The First Day of School

Fall is a bittersweet season.

One the one hand, I have to go back to school. I leave my darling daughter for hours at a time everyday- added to the hours I already leave her for my part-time job serving coffee. Then, when I do get home, I have schoolwork, I am tired, I have to make supper, do dishes, laundry, what-have-you and I'm not always the mom I want to be. That's hard to take some days. (Disclaimer: I AM working on my patience though you may not believe it if you have ever heard my very loud, very exasperated "MiCAYYYlahhhhh!"- with the emphasis on the H that is not even in her name).

On the other hand, although I still deal with my mommy guilt over the amount and quality of time I spend with Micaela, I get to be a better, more rounded person- and, I hope, mom. I see lots of other people, get to have new and different conversations, and, most importantly, I am working towards a degree that's going to benefit our family and soon I'll have an income, a real one, even if it's only a substitute teacher's income, and that makes me happy.

So feeling the dichotomy of the excited schoolkid and the mom dragging her feet, I went off to register today. Basically, I filled out all the forms that I filled out last year, got paper copies of the schedule that I already had been sent in my email, and listened to people say "welcome back".

Tomorrow is my first day of classes.

Tonight, my daughter is asleep, after being sung the "frog song" more times than I'd like to admit. ("Now we all know frogs go, la dee da dee da, la dee da dee da, la dee da dee da, but they don't go mmm mmm ahh"). My bed is made, my floors are swept, and I am ignoring the 2 baskets of laundry at the end of my bed. My husband will be done work in about an hour, and I am thinking of enjoying one relaxing glass of wine before the tornado that is the school-year actually starts.

Yes, it's bittersweet.