This weekend, fellow graduates from Trinity College’s class of 2005 will converge upon Hartford, Connecticut for our tenth college reunion. I will not be there, partly because I have an eight-week-old, but also because I have not managed to sustain most of my college friendships. I have alluded to this in previous posts and expressed my disappointment that many of my memories of those four years, which at the time were some of the best years of my life, now make me inexpressibly sad because I can’t laugh about them with the other people who were there.

Make sure to be the kind of person your friends can look up to 🙂

I can now take responsibility for the role I played in the erosion of these relationships, and I suppose the one silver lining is that I now truly cherish the women in my life with whom I have built strong, mutually supportive bonds. What is most important to me at this point is using what I have learned to teach my three daughters how to navigate the often terrifying territory of female friendship.

Here is what I’ve come up with:

Friends should lift each other up. If a friend makes you feel ugly or less, reevaluate the importance you place on her opinion. If she has hurt you, express that immediately and with a willingness to hear her side. If you fail to communicate your anger or disappointment, you have no right to hold a grudge.

If you hurt her, apologize, but most importantly, mean it. Don’t get defensive. Even if you don’t think you did anything wrong, validate her feelings and try to make it right. I vividly remember a fight I had with a friend in college. I had kissed a boy she liked, and we were sitting down to hash it out. “But I like him too,” I argued, “Doesn’t that matter?” She looked at me with disgust and said, “With you, it’s always, ‘I’m sorry but.'” Ten-plus years after the fact, I get it. I wish I hadn’t been the kind of person who said, “I’m sorry but.” I don’t want you to be that kind of person either.

Pick up the phone. Texting is okay for a lot of purposes, but you should want to hear your friend’s voice. You can’t laugh or cry with a person over text. When you get older, you need to be able to hear her baby cooing in the background or her toddler inching toward a tantrum to really understand where she’s coming from.

Look at old pictures and think, “I love these girls even more now.”

Don’t you dare talk about her behind her back, because if ever there was a rule to follow, it’s to do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Value every friendship equally. My sisters used to tease me when I was little because they said I had first, second, and third tier friends. My mom had designated a page of our family’s phone book “Jenny’s Friends”, and underneath that heading was a long list of names and numbers. Every time I wanted to invite a friend to come over to play, I started at the top of the list and worked my way down until I found someone who was free. I’m nicer than I was when I was a child, because I know now that nobody wants to feel like a second choice. All of your friends bring something to the table. Appreciate them all, because as an adult, I can tell you they are all awesome and irreplaceable: your mom friends, your drink-a-glass-of-wine-together friends, your childhood friends, your weekend-getaway friends, your funny friends, your same-political-opinions friends, your passionate friends, your older and wiser friends, your work friends, all of them.

Understand that friendships go through stages. This is natural and will allow you to grow as individuals. You’ll drift apart and, when you realize that you miss her, you’ll come back together. My friend Lindsey and I have followed this pattern time and time again since we first met at age three. We spent time with different cliques, pursued different interests, but always found our way back to each other and continue to do so because our friendship makes us better.

And if, when you reach out, your friend doesn’t respond in kind? I’ve learned the hard way that there are some people that you will have to let go of, regardless of how painful it may be. Not every relationship will last, but they will all teach you something that will hopefully make you a better friend in the future.

When your friends feet are swollen from pregnancy, go get a pedi with them

Friendship is not always easy but should always be worth it. If you reach adulthood and have a handful of friends that are honest with you but kind, who lift you up and keep you grounded, who challenge you, who forgive you, who share their struggles with you and genuinely want to hear about yours, well, you will be counted lucky.

There are a lot of adjectives that I could choose to describe my mom. Generous. Goofy. Unassuming. A little scatter-brained – three daughters might have had something to do with that. Loyal. Dependable. Social (my middle-school self would have said embarrassingly so).

My mom in all her grandma glory with Ceci, January 2014

3) She was there. I still have a hard time figuring out how she and my dad managed to be at every important event: track and swim meets, band concerts, awards ceremonies. She took the opportunity to be the substitute nurse for my school on occasion. She volunteered as room mom. She was my Girl Scout troop leader. This, on top of working and all of the other responsibilities that come with being a mom of three. Even now, anytime she can get away and travel the 864 miles to come help me with the kids, she will do so in a heartbeat.

When I was in college and in the years immediately following, I was a self-proclaimed karaoke junkie. Despite my less than pleasant voice, there was something intoxicating (pun intended) about getting up in front of an often skeptical crowd and winning them over with a spirited (pun also intended) rendition of “Total Eclipse of the Heart” or “I Would Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)”. 

Those days are over, at least for the foreseeable future. The only stage I’m getting on is the one in my kids’ play room that my four-year-old created by ripping sheets of paper off an easel pad and laying them on the floor. With a microphone borrowed from our rarely used game of Rock Band for Wii she makes me perform Raffi songs while she and Ceci serve as spectators. If I somehow manage to get to a  karaoke night, however, maybe I will bust out this original take on a classic bar song:

Mom of Three (Sung to the tune of “Piano Man”)

It’s 5 a.m. on a Saturday
When I am roused from my sleep
By a baby in a bassinet
Crying her heart out just five feet from me

I say, “Child, do you know what the time is?
Only two hours ago you were fed.”
But her diaper’s turned blue, she smells faintly of poo,
So it’s farewell to my cozy bed

La la la, di da da
Will I ever rest again?

This is my life, I’m a mom of three
This is my life today
Right now sleeplessness is my reality
But in eighteen years I’ll be okay

When my spouse and I chose to have children
There were some things we couldn’t foresee
Like pregnancy mood swings and the tumult that they bring
Or how painful labor would be
I said, “Matt I believe this is killing me
I’m not sure that I thought this all through.”
Then they handed us our little bundle
Oh my God, what did we get into?

La la la, di da da
I would never be the same

Now Maggie, our first, was a darling
The light of our lives, our sweetheart
Then the terrible twos hit, and she started to throw fits
And we thought a sibling would be smart

Well our second, Cecilia, she fit right in
A regular partner in crime
And we thought, despite all of the messes
What the heck let’s do this one more time

This is my life, I’m a mom of three
This is my life today
Right now wiping butts is my reality
But in eighteen years I’ll be okay

This new babe doesn’t care that it’s Saturday
Or that her mama wants to sleep
So I feed her and watch Netflix series
Until downstairs the other two creep
And their laughter borders on maniacal
And they tear through my house like banshees
Though they may make me poor and drop crumbs on my floor
I still love to be called their mommy

La la la, di da da
I need a cup of coffee

This is my life, I’m a mom of three
This is my life today
Right now chasing kids is my reality
But in eighteen years I’ll be okay

I knew this would happen. I would make the decision not to return to the classroom after spring break, and my due date would approach with no sign of a baby. Instead of filling my days with meaningful human interaction, distracting myself with my teaching duties, I have ended up with a whole bunch of time on my hands. I did this with my first pregnancy as well, and found myself sitting around for a week and a half feeling, well, expectant.

People keep telling me to enjoy this time. Put your feet up. Take naps. No one thinks you’re a slacker for taking a few extra days off of work, especially when you’ve decided not to return after the baby is born. A third child will change everything soon enough, so focus on your family. Shower them with affection. And don’t feel guilty about doing something that YOU want to do for a change.

It’s good advice- brilliant, really- and I wish I could follow it to the letter. But let’s face it, relaxation does not come easy to us moms (particularly when said relaxation cannot involve a margarita). I first observed this quality in my own mother, well before I had children of my own. When she’s in full-on Mom Mode, she doesn’t sit down. As soon as she finishes eating dinner she begins clearing the table, regardless of what progress others have made. Many times I have had to remind her that it’s not particularly easy to enjoy a meal when someone is hovering around me with a damp sponge waiting to wipe crumbs from my area.

Can I blame her? Every night after putting my girls to bed I want so badly to sit on the couch with my husband and let go of the stresses of the day. But what do I do? I spend at least twenty minutes collecting items from the floor and attempting to find a place for them; taking care of the dirty dishes in the sink so I don’t need to look at them tomorrow; glancing at the mail and checking school bags for important papers. If there was ever a time when I had an excuse to not do these things, it’s now, but instead these mundane tasks have taken on a new urgency. Each sweep I make through the house could be the last time I pick up before the baby arrives. Each item I check off my to-do list is one more pat on the back for me, one less task that would have taken my mind off my new little girl once she is here.

But there may be something else to this frenzied “nesting” that we go through before welcoming a new addition. Maybe it’s the way we mothers avoid facing the real fact that control is an illusion. No matter what I do in the meantime, how many loads of laundry or bills that are sent off and paid, baby girl will come when she is ready, not when I am. (And let’s be honest, I’m never REALLY going to be ready.) My life will change, again, and I won’t know exactly how or what to expect. If I put my feet up, if I empty my mind, I may just have to contemplate these thoughts- and that’s scary.

I’m not good at waiting, particularly when the event I’m waiting for is so exciting and life-changing. (And painful and terrifying.) I’m trying, though, I really am. In the last few days I have purchased a new camera in preparation for lots of family photos, and have been having a blast learning how to use it. I’ve gone shopping for an extremely impractical but incredibly “aww”-inspiring outfit for the new baby. I started and finished (!) reading a book just for pleasure.  I’m currently sitting outside on a beautiful spring day with a cup of half-caff and an empty plate with the remnants of a Panera cinnamon crunch bagel (if heaven were a carb, this is what it would taste like). Ceci and Maggie are at daycare and school. My house is in the process of its last cleaning-service deep clean before we become a family of five.

In a couple of hours it will be time to go pick up the girls and be mom again, trying to figure out who took what toy from who and settling disputes over stolen yogurt raisins. Despite my physical state I will need to chase after Ceci when she doesn’t want her diaper changed or put Maggie in time-out if she speaks to me with a little too much sass. So I’m going to go home to a clean shower and enjoy the fact that no one is screaming for me while I wash my hair. Maybe, while my husband isn’t home, I’ll even watch an episode of Downton Abbey on DVR (the better to free up recording space for Pardon the Interruption and really bad 90s sic-fi movies). I might as well try to enjoy it, because tomorrow, everything could change.

I’ve never been big on giving things up for Lent, even though as a former Catholic, it should be a part of my cultural heritage. Prior to this year, I’m pretty sure the last time I partook in this ritual was 2006, when I gave up coffee. Needless to say, it was a rough six weeks.

This year, I happened to be perusing Facebook on Ash Wednesday and came across a “goodbye” post stating that one of my friends would be returning to the News Feed after Easter. On a whim, at that exact moment, I decided to make the same decision. It would be good for me, I reasoned, to spend less time checking my device, to refrain from sharing my every random thought, to put less stock in the number of comments or “likes” each of my posts received. The timing worked; I would most likely be back on the ‘Book just in time for the arrival of baby number three.

After four-plus weeks of this experiment, here is what I have learned:

1) It’s a Good Thing I’m Not a Smoker. Why? Because I suck at quitting. I did really well for a week or two, then I started to slip here and there. I mostly blame this blog, because Facebook remains the best way to announce a new post, and I can’t resist reading my friends’ responses. After I had cheated once, it was easy to do it again, just a quick peek to see if I had any notifications. Still, I would estimate that during Lent I have spent about 95% less time on Facebook, and for me that is a giant success, all things considered.

2) The Fear of “Missing Something” is an Illusion… Mostly. On a Monday morning a few weeks ago, I walked into school and was nearly accosted by a student asking, “Did you see the black and blue dress?!?!” Backing away slowly, I responded that no, I had not. A little further up the hall, another student stopped me. “Is it black and blue, or is it white and gold?” I seriously thought I was being punked, but apparently this was a thing that not only middle school students, but normal, well-adjusted adults were talking about and debating. It was exactly the kind of nonsense that I was happy to miss out on during my Facebook sabbatical.

At the same time, there were some things that I genuinely did miss: exciting announcements, birthdays, entertaining anecdotes or cute family photos from my friends and acquaintances. I know what some of you might say- if you’re really friends with someone, you’ll keep in touch with them somewhere other than Facebook. The disappointing truth is, I can barely keep up with my immediate family and few closest friends the “old-fashioned” way. Yesterday I attempted to video chat with my sister and her kids, but the connection kept freezing and my own two troublemakers kept talking over their aunt and cousin. Even returning a text often takes a few hours to a day due to the distractions of home, work, and ankle-biters. Facebook is simply the most efficient way to find out what is new in the lives of the wide array of people with whom I am connected. It doesn’t matter if I’m related to you, if I know you well, if I haven’t seen you in ten years, or if we don’t even really talk that much when we see each other in person. If we’re friends on Facebook, I have at least a passing interest in what you have going on or what you have to say.

3) It’s Not Just About Me. Conversely, I didn’t realize, until I significantly cut back on Facebook, how much other people, particularly mine and Matt’s families, rely on Facebook for updates about us. My in-laws just happened to be out of the country on vacation for the past few weeks, and I got a text message from New Zealand: “We miss seeing pictures of the girls on Facebook. Send us some, please!”

4) I’m Not a Masochist. Now that I’ve broken the cycle of Facebook addiction and can cut my usage back from dozens of times a day to once every few days, I think I’ve accomplished what I set out to do. No, it’s not Easter yet, but I have a pretty emotional and stressful couple of weeks ahead of me as I finish out my career as a teacher, for now, at least, and prepare to become a mother of three. I may need to vent, and I definitely need all the support I can get. I think (and I’ll say a couple of prayers too) that God will forgive me for that.

It is 4:55 a.m. This is not a time of day that I normally see (and based on my current observations, I’m not missing much), but insomnia has come to call. When my youngest woke up around 3:30 calling for her “bobby”, a name she at some point gave to her pacifier and by which we all now call it, I couldn’t get myself settled again. Perhaps it’s my giant belly or loose, painful pregnancy joints that are keeping me from getting much-needed rest. More likely the culprit is my over-worked, over-active brain that just can’t fit all of its worry and anxiety into the waking sixteen hours of the day.

I’ve heard other insomniacs refer to what they call “the list”- the items that occupy their mind like a revolving door during the hours when they should be asleep. Mine contains a litany of baby-related chores, most of which I have not yet gotten around to completing: order a better baby carrier, make sure my pump is in working condition, unpack and take stock of newborn clothes, get a “labor day” game plan in order, buy a leash for my one-year-old. On top of that, the stomach virus made its way into our home early yesterday morning, and though at this point we’ve only had one man down, I can’t help fretting over who might fall victim next. Finally, I’m attempting to process the very recent news that, due to changes in funding, our four-year-old’s fabulous, public-school pre-K program will now accept only children within a certain income bracket. This puts “find a new pre-school for Maggie” way up there on the list of things stressing me out. But there’s one major item I’ve left off, which for me encompasses almost every conceivable emotion and is never far from my racing mind: what I have termed “The Countdown”.

18. The number of school days remaining before my due date. The amount of time I have left to be a teacher- at least for a while. I have always had a love-hate relationship with my profession, wishing I could leave the meetings, planning, and paperwork to someone else while I bantered with my students and did my best to make sure they left my room having learned at least one new, valuable piece of wisdom or information. I have whined about the low pay, the innumerable hoops we teachers have to jump through, the hours after-school and on weekends that have been sucked away from my family and funneled into English or Social Studies prep. I have vented my frustrations about school dynamics (adults being just as cliquey and mean as middle-schoolers much of the time) and worried that my colleagues didn’t respect me or recognize how hard I was working.

Over the past ten years, since I joined AmeriCorps as a mentor straight out of college, I have been either Ms. Dunn or Mrs. Pray to over 1,000 young people. I have done my best to make my subject matter to them and to serve as a model of respect and concern for others. I have worked with and commiserated with some amazing, amazing, men and women. I have attended plays, musical performances, ball games. I have told my husband countless stories about kids that he would probably never meet, but who I couldn’t help talking about when I got home from school. For the past several years, at least since having my own children, I have taken a moment out of every morning to say a quick prayer to God: “Lord, let me put aside my own worries and problems and be present for these children today.”

When I made the choice to step out of the classroom for the time being in order to be more present for my own family, I knew it wouldn’t be easy. Other moms I know who have made the same transition tell me that I’ll never look back. I’m not so sure about that, but I can say that I am looking forward to each of the 18 days left on my school calendar. The ticking clock may be one more source of stress, but it is also a blessing, a rare opportunity to once again appreciate what it was that drew me to teaching in the first place. Maybe tonight, when sleep is once again eluding me, I’ll try counting my blessings instead of sheep.

My kids don’t even wear Luvs diapers, and I promise you I am not on the company’s payroll, but if you haven’t seen the series of “First Kid, Second Kid” commercials, and you have at least two children, please look them up. You will not be disappointed. From our labor plans to breastfeeding to the foods we allow them to eat and things we allow them to play with, our attitudes change significantly from the first child to the second, and, from what I’ve heard, to any subsequent children after that.

The same, it seems, is true of pregnancy. Let’s do a quick recap:

Pregnancy #1
After waiting the requisite 12-13 weeks, I announced my pregnancy in person to as many people as possible in order to up the “specialness” factor. I read What to Expect When You’re Expecting. (I tried to get my husband to read it too, but I’m pretty sure that was a fail.) Each week I looked up my growing child’s milestones to find out if he or she was the size of a grape, a kiwi, or an eggplant. I did my best to follow all of the typical pregnancy rules: no soft cheeses, deli meat, sushi, etc. I went so far as to scour the grocery store for pasteurized blue cheese dressing which, by the way, exists, and is disgusting. A glass of wine was a rare treat; I think I snuck a glass of champagne at a wedding.

The focus of pregnancy #1 was mainly on taking care of myself and, by extension, our baby. I recall with extreme nostalgia coming home from work and napping on the couch while Matt made dinner. I slept in on Saturdays and then got up and went to the gym. If I were to find a picture of what my arms looked like when I was pregnant with Maggie, I would probably cry. Chin-ups and dips… two words that have not been in my vocabulary since 2010.

And oh, the fearful anticipation of labor, of actually welcoming baby and bringing him or her home to keep. Maggie was due on October 2nd, a Sunday, and I had taken off of work for the entire previous week because I was so afraid of going into labor while teaching. So, for nearly two weeks I spent an hour or more each day walking, hoping it would speed up the process, and much of the rest of the day either napping or watching episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on Netflix.

When labor finally did kick in I went to the hospital hilariously early and was sent home with instructions to wait “until the pain became MUCH more intense”. I spent the next day and a half feeling humiliated and willing myself to last until my next doctor’s appointment so as to avoid another dread encounter with the labor and delivery night shift. After about a total of 48 hours in labor, it was a girl! and we began the difficult transition between a family of two and a family of three, a change for which not even nine months can prepare you.

Pregnancy #2
After Maggie we went through a crisis of “Do we or don’t we?” Both my husband and I had always envisioned ourselves with more than one child, but we had started to feel pretty comfortable with the ease of finding a babysitter for one, which left us able to enjoy some of the experiences of our pre-baby existence. On top of that, Maggie was a willful child, and the thought of having to tend to the needs of an infant while supervising timeouts and tantrums was incredibly overwhelming.

Still, we decided to go for it, thinking that it would be better in the long run for Maggie to have a sibling. The feeling, upon learning of my second pregnancy, was more hesitant than jubilant, but when I started to bleed heavily around six weeks, all I wanted was for my new little not-quite-a-person-yet to pull through. I called my parents and tearfully told them the news, wishing I could have waited but needing their prayers and support. We did the same with Matt’s family, saying something along the lines of, “There are complications, but we want you to know.” It was a terrifying ten days or so until the bleeding stopped, but with continued observation and frequent ultrasounds my doctor finally coaxed me into believing that everything was going to be okay and, miraculously, it was.

After our initial scare, the second pregnancy very much revolved around reassuring Maggie of our love for her and preparing her for sisterhood. We spent a great deal of quality time together in the months leading up to Ceci’s birth, eating ridiculous amounts of ice cream (my craving of choice for #2), getting Maggie situated in her new “big girl” room, working on potty training, and cuddling on the couch while I napped and Maggie watched back-to-back episodes of Sesame Street.

Did I feel 100% read for Ceci to arrive? Not really. Was I nervous about having to do the whole labor thing again? Yes. Did I feel confident that we would seamlessly incorporate the new baby into our lives? Absolutely not. But a planned induction (for the sake of convenience, which I probably would not do again) took some of the anxiety out of the equation, and in the end everything ended up entirely hunky-dory. Yup, I said it: Hunky-dory.

Pregnancy #3
It snuck up on me, it really did. Two kids seemed to be going well, and hey, why not? Let’s have another! So, shortly after Ceci’s first birthday, there was the plus sign on the stick yet again. When I found out, Matt was on an overnight concert trip with some friends, and it’s a testament to the third pregnancy and the state of my brain that I honestly can’t remember if I texted him or called him to share the news. Either way, he was in great spirits, and so was I, and we kind of just figured, “Hey, why not?- Can you tell this has been kind of the theme of this whole pregnancy? –  Let’s spread the joy!” We wasted no time in telling whoever we felt like telling.

There have been a host of other differences between this pregnancy and the others. As I said before, this has been the “Hey, why not?” time around. While my life with a four-year-old and a one-year-old is certainly NOT relaxing, my attitude toward the child I’m carrying has had to be. For example: Pregnancy rules? Seriously? If there is food in front of me, I am going to eat it. I like goat cheese. I like to lick the bowl after I make cupcakes, regardless of the presence of raw eggs. I mean, I’m not going to go out and eat ten cans of tuna and OD on mercury, but I am also not going to be made to feel guilty for eating a turkey sandwich.

Mostly (and I hope my unborn child won’t take this the wrong way), I have just not had the luxury of being able to focus much on this pregnancy. I have two kids who demand a lot of my time and attention, and I know that with number three, this is the easiest part. She’s contained. She doesn’t talk back or stand on tables or cry inconsolably because I place the wrong cup in front of her. I don’t have to chase her or worry that I will lose my patience with her.

At this point, I’m six-ish weeks from meeting my newest little girl, and do I feel 100% ready? Not really. Am I nervous about having to do the whole labor thing again? Yes. Do I feel confident that we will seamlessly incorporate the new baby into our lives? Absolutely not. But what I’ve learned by this point is that part of what makes being a mom so amazing is the ability to adapt and accept and make each child feel as special and loved as the next, and I do feel 100% ready to do that.

In general, I am not a huge taker of selfies. I admit to posting the odd selfie when I make a major alteration to my appearance, and I have commemorated a few major events with my husband or friends by snapping an “ussie”, a term that seems dumb and that I hope I never have to write again. Overall, though, I see selfies as belonging to the generation just after mine, the middle and high school students who have grown up with a device in their hand and just can’t resist grabbing it every time they look in a mirror.

However, I do want to touch upon one type of selfie which comes up occasionally in my news feeds on Facebook and Instagram, but, in my opinion, is not prevalent enough: the pregnant selfie. (Note: I am dying to give this a nickname, like the “Prelfie” or the “Bellfie”- belly + selfie – but let’s face it, there probably is a term out there already that I’m not cool enough to be aware of.)

I did not document my first pregnancy in photos, and I regret it. I was worried that people would view me as being self-indulgent, and feeling insecure about the changes in my body anyway, I talked myself out of it. Since then, I have seen some beautiful transformations happen before my eyes on social media, and the more I thought about it, why shouldn’t I be proud of this huge, important undertaking? So, with my second and third pregnancies, I have tried to be more intentional about capturing the various stages of my maternity.

A few arguments for the pregnant selfie:

1) The people who think your pregnancy photos are annoying have never been pregnant. They simply don’t get it, and they will surely change their minds as soon as they have a child of their own.

2) Pregnancy is hard. Lugging around anywhere from 25-50 extra pounds is exhausting and takes a toll on your self-esteem. Why not accept the positive comments from friends and family on social media as a reminder of what pregnancy is really about: the joy of a new life? Without the ordeal and responsibility that is pregnancy, there would be no cute little baby pictures for everyone to ooh and ahh over. The journey is just as important as the destination!

3) Your child will be able to look back on the time you carried him or her and know without a doubt that mommy was excited and happy, that despite all the hard stuff she still relished the knowledge that a new life was about to begin and would be forever joined to hers.

With that said, I encourage those of you who are expecting or hope to be one day to put it all out there. Well maybe not ALL of it, but you know what I mean. These are some of the most important months of your life, and let’s be honest- you’re more photogenic now, with your pregnancy glow, than you will be in the sleepless weeks ahead of you!

Almost two full years ago I published my third post ever, a somewhat anguished plea for advice about the classic mom question: to work or not to work? Since then, I’ve settled into a position teaching social studies at a public magnet middle school for the visual and performing arts. It’s a nice small community, with colleagues I respect and relatively well-behaved students, by middle school standards at least. I have been, for the most part, pretty happy.

Sometime around November or December, however, I suddenly stumbled upon a realization: I am about to have a third child. I mean, I knew what the end result of my pregnancy would be, but for some reason it had never occurred to me to revisit the whole working question. I was going to finish out this school year on maternity leave and continue humming along in my usual routine. Easy.

Trying to imagine one more kiddo working at this table…

I can’t remember what triggered the panic. It could have been a frantic morning, the kids screaming about something as I rushed out the door, leaving their dad to deal with the aftermath because I was already running twenty minutes late. It could have been a larger than usual pile of grading to tackle, knowing that the only way to reduce the number of papers on my desk would be to stay after school, sacrificing any hope of going to the gym, or to stay up late, sacrificing any hope of spending a little quality time with my husband after the girls went to bed. Maybe it was one of those classes that just falls flat on its face, when my students don’t seem to care about learning and I don’t really blame them because the lesson I’ve planned on the industrial revolution is even boring ME. Honestly, I don’t know why one day it just dawned on me: I’m not sure I can keep doing this.

It’s not that I don’t want to keep teaching. There are so many things that I love about my job. I love when my students laugh about historical humor, like the fact that one of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s would-be assassins threw a bomb at the motorcade and immediately attempted to jump to his death in a nearby river that happened to have only four inches of water in it at the time. I love how even seventh-graders can be sweet and adorable: just the other day a girl ran up to tell me that one of her friends would be absent that day – “But she told me to tell you she’ll miss you and hopes you have a great day!” I love teacher camaraderie. I love knowing that even though I’m underpaid and overworked, and my job is SO hard, it’s important. But is it more important than being able to be there for my own kids?

There is no reason for me to make a decision right now. I have almost two months until baby arrives, and then another two until the school year ends. Yet every day the decision weighs on me as my heart and mind swing wildly from one side to the other. Don’t I want my daughters to see their mom doing important work outside the home? Won’t I go stir-crazy stuck in my house without adult conversation? Am I seriously willing to let go of the benefits of being a state employee? Those questions are there all the time, but so are these: Am I crazy enough to think that, with three kids, I can fit in all the work I currently do and still spend any quality time with my family? What about all the doctor’s appointments, school pick-ups, extracurriculars? Shouldn’t I have a better knowledge of my husband’s business, considering that it’s technically mine as well? When was the last time I even stopped by his office? Or he and I had lunch together? What’s more important: the money I make at my job, or the time I could be spending with my family? The pride I feel in my work outside the home, or the pride I could feel in actually having some organization within my home?

There are many women out there who don’t have the luxury of even debating these questions, so please be clear that I am not complaining. I know that there are no bad choices here, and no permanent ones either. I know that my fabulous husband is supportive of whatever I decide to do. So why does this still feel so hard?

The subtitle of this blog reads, “Mom. Wife. Teacher. Me.” To take one of those descriptors away feels a bit terrifying. Without it, after nearly ten years devoted to the profession of education, I’m afraid that the others won’t sufficiently add up to “Me”. But a girl can always reinvent herself, can’t she?