Back-to-school reflections. . .

Another summer is coming to an end. It has been a summer with a number of ups and downs, and I have found myself more than once completely overwhelmed with having the three children in the house almost 24/7. Except for the week in July when Doodle was in Vacation Bible School, that is. I got quite a bit of reading done, mostly in June, battled exhaustion from heat and occasional anemia, but found online teaching to be, in general, a break from the usual routine. Especially since the materials for the course were pretty much canned. I am looking forward to teaching in the fall--making some changes to the comp course and also teaching a new course: survey of Brit Lit, though I suddenly feel like I don't really know how to teach it. I managed to take the kids swimming many times throughout the summer, and even made it to a park once or twice--no, I'm pretty sure it was just once. It has been brutally hot, and I don't do outside well. At all. But I even managed to get something like a tan (I tan easily).

As the summer winds down, though, I want to get back into the schedule I hate. I want to feel like I'm doing something out of the house, without children, to have something approaching a routine. To be fair, I have been working on this a bit anyway, with mixed success. Both girls now take naps at the same time when I'm home (on days when my sister is watching them--Tuesday and Wednesday, things tend to get a little "off"), and take them either at 1 P.M. or 2 P.M. Bedtime is much less of a struggle overall, though the timing is never really good. But I try to have them in the bedroom brushing teeth & such by 10:30. Before nap and before bed, we read a book. They have been enjoying the My First Little House books and The Berenstein Bears and the Spooky Old Tree with a hearty helping of Seuss also. On good days, I really feel like I know and enjoy my girls. But other days, I don't know who I am or what I'm doing and why I can't enjoy the family that I love a little bit more. But then, I'm my worst critic.

The questions that haunt me as I transition from the summer, which is supposed to be the time families spend together, to the fall, which is back to business as usual, is what I ever really do that's just for my children--you know, for their enjoyment alone. And the answer is, sadly, very little. I can't motivate myself to sit outside with them, and I can't kid myself that this would be different if I had a backyard. We don't go on outings or playdates, and we have never, ever been on a vacation that was just that. We have turned travel opportunities into vacations--in the old days, but never have we set aside time and money (both of which in perpetual short supply) to just do something fun together. And that didn't seem to matter before. But now it seems a symptom of growing older, or having more children to manage, and more personalities in the house to negotiate, that we need to take time out to really appreciate each other, and especially as parents, to appreciate the children, and what it means to have them around really being themselves, without having their exploration of the world cause us any angst. Because really, that's how it ends up feeling in my world of too many people and too much stuff in too small an apartment.

The fact was really driven home when my husband put in his leave request for 5 days off--to move. Wow. Vacation time--to move. A move I don't really want to make, to an equally cramped space (we're actually losing 56 sq. ft, but who's counting?--and a bath tub), with less lighting, that nevertheless costs $200/month less than we're paying now--$300 less than what it would cost us to renew our current lease. That time off is so precious, and it is spent doing something laborious that we don't really want to be doing anyway. The girls are getting to ages where it would be possible to take them places and have them enjoy the experience. I'd really like to take them to Disney World. And my son is not quite at the age where his angst shadows everything--maybe he won't get to that stage at all. He might still enjoy that campiness. It's a pipe dream, at least until the season of interviews and campus visits is over. And that extra $200/month? Yeah, goes to mother's day out for my youngest. It seems that I have avoided it too long already, according to professional standards of productivity, and even having Doodle in school 2 half and 2 full days, and Chiclette in two full days (full day = 2:30, 3 for Doodle) will not give me the time I need to accomplish the things I need to accomplish. But it will help. And maybe I will feel more sane, and more appreciative of the children. Or I might feel more stressed and take it out on the family all the more. Who can say? But maybe I can revisit this post and strive for the former.

'Cause I've got to say--my babies are wonderful, and brilliant, and amazing. And I've got to do something--everything, really--for them. Including getting this job. You know I wouldn't have finished the Ph.D. if I didn't think it would help me make a better life for us all, right? Truly. However unlikely that seems now.