Time to slow things down

On Tuesday my darling C was forgotten at school at the end of the day and it was completely my fault. Not sure how many times our in home worker would have needed to remind me that she could not pick him up this week - obviously more than she did. He was fine, luckily it was a day that they have homework club and some teachers stay later. He was fine, I wasn't. If the school secretary hadn't persistently called (because of course it was the ONE time I had forgot to take my cell phone into our weekly team meeting) I wouldn't have realized he wasn't where he was supposed to be. As I raced to the school I tried to keep it in perspective, telling myself "these things happen". But, you know what, they shouldn't. I think we all have our limits and expectations in life. I expect that no child of mine will reach the end of their long school day only to find out that they have been forgotten. So while I am not beating myself up over it I did decide as I walked into the school that something has got to give, I CANNOT and WILL not keep up this pace and live like this.

Other mom's may be okay with running around like a chicken with their head cut off. Really not an image I am trying to emulate. I don't want my kids to only experience frazzled and stressed mom. Then my wonderful husband came home that night, without even knowing just how crazy my day had been and proclaimed "I was thinking today that maybe you should go ahead and quit your job". I've been talking about it off and on for a very long time. I do love my job but I work in early intervention and it is a very emotionally exhausting job. It was fine before kids, before the depth of what C needed had really sunk in. I even reduced from full time to part time upon return to work from adopting J. All that seemed to do was make me try to fit 5 days work into 3, it never works out.

So my husband is even giving my plan his first bought of blessings and then I balk. Do I really need to QUIT? I will lose the benefits and the pay. Can we really do without it? What if I quit and regret it later? I begin to think maybe what I need is to ask for a leave of absence, protect my job but give myself some time to try to get my house and life a little more in order. Great idea. Only thing is, to ask for one I would have to be caught up on all my paperwork - that might take a while because I can't catch up because I have too much on my plate.

The morning after forgetting C, I walked the boys to school through the 2 inches of snow we had received. The boys were so excited by the snow and I tried to keep myself in the moment but really I was stressed because I was running late and really needed to get started on paperwork. After dropping them off I headed home, put the keys in the car to start it while I cleaned it off. Then I went to jump back in to the toasty warm car only to find that I had locked myself out. Luckily I had my cell phone in my pocket. I called A to come rescue me and then I called my boss. I laughed as I told her what I had done. She answered "you are really not having a good week, are you? But at least you can laugh about it". Well, I either laugh or I cry. So while I stood in my driveway, watching snow melt off my car, I laughed and laughed until I cried. Don't even want to know what the building full of senior citizens across the street thought of my antics.