Falling in love

For me, falling in love with my baby has been a slow burn.  I wish it started out like a raging forest fire, but sadly, that's not the way it began. 

We began with her coming at 33 weeks instead of 40.  We began with me holding her 4 days after she was born, instead of instantaneously.  We began with me holding her hand through a plastic hole.  We began with me feeding her through a tube inserted in her nose.  It wasn't traditional, but we had a lot of things to work around for love to begin.

When she finally came home a month after she was born, that's when our love started, and it's been growing ever since.  Today, I finally realized what an awesome adventure we are on.  We went to a music and reading class at the library.  It was fun singing the songs and doing the actions, but then something magical happened, bubbles.

Bubbles filled the room during one of the songs, floating and sparkling in the light.  It would have been nice enough with just the other little babies laughing and giggling and trying to pop every one, but when Diana saw bubbles for the first time, I saw the wonder in her eyes and I almost started to cry.  Key word is ALMOST.  I held it together.  But, I finally realized, I get to experience magic again with Diana.  I get to see Christmas lights and butterflies and snowflakes and tadpoles through her eyes.  That's pretty amazing.  And it's making me love her all the more.   

Moving Forward

    In a few months time, I will no longer be a traditional classroom teacher.  I will be teaching to some degree, but I will no longer be with kids. 
  
      Part of me wonders if I really made a difference.  Basically the whole of my twenties were dedicated to trying (emphasis on trying) to teaching those, not much younger than myself, not just about the English language, but about life.  To those I taught:  please know if I ever messed up, I was just trying to figure things out, while trying to look like I had it all under control.     
  
      Teaching is a BIG calling.  What right did I have to think, "oh yes, I can be a teacher!"  Looking back, it feels as though I climbed a mountain.  What is crazier is that right beside me, there is my husband, another teacher, climbing with me.     

     In order to be a teacher, no matter if you are in a Christian school, public school, or charter school, you have to give your life over to the profession. You are "on" from 6am till 6pm and many times even longer than that.  Take all of the grading, student worries, parent concerns, lesson plans, coaching, administration woes, and other meetings and after school responsibilities and multiply it by 2, and you might understand. 

   Right now, John is able to continue his calling, but adding Diana to our family shifted mine.  Diana needs me to be completely present in her life.  My students need my to be completely present in theirs.  I knew in my heart it was time to say goodbye when I could no longer feasibly consider how to divide myself in two.  I could not give both my students, and my daughter, 100%.  So, I chose Diana.  In life, Diana will always come before anything.  Luckily at my new job, my mentor and boss understands that. 

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   I can now only hope I did some good for someone.  I have to close this chapter and let it be.  That's all I can do.  Maybe the next chapter will be even better.  Diana will go to school for free and will learn from amazing teachers.  I will be able to work and learn from women with class and grace and know how and hutzpah.  The building where I'm going to work is in the country on a beautiful piece of land.  I have my own little office, with a computer, and I get to write.  Once the day is done, I can pick up Diana and come home.  No grading, no lesson plans, no coaching.  I can focus on my daughter and our little family.  It's what we need.
  
    In some ways, this feels like a calling too.  I'm answering a call that many women before me have answered.  I never thought I would.  I'm answering the call of my family.  What I didn't expect was that God also gave me the gift of learning and growing from a tribe of women I can't wait to be a part of.  I couldn't ask for more.  Onward.

 

How do you do this?

Dear God,
      My life is not going as I mapped out and requested.  You have some explaining to do.  Right now it's pretty crazy chaotic and I'm feeling like I'm swimming in the deep end with no floaties.  Due to this chaos, I feel like I have lost out on some important things during my baby's first 6 months.  Here are the things I want to get back:

1.  My baby's baptism.  We had it all planed out.  We had at least one of the three Godparents in Texas.  We could have had a nice quiet little ceremony.  My baby was the appropriate Lutheran baptism approved age at three months old.  But instead, I was put in the hospital with diverticulitis.  Meaning one of my daughter's spiritual rites was put on hold because I didn't eat enough fiber.  Awesome.

2.  My first date after baby.  My husband was looking good.  I was looking good.  I had wine.  He had rum and coke.  We ate a delicious meal of calamari, tuna, and mahi mahi...which was then promptly projectile vomited multiple times throughout the night.  Food poisoning.  Awesome.


3.  My baby's first 6 months.  I was supposed to take cute pictures with a decorative chalkboard marking each month of her life.  I was supposed to take professional pictures of her dressed in tutus with a tiny gold glittered doily paper crown on her head.  Instead we have been battling constant wheezing and sniffling.  It's been a barrage of doctor's visits with a pseudo sometimes healthy baby.  When she is healthy, it's fleeting.  Not enough time for glittered doily paper crowns.  When she's sick it's constant breathing treatments and asthma medicine and antibiotics and ENT doctors and chest x-rays.  No decorative chalk boards for us.  Awesome.

So God, help me figure all this out.  It just seems like a lot right now.

-Mal