This one is for all you teaching moms out there...
I have a two year old, who I adore to death, but let's face it life with a two year old is boogers, chocolate faces, accidents in pants, 50% of the food on the ground instead of on the plate, temper tantrums, slobbery kisses at 3 am, and the lovely phrases "I do it", "no", and "that's mine!
There are things about two that you know you just can't wait to say goodbye to like the messes, saying "No no, don't do that!" every 10 seconds, and temper tantrums but there are things that you want to hang onto forever like the cute baby voice, the silly things they say, and being showered with kisses.
When Wesley turned a year and a half, I started my first year teaching here in Delhi. It was especially hard leaving Wes at a play school all day. A few months later I started my TPT store and my blog. I began to feel all the stress arising about December of last year. I love all the hats I wear (mom, wife, teacher, creator, and blogger) but I was starting to dislike all of them at that time. My husband also got Dangue Fever which was a huge stresser. I wanted to be the world's best mom and wife, the schools best teacher, the writer of a famous blog, and have 60 products in my store and unfortunately I'm not super woman so I couldn't do it all.
I know that you other teacher moms know what I am talking about. Let's face it...we love to be PERFECT at everything...and we want it to be fairly instant. We all know that it takes a lot of work, but we like to see immediate results. That's when I started to remind myself to set realistic goals and most importantly prioritize.
I want to keep wearing all my hats, and I don't want any of my hats to fall in the mud. So how does this work? When I wake up in the morning I am teacher. I am ready to discover and learn with my class. I am ready to tackle each days problems and guide my kids to learn new things. When I walk into my house after school, I switch hats to being mom. This means throwing balls, watching the Lorax, giving horsey rides, and being tackled by my energetic boy. I don't think of school, tpt, or anything else. That's my time with my little man. Then, after Wesley lays down to sleep, I put on my creative hat! I get on pinterest, I start creating, I read blogs and blog myself. About an hour before bed I change hats again and put on my wife hat. My husband and I always spend an hour or two together before bed since we got married. This is our time to talk about our days, watch a show, share a sundae, or have a cup of coffee.
So for all you teacher moms out there who are trying to wear a lot of hats, I have two tips for you:
1.You can't wear more than one hat at a time. That means taking off one hat to put on the other. If you are playing with your precious little ones, don't think about school problems, pinterest, what you are going to blog about, or your newest tpt product! Just soak up your time with you kids before you blink and they grow up. When you are at school, think about your classroom kiddos. Don't worry about dinner, grocery shopping, or dance practice. When you are wearing a hat, don't try to put another one on top, that's when things get messy and all the hats fall in the mud!
2. It's not the end of the world! Get that? It's not! If you didn't get to that post up that you wanted to, it's not the end of the world. If you had to stay home from school to take care of your sick little one and you know that the sub just won't follow your plan right, it's not the end of the world! If you didn't finish that project at school in time, it's not the end of the world! Take a deep breath, eat some chocolate, drink some coffee, and tackle the problem tomorrow.
Remember that you are balancing two full time jobs at once. Your work never ends! Life is too short to fret about the small stuff. Keep up the good work teacher moms! You are touching so many lives at once!
