to Jay's room. When he walked in, one of our neighbor boys who's in the class saw Jay and was so happy to discover that he and Jay were in the same class, it about made me weep. Jay has been craving quality friends at school to replace the foul-mouthed bullies he was seated amongst last year.

As I toted the skipping, tugging, twirling Amber out of the school, my heart was warm and full of hope for the new school year.

That afternoon, I went to my first real cross country practice. Is there anything more intimidating than 30 teenagers staring you down? I think not, unless you happen to be wearing neon short running shorts and a tank top while they stare, like I was. I just hid behind my sunglasses and let Jeff do all the talking. Thankfully, they all know and like him, and they've all seen me before, so it was relatively painless until we started running. My task was to find a group of kids, run with them, and try to get to know them. I have no established modus operandi for interacting with teenagers. I wasn't good at it when I was a teenager, and not much has changed in that area since. But maybe it will get easier?

Post-blessing group Dad-hug. For some reason, Jay hid his head under a blanket.

Jeff, walking into school on HIS first day of teaching classes. I almost asked him to turn around and smile for a first day picture, but I didn't know if he would want to so I snuck a picture instead...

The fourth grader.

The second grader. This is the dress she picked out to wear on the first day of school when Grama Leslie took her shopping. When the sequins are pointing down, it says hello, and when the sequins are swiped up, it says hola. She had her backpack on one shoulder because the other strap was itching her neck.

Jay choking, Rose cheesing, Amber licking: the usual.

Hold up your grade number with your fingers!

Walking from the car to the school on the first day. Rose left her backpack in the car and had to run back for it. Amber followed, much to my concern (she thinks sidewalks are optional and streets full of fast moving cars are much more interesting)

Amber, climbing the CK fence in search of Jay and Rose after school.

A commemorative selfie of our first day of coaching together.

Future Grizzly: Amber walk-hopped with one foot on the concrete, one on the asphalt all the way down this long stretch of fence on our way back to the car.