FREEDOM!!

*Edit as of September 13...I had embedded George Michael's video of his song FREEDOM off of YouTube, but the image was a little pornographic on the freeze frame so I took it off*

OK forget that this is a weird image to start off my post of how I feel about all my kids in school. In fact don't even watch this weird video...Turn around and do something else for a minute while you listen to the chorus and picture me dropping off my van load of kids (minus Picker and Puker this year) every morning while the happy words, "Freedom!" sing through my head!

On the second day of Olivia going to school last week, I was at a salon and the lady working on me asked me if all my kids were in school.

"Yes," I replied. "My youngest went to Kindergarten yesterday."

"Do you have a job yet?" my aesthetician asked.

Yet? I thought.  YET!! Did you hear she started school yesterday? was I supposed to pound the pavement the very minute she closed the van door and find a job?

I explained that I also have a high schooler and a mere 5 1/2 hours from the time I drop off the little ones until he gets home.  Without morning or after school care, I hardly even count for a part time job.  I also explained that with all 3 in school and all of our activities I can hardly catch my breath from 3-9 pm and that is hard enough.

"Maybe you can get a job as a morning TA at the school or something," she continued.

Did you not here what I said? Besides, I hate volunteering once a week in the classroom (which is exactly why I did not sign up for it this year...I HATE sitting there for an hour listening to kids who can't read, try to read.  There I said it.  It's out there. And the ONLY reason I did it when the boys were in elementary school  was I had to do it so I could get the teachers I wanted and so those teachers would do what I needed for my kids.  I am now in a school where I don't have to kiss butt to get that because it is a better school.  Therefore, you will not see me do class parties, or read I Am Sam books, but I am happy to do other things. Sometimes. Besides, the classes all have full time aides already there [I told you, good school]...how do they need me?).

So that makes me being a TA in the morning completely out of the question. And I say this politely to my stylist.

"But you have a teaching degree, right?" she asks.

"Yes, but high school is ever so much different than elementary and frankly, I am not even sure if I want to work right now."

I have had to justify this to lots of people I come in contact with lately. Everyone seems to think that since all my kids are in school I have nothing to fill my time with.  Oh there is plenty, and since this blog often posts my crazy insane schedule let me give you a rundown of how yesterday went, and so far is fairly indicative of how my days go most of the last week and a half since Olivia started school.

8:30 leave to take carpool kids (3) plus my 2 to school
9:00 met with Ethan's teacher
9:30 get back home (with the Diet Pepsi I stop for daily and must admit doing this by myself is priceless and usually when I sing George Michael's song in my head).
10:00 after unscrewing the front window our of my front door to take to Lowe's with me, the Costco coupons, and check on Carter, who is home sick, I head out again.
10-11:30 Lowe's doesn't have my window, Target errands done, and swing by the yarn store to get a skein for upcoming birthday present knitting project.
11:30-12:30 Maybe spent too long in the yarn store but head home after an hour. (freedom song singing softly in the background)
1:00 made the half hour drive home but didn't get to Costco and pick up Carter from home for a dentist appointment.
1:30-3:15 sit in the dentist office while Carter's cavities were filled.  I know he was sick, but since he already felt like crap I figured he may as well only feel like crap one day instead of two, if I rescheduled.
3:45 kids home from elementary school with the carpool mom dropping them off.
4:00 It was my day to pick of kids from the high school for the Fall Play they are rehearsing for and since the other two mom's worked on Tuesday, I had to go back and get the kids even if Carter wasn't there.
5:00 home and dinner thrown together.
5:45 off to Back to school night for both the Kindergarten AND the high school.  Good thing they are next door to each other.
8:45 home and got kids to bed by 9:30
10:00 asleep.

I am not sure I see much time for a job in there.

I am also not sure I see much free time in there.  In fact, I shamelessly admit I want more.  See on Monday I did selfishly take a 2 hour hike up Baldy, a popular hike here in my area.  I video-ed me at the top, but I mentioned too much personal information about what  I could see below me in the town I live in so you have to be my friend on facebook to see it.  (There are some pictures at the end of this post).

It was heavenly.  I did it all by myself.  I enjoyed my own thoughts and my own pace and the sheer and utter silence at the top. I came home and had a shower all by myself and lunch and ran a couple of errands by myself before picking the kids up from school to get Olivia to ballet at 4.  I got home from that at 5, made dinner, had family home evening and the whole time I wished I was back on the top of Baldy, looking at the clouds and getting a sun burn.

So no. I do not want to get a job, I do not want to come in to your class every week. I have plans.  Plans that included painting my front door (done last Friday a lovely shade of Teal that my kids don't understand is an ACCENT color designed to have an impact on our front yard but now I need a new window to go in since I can't get the yellowed plastic window frame painted white).

I have been on a cross country run on my beloved ski trails and finally saw what they look like in the lush green vs. the crisp white.

I have been to the gym and not had to pay child care.

And this winter I plan on skiing my heart out.  I have years of photos to put in albums and the years since we moved here that need printed off and put in albums.

I have a new niece on the way and she needs a quilt.

I have another new niece or nephew that will need a quilt as soon as I find out what it is.


I am going to see what I need to do to get my teaching license here in Alaska and keep that in my back pocket for a few years.

And I am going to write and research an idea I have for a story.


I am going to maybe take downhill lessons at Alyeska and get good enough to keep up with my 5 year old on the slopes this winter.

But know that come 2:30 I start homework and taxiing and refereeing fights and turns and calls of who sits shotgun.  I pay bills, take kids to the doctor, the ortho, the dentist and get prescriptions.

I do not want to pay for nor turn over the duties of my life before school or after school to someone else.  I will pack lunches, sign permission slips, brush hair, bathe, fight over what clothes get worn,  and if we all need jackets (we live in ALASKA children. The answer is, yes, you need a jacket!).

I will listen to my own child (only) learn to read, pass off math facts, edit papers on the Odyssey, solve the Pythagorean theorem and build dioramas and book reports.

I will wash sheets, fold jeans, match socks (to the Nate Berkus show, not Caillou [insert Freedom song here too]) vacuum stairs, clean out closets and throw away toys I know you don't play with any more (shhh) and scrub toilets.

I will help a friend who through her back out this week and is bed ridden for several more weeks.  I will go to lunch shamelessly with other mom's with all their kids at school.

No I am not "working." Yes, I am A) choosing not to and B) blessed enough not to need to and I thank my Heavenly Father for that daily.

Mt. McKinley.

Anchorage

Enjoying my Freedom.