Planning Ahead

We've been having a problem lately at my house. I haven't been cooking much lately and there has been a major uptick in the purchase of pre-packaged frozen meals and take-out.

Now, I don't have a real issue with either one of those things, if they make it to my table (or, more likely, on my couch in front of my T.V., because not home-cooked meals seem to not call for the nice family dinner at the table) only once in a while. A couple of times a week is a little much for me, both in terms of my own family values and my pocketbook.

Something's gotta give.

Today is Columbus Day (Or, as I like to call it: Happy Smallpox Day, North America's Indigenous People! Fun Fact: Did you know that between the late 1400's (Hello, Mr. Columbus) to the mid-1650's, the native population in the Americas declined by more than 50 percent? Someone please explain to me why we celebrate this idiot, who wasn't even the first European to discover North America, never mind the first person, period.), so we have the day off. I'm taking to day to throw together some freezer meals. Basically my own version of those lovely, over-salted freezer meals I can pick up at the grocery store.

I've planned for five meals to make ahead of time and one meal where I'm going to make certain components head and then all I have to do is mix some stuff together and throw it in the oven (actually, I could probably make the whole thing and then freeze individual pieces...hmmmm). Okay, make it six meals! So, that means I'll have, let's say, at least three meals that I can just throw in the oven when I get home from work and then steam up some veggies to go on the side.

I've planned on ten meals for the next two weeks. That leaves four meals for take out and family dinners with our in-laws. Not bad, eh? Hopefully having some go-to things in my freezer will make getting us all to the table to eat something that's not vaguely reminiscent of cafeteria food will be a bit easier.

Do you have a tricks to getting a tasty, home-cooked meal on your table most nights (despite being ridiculously busy)?

Note: Please excuse my mini Columbus Day diatribe. I have strong feelings about early colonial decimation of the Americas indigenous population.

New Kid In Class

I started my new job yesterday. When I woke up yesterday morning (early: 5 AM), I was all nerves. I shook while I showered. I could barely eat my breakfast. I broke down in my car after I dropped Lizzie off at daycare (she, of course, was fine). I don't know why I was so scared, this really wasn't that big of a deal.

But, then again, it was.

This is my first real job, my first gig right out of college. I was excited about it, about everything it could become (and I still am excited). I knew I had the job, but will I (I keep thinking) be able to keep it?

What's more, it's never easy being the new person.

I've been the new kid before. We moved to Maine when I was nine and then I covered my fear with a false bravado and an extra strong "Mass-hole" accent.

This time, I had nothing to cover my fear. I had to cross my fingers and hope for the best.

The beauty of working in education, however, is that you're often thrown into a room of women who, regardless of their age, want to mother you. It's like they smell vulnerability and instead of like sharks to blood, it's like mothers to their babies. They want to give you hugs and make sure you have everything you need and explain the same procedure twenty times, then say, "If you have any questions, just ask!"

I knew everything would be okay after yesterday morning. I was able to ease into things slowly. As I walked into the high school cafeteria, I spotted people I knew. My school's principal, the director of special education, who hired me, a teacher from another school I had subbed at who recognized me. When I went to go find a table to eat my fruit cup at (the district does a district-wide breakfast for all staff members at the beginning of the year), a friend of mine from student teaching found me. After a long and much needed hug, she ushered me to her table where she sat with another teacher and two bus drivers. We talked about music and expensive guitars.

I've been very lucky so far. Everyone seems kind and interested at making me feel at home and wanting my work to be important and effective. People are eager to make connections ("Do you know...?"). There are a couple of people from my neck of the woods, including a teacher who I went to high school and college with (though we never crossed paths, oddly enough). It's a comfort to know that we share some of the same people in our lives.

On Monday, assuming the school isn't blown away by Irene, the students arrive and the school year begins in earnest. There will be other new kids coming in, just as nervous as I was (am). They will show it (or not) in lots of different ways, but in the end, it will be the same for all of them. Deep down, they will be hoping for those connections, those new friends to help them through those first days. And I will be there, to help, to facilitate, to be the new kid again right along with them.

For Me: Staying at Home vs. Working

Source

Since I had my daughter, I've been a student. This meant, during the school year, I'd attend class, go home, do work for those classes, and then maybe muster the time and energy to clean, cook, and actually enjoy my family. During the summers, however (and the blessedly long winter breaks), I was at home all day, every day. I could devote myself completely to all the things that had been neglected during the school year.

When I graduated this past spring, there was very little question over whether or not I'd go to work. For one, it would be nice to have the extra income. In college, I recieved a really excellent scholarship that covered my tuition, which meant any aid recieved from the government or my university went towards living expenses. It wasn't a lot, but it was enough to manage rent, electric, and some groceries. But we couldn't afford a lot of extras, which, to be honest, are kind of nice to have. For two, I did just spend five years of my life working towards the moment where I could leave college and actually put my knowledge to work.

That said...I love being at home. I guess, because I had never really had the fully stay-at-home-mom experience (there was always school looming just on the horizon), I sort of glorified the idea. What would it be like to have all that time to do all that stuff? Of course, when you're actually in the thick of being at home, using all that time to do all that stuff, it doesn't feel like you have quite enough of the first and too much of the second. For me, when I'm home during the summers, somehow all that extra time goes the way of the missing socks in the laundry. I suppose it wouldn't be that different if I were home all year round.

Though, even when I could acknowledge that aspect of staying at home, I couldn't help still feeling like I really should be staying home. I'd like to think it was some sort of weird maternal instinct thing, like mother animals knowing what their babies smell like, or something. But, in reality, I'm a 23-year-old with a kid, who hasn't had a kid before, and is constantly looking for input. I'm impressionable. A few people (ranging from people I actually know, to mom bloggers, to "experts") telling me that I need to stay home with my daughter or else she'll grow up to be an extremely damaged human being is enough to make me feel horrible for not doing just that.

Plus, I like the kid, so it's nice to stay home with her (even though she's suddenly become a horrible napper).

But, I guess I'm going to have to let go of all that and trust that if she hasn't been majorly screwed up by things over the past three years, she's likely to be okay, because...I got a job.

And I'm really excited about it.

I want to work, and I'm not ashamed of that fact (much...some feelings are hard to let go of). And the plus of being in education is that I still get to have the time off that I'd enjoyed previously (when I'm not taking courses to help maintain my certification and earn my Master's).

I'm pumped about whole "having a job in a tanking (or tanked) economy" thing. It'll be great to have the extra money. And I'm really excited about being able to put my recently earned degree to use. But, those aren't the best things about this whole "job" thingy.

This is a job I'm passionate about. And, it's the perfect for me and for my family. Which, in the end, is what's important.

Identity Crisis

As I've mentioned on here before, I'm pretty young. I guess I've been a bit of an early bloomer. I met my husband just a couple of months after I turned eighteen...and we were engaged 5 months later. Despite taking the appropriate precautions, a year later, we found out I was pregnant right after I finished a very successful first year of college. Four months after our daughter was born we got married. I was twenty.

I've always felt a strong need to know who I am, and I've seemed to always pin the repsonsibility of definition on someone or something else. It might be strongly identifying with a particular political group or ethnicity, it might be based off of who I was hanging out with (more in high school) or what sort of parenting technique I tried to adopt and then throw myself into, complete with extremely rigid rules (Lizzie cannot cry ever at night time!). I would tell myself I'm a mother, so I must be a certain way. I would tell myself I am a wife, so I must be a certain way. I am a young, so I must be a certain way.

I realize that I am really young. But because most adults I know who are in the same place I am, at least in terms of settling down and having a family, I feel like I need to be where they are (even though, maturity-wise, that may be impossible). There is an air of confidence and security in who they have become that I do not have yet. (And worry that I never will.) They have had many more years than I have had to craft who they are and who they want to be before having a family. I didn't get a chance to build. There are many benefits, in my opinion, to having children early in life, but one of the biggest disadvantages is that you weren't given much to time to decide who you are without children in your life.

Some days feel like a battle where I am fighting to find out who I am or to feel secure with the person I've become. I feel a little lost on these days, which seem to come more and more frequently lately as I struggle to find a job for the fall. (A job. Another thing I feel I must use to define who I am.)

I know that after some time, more time to mature, who I am with emerge more clearly. I know, at my core, what I stand for, what I believe, who I love, what I don't love--I just don't know what sort of person this will form in the long run. Some days twenty-three seems very old, far too old to not yet really know who I've grown up to be. But I know that's unfair.

I just wish I felt that way, too.

When You Want What Everyone Else Has

Another friend of mine announced via Facebook that she's pregnant. I'm so happy for her. She and I are a rare species--dedicated moms who are balancing being wives and mothers with being full-time education students. She has a little girl who's about a year younger than Lizzie and from all appearances, is doing a great job. I am totally thrilled for her.

And almost nauseatingly jealous.

I have wanted to have another baby since Lizzie was about six months old. She was just so...perfect. Who wouldn't want to try for perfection again. And I always knew that I didn't want my kids to be as far apart as my brother and I are (six years). While there was never a problem in the age difference between my brother and I (we're actually pretty good buds), I always wished I had a brother or sister closer in age to me and therefore wanted that for Lizzie. At this point that doesn't look like it's going to happen and it makes me sad.

And almost completely nauseatingly jealous of my friend who is already having her second. It makes me feel even more like there is no reason why we shouldn't have another. Her husband is in the same line of work as mine. They have bought a home, too. She's not even graduating this semester, but has more school ahead of her, yet she is having a baby. And while that might seem to be a lot for a young couple to take on, she's not the type to go into anything lightly. I have no doubt that she and her husband will go through this life change admirably.

And I honestly think we, DOH and I, could do the same. But DOH wants me to get a job and then he says he'd consider having a second baby. Well, isn't that a bit counter-intuitive? Education is not a career field where you can waltz in for a year then leave to have a baby and then expect to get your job back. When you are starting out in education, you are literally under probation and a school district can choose to not renew your contract if you sneeze the wrong way. As a new teacher, I don't want to give my employers any reason to not renew my contract, especially in such a competitive job market. DOH just doesn't seem to get that!

So, it leaves me in this position. If I get a teaching job next semester, or even a job in a school district working as an Ed. Tech. or something of the like, then that means I will go through the '11-'12 school year not pregnant, likely watching several of my friends get pregnant, feeling painfully jealous and unhappy. Hopefully I will feel comfortable enough in my district to get pregnant over next summer (2012) and have our next baby in the spring of 2013. That's two years away.

That's two years of watching people get pregnant and have babies. I don't know if I can do it. In addition to all that, Lizzie will be five, which is just as big a distance as six would be, in my book. And there goes the fulfillment of having two kids close together. Of course, we could have a third kiddo, but we don't if that's something we want yet.

I'm feeling a little bit desolate at the moment. I know, in my head, that having a baby right now isn't right for us. But in my heart, and I tend to listen to my heart quite a bit more than my head, for good or bad, I really want this. Of course, though, there is a big difference between right and want, and part of being an adult is acknowledging that difference and following through in the correct way.

But it's so hard.

Dream Jobs

As I write this, I'm sitting in a Junior English class, listening to presentations (the one I'm currently listening to is on music therapy--really cool). I'm a student teacher. I'm graduating with a Bachelor's degree in Secondary Education, with a concentration in English. I'm going to be a teacher, and that really excites me. I love kids, but I have a soft spot for those between the ages of 11-19. They're fun, smart, and are so interesting (and the know they are).

But I have another passion, too.

You see, my dream job is to work exclusively with teen and/or underprivileged moms. The reason? Well, for one, I was a teen mom. I was nineteen when I got pregnant with my daughter. I was also, in turn, somewhat underprivileged, because most 19-year-olds aren't rich, and we had to rely on some social services for a bit. However, I was very lucky to have an extremely supportive family and fiance (now DOH).

For two, I love pregnancy and infancy. I don't think I quite realized how much I loved it until I was pregnant and had my daughter, but over the last few years this has become one of my huge passions. I find pregnancy fascinating, from the physical, spiritual experience, right down to the science of it all. And infants. My goodness--they are amazing little creatures. They are equally completely helpless and in total need of their parents, yet amazingly resilient, filled with all these different in-born abilities, everything from their little reflexes that protect them if they fall or wind up in water to their automatic ability to suckle.

Which leads me to the whole dream job thing. I want to be a midwife, and a midwife who works specifically with teen/underprivileged moms. What does this mean, after my five years of schooling to become a middle/secondary teacher? It means, at some point, at least two more years of school (and possibly more). It's not something I'm looking to do right now, but in a few years, perhaps after I'm done having my babies. There is a midwifery school in a town next to the one I grew up in (the very place I intend to deliver my next baby). It has an excellent reputation and provides students with a two year track to becoming a midwife. I may also just go all in and become a nurse, then go on to become a midwife.

In the mean time, while I'm teaching (possibly starting over this summer), I am going to begin the process to become a doula (a woman who helps other women through birth, pregnancy, and the post-natal period). I love the idea of being there as a support, to help a woman through her birthing process and the early days of caring for her newborn. I'm starting to really feel like it's something I'm meant to do.

I just love all things baby (about the same amount as I love teenagers). I love talking about breastfeeding, making your own baby food, cloth diapering, baby massage, all that good, hippy fun stuff that is so good for you baby and the world around your baby. And while I am absolutely not a proponent of teen pregnancy, it's something that happens and in order for those young woman and their babies to find success is for them to have a healthy, happy pregnancy and a support system, and not every teen girl has access to that. I want to provide both the health and emotional support, and I think I can do that. It's something that excites me.

And shouldn't we always do something that excites us?