Thanks

Monday was my last day at school.  The students finished on Friday, so Monday was spent stuffing and sending report cards, working on odds and ends, and then our teacher party.  There really isn’t any way to describe the AMAZING teacher party that our staff members have, but it was movie themed- and it was awesome. 

I was really trying to NOT cry on Monday, but of course once my principal started giving her farewell speech about the 2 teachers leaving, and 2 teachers retiring…I started crying.  She told me she was so glad that she hired me and that I did a great job—even for a Yankee!  My first “thanks” has to go to her for hiring me and giving me a chance.  I showed up for an interview the week before school started 3 years ago and was an hour late for the interview.  I left the house with almost 2 hours ahead of time, because as my Dad taught me, always be early for an interview…well I got SOOOO lost in the rural land of Louisiana that I almost ended up going home.  This was before I had an iPhone so all I had was my print out directions from MapQuest and a phone with NO service in the boonies (Thank you iPhone and AT&T for fixing that).  So I finally found the school and at this point was 1 hour late, had been crying, and was a sweaty mess, but she gave me a chance and hired me. 

I owe a special “thanks” to all of my co-workers. My school really doesn’t have much teacher turnover and many of the students have attended there whole life at our school since it’s PreK-12^th grade.  Everyone was so welcoming.  My friends Robert and Melanie invited me to sit with them at lunch from the beginning.  Melanie was the other high school English teacher and was/is a huge mentor to me.  Robert became my carpool buddy and had to suffer listening to me talk-talk-talk for an hour to and from school (Mason thanks you for that- it lightened his listening load).  He also had to hear pregnancy this, pregnancy too much of that.  My friends Barry and Josh started the same year I did, and we’re all around the same age and have similar humor so we got along really well.  Barry let me cry in his room for 20 minutes on Monday and had a really great talk with me. 

I feel like anyone I talk to about resigning, I felt like I owed them an explanation.  I felt like to all my working mommy friends I had to explain that I can afford to be a stay at home mom, and I want to be home with my baby, and that the AF doesn’t always make it easy to be a working mom.  To my stay at home mommy friends I felt like they didn’t really understand how I could love doing anything that wasn’t spending time with my kid.  Basically it boils down to- I love teaching, and I love Theo.  I want to be home with Theo while I can be, and in the next year (at least) managing my work schedule, Mason’s work schedule, and Theo’s schedule was going to be hectic- so I’ll be at home- and I don’t think I’ll be bored.  I’m looking forward to it, and I’m looking forward to developing friendships even further. 

I definitely need to “thank” my parents and sister.  My mom was always home with me and my sister, and because of my sister my mom was probably home longer than she would have been had it just been me.  It’s great to have a model where I know it’s okay to be at home, and I know what kind of experiences I’ll get to have by being home. 

Theo gets a huge “thanks” because he is why I’m a mommy, or as he says ma-ma-ma. 

But truly, Mason has been the one to put up with the tears, emotions, decision making and all else while we decided this together.  He’s been 100% supportive of me.  I appreciate his financial skills from the get-go, because hiss frugalness has allowed us to save 5 years of my paychecks, and be completely debt free which makes my being home possible.  He (obviously) contributed to making me a mom, and he’s just wonderful.  I told him that my being home will result in fewer chores for him, but he’d like that in writing.

I’m sure there are many more “thanks” to give, and I thank everyone who’s helped me be comfortable with this new life choice---we’re all looking forward to it!