Lemonade Stands
Last week I got handed a big ol’ bag of lemons. Plump, juicy, sour lemons. The summer teaching gig I’d been counting on during this stay-at-home year wasn’t offered to me. To say I was knocked for a loop would be an understatement. I’ve spent the month of July figuring out creative and interesting ways to get a bunch of teenagers excited about Holden Caulfield, Macbeth, and the intricasies of the English language for four years now. So, the fact that the principal’s goddaughter was offered the position…well, it came as a blow.
Even when I’ve spent the entire school year teaching fulltime, I look forward to July. It’s a pressure cooker, compressing 5 months of curriculum into 110 hours, and the marking load is killer, but the sense of accomplishment that comes from fighting through the teenage allure of days on the beach and nights spent who knows where to deliver a fun, successful course really has no compare. And this year, as I slowly watched the professional me slip away, as I embraced staying home and all that entails, in the back of my mind was the thought that “there’s always summer school.”
I’m not used to being a stay-at-home mom. I’ve never stayed at home for any length of time. Sabrina was born on semester break–3 weeks to the day later, I was back at university without having missed a day of classes. I taught the summer Regan was born, and continued to work through last year’s tumour ordeal. Being the woman schlepping around in overalls to playgroups and school events or knowing the entire kids CBC programming schedule by heart just wasn’t how I pictured my life, or myself. I’ve enjoyed the experience, and I’m convinced taking this year off was absolutely the right decsion for my family, but I’m ready to get back to my real life
Or at least I was until I listened to my answering machine last week.
My first reaction was to howl at the injustice of it all. Then I panicked a bit about the money–$3000 for a month’s work, when you haven’t worked in the previous 12, is pretty hard to let go. After I realized that while I’d be no better off financially than I am, I wouldn’t be any worse, I stopped hyperventilating and went into a deep funk. I wanted to go out into the world every day. I wanted it to matter if I was wearing lipgloss and cute shoes. I wanted to be acknowledged and validated for my efforts. And it really sucked that that wasn’t going to happen. Especially as it dawned on me about then that this also meant two months home fulltime with both girls. I have never, in all my time as a mother, done that. In fact, I haven’t spent an entire summer home fulltime since Sabrina was 18 months old.
I wasn’t exactly feeling warm fuzzies about the prospect of spending two hot sticky months cooped up in an eighth floor apartment with a bored Diva Girl and a discombobulated Zen Baby; cold sweat would probably more accurately describe my reaction to that possiblity. A possibility that thankfully didn’t become my reality. It’s a horrible cliche, but then again, most cliches are cliche because they’re true: one door closed, and another one opened. Into a life staying with friends who live 5 minutes from the community pool in one direction, and 5 minutes from the neighbourhood playground program in another. Friends who have built in playmates (or, partners in crime, depending on the activity) for Sabrina in the form of 6 and 7 year-old daughters.
In exchange for babysitting, I get to sit in air conditioned comfort watching the premium cable channels and I don’t have to cook dinner. That’s a pretty sweet deal for someone who hasn’t seen What Not To Wear in over year, and has a dysfunctional relationship with her oven. Even better though, is the fact that I get to enjoy my summer in ways I never imagined.
I get to take the kids to swimming lessons every day and watch as they master new skills. I get to spend the morning pushing swings, tracing out countless hopscotch boards and running in the sprinklers. I get to sit outside with my laptop, writing this post while watching all four girls happily play together at the water table. I get to enjoy my lemonade.