a Look at a Book

Teachers went back to work this week where I live, and for the first time in a decade, I didn’t join them. No, I wasn’t sick, nor did I just feel like playing hooky. I get to be a stay at home mom now! 

Yesterday, while my former coworkers returned to work, I took my little guy to the pool with friends, had those friends over for lunch, baked some bread, played some games on my phone while he slept, and cooked dinner with some extra things made from scratch. 

Today, I took him to a doctor appointment that I only needed to schedule around his naptime – not my school schedule or my husband’s work schedule. I didn’t have to worry about asking for time off the second day back to work in order to fit that in. Wow was that amazing! 

I thought I would feel more sad than I do when we got to the end of July. It’s back to school season, and for the first time in my . . . entire life? . . . it simply doesn’t affect my day-to-day at all. 

Though I did get sad yesterday thinking about not getting to teach Bible, and I fully expect to feel more sadness when I see everyone’s first day of school pics, I also feel more free and relieved than I have in a good long while. 

Even though it feels great to be caring for our son and our home full-time, I waited all summer to write this post and change my About page on this website.  Making this announcement to a mainly faceless audience feels a little dread-ful. 

Why? Why have I felt dread about putting this out there on the internet to a bunch of people who seem to enjoy reading what I write? 

Two reasons. 

First, internet “experts” would tell you that you need to find your niche and stick to it to build your audience. Well, teaching has been part of my identity for a long time, and sharing what I do in my classroom with other teachers has been part of the “niche” I’m going for. 

And now, I’m not a teacher. Not in the same way, anyway. I mean, I’ll be teaching my little guy about manners and letters, colors and numbers, animals and shapes. I’ll also be teaching piano to a few kids. But that’s not the same thing, and we all know it.

So I’ve been worried some of you are going to think this website will be less applicable to you than it used to be. I won’t be in the elementary classroom every day, so some teaching-related things won’t be fresh on my mind. Nor will I be trying new ideas out in my own classroom and then suggesting them to my readership. 

However, I’m actually hoping that this website and blog will be even better – fuller, more thoughtful and comprehensive – now that I’m not working in the classroom full time.

• I will, of course, still be reading lots of books and writing book reviews for you. 
• I’ll be parenting a pre-reader and raising him to (hopefully) love books. 
• I’ll still give you tips on raising readers from my years as a teacher, as well as from my own parenting experience.

And for the teachers who have followed me, I’m still planning on sharing some encouragement, reflections, and suggestions from my decade in the classroom. 

Truth be told, I’m actually really excited about several ideas I have been brainstorming and working on in the background for my site. Once I get them farther along, I look forward to sharing them all with you!

It also gives me comfort to see how others’ websites and blogs have shifted over time to match their life seasons. It is fitting, then, that the content I add to this website would match the season I’m in. So I think I’ve been worrying needlessly on that count.

But the second reason that sharing this news feels iffy is that not teaching is a pretty giant shift in my identity. I don’t know how to be an adult without being a teacher because I haven’t ever been a non-teaching adult. 

Normally, at this time of year, I feel a lot of anxiety about managing the mounting to-do list leading up to the first week, and I have stress-mares about managing a classroom – though there’s a splash of excitement somewhere in the midst of the to-dos and meetings.

Seriously. Does anyone understand the hours that go into simply getting a classroom ready for students – let alone preparing the curriculum, making lesson plans, attending meetings, collaborating with colleagues, etc. – all in advance of the first day of school?? Pictured above is just one of the 10 years that I got a classroom ready.

I’m also usually working on adjusting my body to getting up to an alarm again and making sure I’m getting to bed on time coming off of summer break. I never quite managed to enter the new school year as well-rested as I ought to since my summer bedtime and summer wake time were much later. Amen, anybody?

But this time? 

This time, my alarm is either my own body or the squawk of my baby letting me know he’s awake.
This time, I’m still getting a full night’s sleep (8+ hours) consistently instead of 6-7 hours. 
This time, I’m able to observe others going back to school rather than be someone going back to school, and . . . it feels great.

As I lean into this new season and learn how I need to order our days and weeks as an at-home mama instead of a teacher-mama, I feel a lot of freedom.

Fun fact: I’ve even dabbled in some “trad wife” and homesteading-type things as I’ve settled into life at home, and I’ve loved it!
(For those who have never heard the term “trad wife,” like I hadn’t until a week ago, it stands for “traditional wife” – but trendier? Whatever. This one’s for you, Em.)
Even though we live in a condo, with no yard or garden whatsoever, in a crowded metro area, I’m still trying my darnedest to feed my family wholesome foods. (Aren’t we all trying to do that?)

Here’s some of what I’ve been doing:

• Milling my own wheat and baking bread for my family (Thanks, Mom!)
• Food-processing peanuts into peanut butter (Thanks, sis, for the idea!)
• Fermenting cucumbers and cabbage
• Making homemade yogurt
• Cooking beans in the pressure cooker rather than buying cans

I know that the from-scratch life doesn’t appeal to everybody, and I certainly didn’t have the capacity for it while teaching full time last year. But it has been life-giving to have the flexibility and margin to do some of these things.  

Sometimes I do take it too far, and my husband has to tell me things like, “Whatever ideas you have about baking, just…don’t do them.” lol I’ll try, honey. I’ll admit, I do have a tendency to start too many projects and tire before I’ve cleaned them all up. I’m trying to be better about that, though!

However, like I said: it has been wonderful to step into this season of full-time motherhood and caring for our household. It’s still demanding, don’t get me wrong. It’s a full-time job, for sure. But I think I’ve been ready for the flexibility for quite some time now, and I’m ever so thankful to have the opportunity to live out the dream of being a stay at home mom.

So if you’d like to continue to read book reviews and tips on raising readers, or if you want to hear about the ways that I created a culture of reading in my classroom, or you want to be party to occasionally glimpsing my foray into fermentation and more from-scratch living, please stick around!

It’s an honor to have you.