A ramblin'

I have a feeling this post is going to be a little all over the place so forgive me for that ahead of time. I think that when I look back on this, I will hardly remember it happening and wonder why I decided to write about it. But I am in the moment of it now and just want to write about it for a little bit.

A few days ago I saw in our local paper this literacy job posted in a local school district. It was advertised as 0.5 (part time) and I decided that I wanted to call and just find out a little more about it. The beauty of teaching is that it is only 180 days a year anyway, so part time of that, what can it be? So I made the phone call and left a message and this really nice lady called me back. She said she was the head of the Special Ed. department and I said, oh is this a special ed. job and she said no, she is the head of AIS as well (Academic Intervention Services which is basically the kids that need extra help but don't get Special Ed services). I said, oh, well I was just wondering what the grade level was, what the schedule looked like (if it was every day half day or just a few days a week) and if you need a Literacy degree. She told me it was K-4, every day part day and asked if I had a Literacy degree. And I said no I have an elementary degree and a special ed degree. I did my own inclusion for a few years with a teaching assistant all day and I did AIS one year too. She asked how long I have been home and I said 3 years but I did tutoring and did an AIS leave for part of the year as well. And she said, well you sound more than qualified, send me your resume out, you don't need to send all the transcripts and what not yet, and we can work something out with the schedule as well. She gave me her name and address and said she would love to sit down with me and that was about it. I told her I still needed to talk things over with my husband and I would get back to her.

I talked it over with my husband and for reasons I don't feel like 'ramblin' about, we decided that I am not going to pursue it. The reasons I was going to do it were 1: part time 2:money and 3: I love to teach reading (even though I don't a degree in that specifically.) But I realized a few things about this whole ordeal yesterday. It felt REALLY REALLY GOOD to be 'wanted'. I got off that phone and I remembered, I am not just a mom in sweatpants and greasy hair in a pony tail. I can do more than clean up after breakfast. I have qualifications. I have some experience. Someone thinks I would do a good job and pay me for it. It felt really really nice. And it is so easy to forget about that.

About a month ago, I went up to the attic where all my teaching supplies are stored and I was looking for some beginning reader books to work with, with Adam. It is sort of fun to look through my teaching stuff. Like I found all my binders of task forces I worked on and curriculum I helped make. I was like, OHHHHH, word study...... YAY!!!! I loved doing that stuff. And then I found my math binder because I wanted a hundreds chart for Adam and it got me remembering all those conference days I sat at and made up these math games and activities. I started remembering, I did a good job. I know how to do all of this, I can do it again, I ENJOYED doing this, I didn't hate my job.

Then last night, I couldn't sleep and I was thinking I should have come up here and did this blog right then and there, but it got me thinking about my nephew. His birthday is in a month and he is going to be five. He is 18 months older than my Adam. So you know what that means? My Adam will be five in 18 months. FIVE YEARS OLD. Why am I even considering doing anything part time? My baby is going to be in school in 18 months and I won't get this time back. Why can't I just sit home and be happy and not call people up for jobs? Why is teaching my own flesh and blood less worthy than teaching a bunch of kids I don't know? And my girlfriend has 2 kids, next year they are going to be in fifth and sixth grade. I swear they weren't even in school that long ago. Now I am starting to make myself sound ancient. But you know what I mean? I need to be happy that I can stay home, and make the most of it with my kids. Not that I'm not happy... I don't know. This is why I called this ramblin' because that is what I am doing.

Oh, and this is the other thing. I was thinking last night, you don't think of the 'bad' things you had to deal with when you were teaching. Like this one mother wrote me a nasty note because I sent her daughter out to get extra help with her long division with 'those kids'. She is much smarter than 'those kids' and even though she failed her long division test, she really knows how to do it. OK lady. I won't help your kid next time. Someone come and shoot me in the foot if I ever contact the teacher because she was trying to give my son extra help. I was soooo mad that day.

So those are my thoughts on that matter. To work or not to work, for some reason a dilemma in my mind.