If you're reading this, I survived my first semester of teaching while exclusively breastfeeding. It hasn't necessarily been pretty, but I have a closet with a locking door and an outlet, my equipment works marvelously when I remember to bring all the necessary parts, and baby is drinking milk while I am away at the workstation.
My post-partum depression feels under control. I can breathe much more easily. We have a routine. I am one with the universe over the house not being 100% spit-sparkly clean always, but hubs and I have figured out a way to get it done bit by bit, and it works for us. I was sitting in my kitchen last night, listening to the whooshing white noise machine keep the baby snoozing at one end of the house, and to the Nyquil-induced snores of Death Becomes Him from our bedroom, and between the seashell lights in our kitchen to the fall hayride/apple picking candles twinkling in the kitchen, I breathed a big sigh of gratitude that's been building for a year now, but was too hormonally a mess to acknowledge until last night.
Thank goodness for not-so-small miracles. Aside from being a far-cry from gunshots in the night and having my car towed by incompetent townhome management a-holes, we have a cozy place within a great school district, neighbors that keep the fun alive with holiday festivities, and I don't have to lug myself and a wee one up and down stairs all day long. Seriously, armpit townhomes, right?
A year ago, we signed on our first house and hauled our stuff, our fears, our excitement, and my 20-ish week belly into an actual HOME. And it feels that way. It feels incredible, and all I want to do is continue to make it better.
My students seem to be growing in spite of themselves, which seems like an ugly thing at surface level to say, except when you consider that I teach freshmen. At 14/15, I simultaneously knew everything and nothing of what I actually needed. This year, that bipolar freshman feeling is intact, as it is every year, but I'm seeing students blossom, gain self-esteem, flourish, and question more deeply. I have a great team and a phenomenally organized set of objectives to thank for that. Additionally, I think the pressure from returning off an extended maternity leave to pick up the ante really got me in motion. It's been a sprint, no doubt, but one with kind faces and great support. That makes a whale of a difference.
Christmas break has so far been a combination of family time, stealing small quiet moments to blog/read, present hunting, friend-seeing, and white chocolate cookie fudge-making. The merriment has only just begun! I am thankful for the mercy to see and breathe this life. Peace to you and yours this holiday season.
