The two biggest topics on my mind lately have been off-limits for my blog. Even though I write anonymously, a large portion of my audience knows me and is aware this is my blog. Therefore if I were to write about certain people and their circumstances, it would be an invasion of privacy. When I’m writing about people who irritate me, this is not a problem. Don’t worry “Mary,” I won’t write about your “little problem” here. But suffice it to say that you should know better at your age (which I would never reveal here, since I have known how important privacy is to you since we were in high school together back in 89).
Anyhoo, as a result of a turn of events I do not entirely understand, my boss reads my blog. Isn’t that a kick in the pants? So, when I started obsessing a few weeks ago about my imminent return to work, I didn’t feel like I could write about it. I’m no master of etiquette, but I do know that it is a major faux pas for your employer to find out about your career plans on your blog.
Lately I’ve been counting down the days until my maternity leave ends. I have zero dread about the job and I hungrily devour news and gossip whenever I get the chance to talk to my coworkers. I miss being in front of students. I follow the Republican debates and ache for the chance to discuss them with my AP Language Class for our unit on rhetoric. By the time I get back in the classroom, we will be close to the 2012 election and that is the best time to teach rhetoric and composition.
What I dread is not the resumption of my work, it’s the end of my maternity leave. I do not want to leave my baby in day care at seven months old. Before I completely alienate the women who left their far younger babies in day care, allow me to say that I know I am privileged. I exist in gratitude of my luck every day. Never more than when I hear my husband’s car pull out of the driveway at 6:30 a.m. while I am either sitting on my couch with a cup of coffee smiling at my nursing infant, or snuggled up in bed between my two girls. Viva senses the absence of her dad when he gets up in the morning and she sleepcrawls across the bed to fill the gap. Sometimes Pringles wakes up around 3 or 4 and we are up for one to two hours before going back to bed (if you long for when your babies were small, I’ll bet that snapped you out of it!). When she does, we are usually asleep in bed at 6:30. Otherwise, she tends to wake me for the day around 6, but often as early as 5.
But you see, she wakes me with giggles and grins. Her face tells me she wakes early because she can’t wait to see ME again. That time is so short and precious. When a child is a baby and mother is everything to her. It lasts only a few months. Her big eyes that everyone comments on are always fixed on me. If I am in the room, she looks for me. Once those turning-brown eyes settle on me, her face relaxes and then broadens into a smile. Her grabby little hands reach for me, clutch me, hold me close.
I cannot stand to miss it.
I was a fool to ask for a single semester off. I was thinking about my career. I love having one. I left it for a year to be home with Viva, returned and became unexpectedly pregnant, and then was hesitant to take another year off. I knew my department needed me. I knew my department chairs and principals had faith in me. I worried about money. We would have to spend it all and then start living paycheck to paycheck come the 2012 school year.
And then I look at my child who is growing so fast and I realize that there are more important things than careers and money. So I am asking my school for the rest of the year off. I wish it were up to my principal, because she is very supportive. I’m sure that I’m not THAT irreplaceable or invaluable. To my baby daughter, there is no substitute who can do my job.
The board can say no. I am prepared for them to say no. One of three things can happen: I get my leave of absence and return to my position at the same school in mid-August, I get my leave of absence but lose my position and get a new assignment in mid-August, I get denied my leave of absence and return to my position January 30th. I can live with any of these. I cannot live with being too afraid to ask because I didn’t want to be thought of as a flake.
I’m not just doing it for the naps, but I would miss those too.
Keep your fingers crossed for me.
The Hackneyed Thanksgiving Post
This week everyone on Facebook is writing about what she’s thankful for. Some people even do a letter of the alphabet every day. I can already predict I will be irritated at how everyone cheats when they get to “x”. They will probably write adorable things like “x-mas” and “x-tra love from my girls!” And I will gag a little bit x-cessively.
Is being thankful for Xanax too obvious? Probably.
Don’t get me wrong, I love the thankful. I, myself, have been known to be thankful for a few things. Health is now number one, since I am knocking on the door of forty and I have two kids and aging parents. Work is something to be thankful for these days. I’m a UC Davis alumnus, and I am happy that the police who pepper-sprayed passive protesting students are getting called to the mat for their brutality. Justice is something to be thankful for. May more people in the world get it.
A glass of cabernet with thick legs, a baby with thick legs, a toddler with thick hair – the latter two currently asleep. Singing inappropriate rap songs to my baby because nothing makes her giggle harder. Yeah. Especially “Yeah” by Usher et al.
I’m thankful that I don’t know what “You hold the head steady I’ma milk the cow” actually means. I have a vague idea, but I concentrate my thoughts elsewhere. It took me about a year to figure out “my milkshake brings all the boys to the yard” and I was never quite the same after.
Oh, shit, this is turning into one of those “what I’m thankful for” posts, isn’t it?
Damn it.
I’m thankful for my DVR, even though 50% of the time when I tell it to record a show, it tells me to go fuck myself. It doesn’t understand the power dynamic of our relationship. Or, more likely, I don’t.
Thanksgiving is about family and for many of us out there, that is a double-edged sword. I respect my family’s privacy as much as possible here, so I won’t go into detail. I’m saving that stuff for the book. While this holiday inspires joy and longed-for family reunions for many, for others, it’s about reactivating old issues and playing out hurtful family scenarios. Those patterns having worn grooves into my soul, therefore I’m grateful that my stepmom always buys champagne, although I haven’t been able to partake in more than a single glass since 2008 when I started breeding.
I am thankful that this year is not last year.
Odie has a three day work week, and that is my favorite holiday perk of all. I miss him desperately. One of us always has a kid, and once both are asleep, he usually is too. I’m thankful he’s such a great father and that we get a babysitter and have date night every couple weeks. Because he’s also a fine hunk of man.
I don’t know if I’ll have time to post before Thursday. I hope I do. If not, I wish you and yours an excellent four day weekend. Whatever you’re into, be it turkey, football, shopping, drinking, gossiping or pepper-spraying students in the face, I hope the holiday brings you what you’re looking for. I am so thankful for you, my readers, fans and haters alike.
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