Ok, ok!

Ok, justjen...I will start a blog. I won't write in it as often or as humorously as you, but it will be a good place to write down my thoughts or whatever. As you can see, I picked a cheesy name to get me started, but for now I thought it appropriate to be the Mrs. who stays at home and misses a lot of things in my life. YOU already understand all of that, but for the one other person who may read this, I will explain....I have been a teacher for seven years and this is the first year I will be home taking care of the home and the kiddos. I have two boys - Cameron is three and Brenden is three months old. After the second babe, there was no way I could continue working full-time and make things work the way it had been without giving over my motherly duties to a stranger. I was missing out on raising my two year old the way I wanted to when we had him in day care for a year. I was missing his developments, his funny quirks, disciplining him the way I wanted to and even missing what he freaking ate for lunch. I didn't even know what to feed him because his tastes had changed right under my nose! I was missing so much and feeling so sad and so guilty and so left out. I don't want to miss out on that anymore with Cameron or with Brenden.

But now, I'm missing getting ready for school...checking out the best deals on spiral notebooks and pocket folders and secretly reveling in the smell of new crayons and hearing school-aged kids reading off their supply lists to their parents. I loved thinking about how nervous the kids will be and how I would make the first day of school so fun that they will go home relieved and excited to tell their parents that it wasn't as bad as they thought or it was as fabulous as they had hoped.

Nerdily, I miss this so much that I even dreamt about it the other night....

In my dream, all the teachers at my old school where I worked for five years had moved to a new school and were starting to settle in. My replacement was a little nervous and happy to hear some advice from me. I was in her new classroom showing her around (cause somehow I knew more about the new room than she did) and I was showing her the things she could use that I had left and how I had used them in the past. The other teachers I had worked with for the past four years were also in the room, cracking the usual sarcastic and cynical jokes, endearing them more to me every second I was there. It's amazing how raw and deep your emotions are in a dream....I was putting on a brave face as they talked, though, because as soon as they all went back to their rooms and left me alone, I started hysterically sobbing knowing that I wasn't going to be there with them next year and that they didn't even need me. Sobbing. It was seriously the same cry in this dream that I cried when I had dreamt months ago that my dad died - gut-wrenching, heavy-chested, can't-cry-hard-enough cries. I woke up so emotionally exhausted and sad. Just so sad.

I'm sad that I'm going to be missing out this year. I will miss the quiet planning times at my computer, the calls from the other room from my partner teacher asking me for the third time how to do something in Powergrade, miss the looks on the kids faces and I will miss hearing them whine for me to keep reading out loud or whining when I give out a pop quiz. I am going to be the Mrs who misses so much.

I guess a blog can help with that though, because I know I will be discovering all the things that I know I would be missing out on if I were still in that teacher's chair having a current events discussion with twenty-five 9 year olds. I'm not sure what those things are going to be, but I can't wait until my misses will trade places. And here they'll be on this silly blog that I was talked into doing.

Thanks, Jen. I actually think it may be a good idea afterall....