The dreaded day came at last. Yesterday, I returned to work. I was actually excited to go back, crazy of all crazies. I never look forward to the first day of TEACHING, but the first day back seeing all of my old colleagues and meeting the new teachers, counselors and administrators is always enjoyable to me. Believe it or not, I’m a people person. The faculty and staff are so wonderful at my school. I was surprised and delighted by all of the hearty, “Welcome back! We missed you!” greetings. Haven’t you heard what a dark, hateful, evil person I am? Don’t you read the blogosphere?
The first day back at school after a summer off is an emotional rollercoaster. I love the opening of the meeting where we watch a slide show of what our colleagues did over the summer. Were you just filled with nightmare dread of sitting through someone’s boring vacation Powerpoint? It’s more charming than it sounds. I have worked at this school for eleven years, so I am quite attached to the people and it’s fun to see the buttoned up social science teacher sitting in an inner tube, floating down Niagara Falls balancing a pina colada on his chest. Okay, that never happened. But it COULD happen, and that’s what I hold on to.
Then, when you’re feeling all warm and fuzzy, the principal makes fun announcements! This person had a baby! That person got married! That asshole we all hated finally retired! That last one is only ever implied. There is a motivational talk by someone about how we are a great staff and our test scores are higher than last year (mostly) and “Pat yourselves on the backs, teachers.” But don’t break that arm, because here is where we need to improve…
And out comes the list of all the NEW expectations which are never accompanied by more money or more time.
Oh, and if any one of my Facebook friends posts that “What Teachers Make” clip again, I’m going to have to take drastic action. Drastic. (UNfriend)
Long about noon, when Baby V usually goes down for a “nummy nap,” I noticed the top buttons on my blouse were working harder than ever because my milk had let down. As my colleagues skipped hand-in-hand off to lunch for an hour of free tacos and yummy gossip, I had to go to my classroom, hide under my desk and pump my milk. Talk about a learning curve.
Everyone kept asking me how I was doing, being away from Baby V, which was so sweet, but thank GOD I remembered my breast pads because I would picture her crying face, mouth agape with despair while I walked away from her (feels like an amputation), and tingle tingle, drip drip drip.
There were the usual technology tutorials where the technology failed. The typical frustration of expired passwords and broken wheelie carts and missing books. As for me, I kept so busy freaking out about not remembering how to do this fucking job, I barely had time to miss my baby girl. So THIS is what “working mom” is like?!
Luckily, Baby V was only at daycare in the morning and Odie had her all afternoon. I say this with relief that flows from two sources.
One: Yay! She’s with her daddy, whom she trusts and feels safe with.
Two: HA! Not so easy to get the laundry done with a screaming baby who won’t nap, is it, HONEY?
There is nothing that builds empathy faster than doing each other’s jobs. After a long day of meetings, getting my messed-up schedule fixed, tracking down books, and working with a computer from the Clinton era, I wanted nothing more than to come home and put my feet up with a glass of wine. Odie was like, “Thank God you’re home! Take the baby; I need a shower.” To be fair, the house was quite tidy when I returned, but I never had daycare for 3 hours in the morning to get stuff done like he did.
Mrs. Odie, it’s not a suffering contest.
Truly, though, I found myself apologizing to Odie for all of those days I expected him to walk in the door and give me a bathroom break before he’d even had a chance to put his backpack down. It was so easy for me to be in my self-centered world of diaper changes, baby barf, and tedious, repetitive, endless housework and not consider how hard he had it. My logic was always, “I’ve done his job,” (Odie is also a high school teacher) “He’s never done mine.” But I’d never done his either. I’d never been a WORKING parent. Not “outside the home” work. Cue the chagrin.
It sucks.
In spite of it all, I’m looking forward to the year. Mostly for the two paychecks.
And Odie has really impressed me with the stay-at-home dad stuff. She napped both days, albeit after lengthy crying sessions, without me for the first time in her life. He really stepped up, felt good about it, and didn’t complain in the slightest. The naps were only an hour each, because she wakes up and wants to nurse, but it’s a good start. Bedtime is a new battle.
Since she misses me during the day, Baby V is waking up every 20-30 minutes at night to nurse. This is mildly annoying after I’ve come to bed in our Family Bed, because it does disrupt my sleep slightly when she rolls over and latches on. What is greatly annoying is that when I put her to bed, she will not stay down for a few hours like she used to so Odie and I can have an evening. She’s up every 30 minutes. Thursday and Friday, I went in, lay down beside her and nursed her back to sleep every 30 minutes until it was time to go to sleep myself. I missed her too. I was delighted to comfort her with my presence and sniff her sweaty hair and sob quietly to myself. Why-hy-hy can’t I just BE WITH HER? WAAAAAH!
But now it’s Friday night, and it’s much worse. Every 15 minutes since I nursed her down at 7:57, she’s been up crying softly, “Mommmmmy!” I went in three times, and then I had it. Odie’s been in there for 20 minutes trying to put her back down, because if I keep going in, she’ll keep waking up, wanting more.
I want to say something profound and funny, but I am just defeated right now. My baby is crying for me in the other room, and I feel shitty not going to her.
The Friendly Pedant by Mrs. Odie 
Okay, I can’t resist one more.
Editor’s Note: This blog entry was written in August of 2010. So, if you found it through a Google search, read it and lose your shit, know that you are losing your shit over something that is old news. -MO2
I said I was done (I should have said “finished,” bad English teacher) writing about special needs mommy-blogger extraordinaire Kelle Hampton, but I was wrong. With chagrin, I admit to you that I can’t resist one more.
There I was, shirt hiked up, pump shoved under my bra, attempting to access Photobucket and look at pictures of Baby V online to help get the milk flowing while I sat at my desk during my lunch break trying to pump milk. Did you just shudder? You’re not alone. My school’s firewall blocks Photobucket, though, so I was out of luck. I have several pictures of my baby on my phone, but I was ON my phone, talking to a nice gentleman in the tech department laboring to sync my password for Novell with my password for… I’ll stop. You don’t want to know.
Now I’m probably on some list somewhere in the district of people who violate the “acceptable use of technology” policy because I attempted to access a forbidden site. I’m not bidding on Ebay or planning fantasy vacations on Expedia. Any more. It’s all I can do to get my work done and get home to my baby.
My district hasn’t done a perfect job of banning all unacceptable sites, though, because you can still get through to http://enjoyingthesmallthings.blogspot.com, Kelle Hampton’s insufferable blog. “But, Mrs. Odie,” you cry, clutching your pearls, “didn’t you say you were ‘done’ talking about her?” Myeh, I lied.
Just a little bit.
If you must know, I don’t read her blog anymore. It’s the same thing every time. “I’m a rockstar,” “magic,” and “blah blah blah rocked my world.” The photographs are great, if you care about those things. I don’t. I read the comments. If I can’t get my damn milk to flow into that stupid pump, at least I can get tears of laughter rolling down my face. It’s stupid, I know. Surely I have better things to do with my time. Lately, though, it’s been like following a telenovella. In between barfing glitter and queefing confetti at Kelle for her AMAZING photographs and her BEAUTIFUL girls, the commenters have started getting bitchy at the “negative comments.”
Amid pleas to be adopted by Kelle’s father, “Poppa,” these women are assuring Kelle that she must not listen to the negativity. “Ssssshhh, sssshhh, there there, baby. Don’t believe them. Don’t let them get to you,” they croon. “Don’t take these haters’ words to heart! STAY STRONG!” As though she were fragile as glass and a little criticism will cause her to wilt where she’s planted.
Anyone who criticizes Kelle Hampton’s blog is a jealous, dark-spirited imp (not to be mistaken with a sprite) they say. They can’t say “bitch” or “fuckface” because Poppa Rik is also the cursing police, and he’ll make you throw a quarter in the swear jar or something.
I clicked on the comments every day for a while, because I haven’t followed a soap opera in years, and this shit was GOOD (if you’re curious, it’s all in the comments that come after the post about Book Looks, where she says she’s going to visit “friends” in New York and for some reason doesn’t admit that her publishers are flying her out for a meeting). I am sure that many Hamptonites, or Hamptoloonies, assumed it was me making the comments, or at least some of them. I pretty much stayed out of it.
In the past few days of being a working mother, I found time to wonder about the phenomenon of shit-talking. I went to a party over the weekend where some friends of mine and I discussed an acquaintance who had recently flounced into a gathering and bragged about a work-related success of his. Without going into the boring details, I will simply say that we all mightily enjoyed taking him down a peg or two, behind his back over cocktails. It fills some human need to turn to a trusted pal and whisper, “Are you fucking kidding me, this guy?” and have that person laugh or roll her eyes.
I enjoyed reading other humans out there in cyberland reacting to Kelle Hampton’s annoying “come frolic, wearing red cowboy boots (pigeon-toed, natch!) in the magic of my littles” writing style that is so weighed-down in similes, metaphors and self-conscious alliteration that it almost reads as parody. It satisfies something in the human condition to both build someone up and then tear them down. It is the mark of true American success.
The comments I received calling me a “fucking asshole, ” or (my favorite) a “Twinkie eating bitch” are a testament to the loyalty of her fanatics (the true origin of the word “fan”). I felt bad about the Twinkie comment, because I read it on my phone in the middle of the night and my shocked laughter woke my husband.
Now I have to find a new hobby, though, because blooming Hampton, or perhaps her overprotective “Poppa,” Rik, shut off the “anonymous” feature on the comment form. Bummer. Maybe I can get back into “Days of Our Lives.”
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