Cheers for joining me in The Lounge for another week. This week we’re talking School.
Check out the links below.
As a teacher and mother, preparing for school is something I both loathe and love in equal parts.
It’s a tough one.
The school year looms largest after mid-January and my teacher side becomes aprehensive about the last few weeks of the holidays. There’s organising, programming and preparation. Hours of it. The reality of early mornings sets in and in the last week, via anxiety-laden message marathons with work friends, I’m reminded of shitty colleagues and the fact that I’ll have to elbow my way through the NSWDEC red tape for yet another year.
Loathe.
My mother side looks forward to a different, not so sinister, type of school preparation. They type where my child is fitted for shoes, chooses a drink bottle and cooler bag and gets a haircut. The preparation where uniform is washed, pressed and of course, labelled. I look forward to the hype which sees bags packed and unpacked a few times, just to make sure we haven’t forgotten anything and a loose promise of increased maturity for growing a whole school year older.
Love LOVE.
Chalk talk is ubiquitous in the last few weeks of the holidays and the whole Robo family grows very excited. We discuss expectations, new friends and homework. While we chat about teachers, preferred lunches and after school activities, I might nod and gesture purposefully but I’m always wondering
how in hell
am I going to take care of myself, my kids and my husband,
get off to work on time, take care of my students, please the bureaucrats
and then come home to homework, dinner, bath and bed.
And the rest.
How in hell?
I’m exhausted just thinking about it.
But it happens. Somehow everything just works itself out. We’re clean, we’re fed, we’ve done our homework and the family, Mother and Teacher included, keep their shit together enough to get through the term and have a little fun along the way. Just.
Are you a working parent? What’s your secret?
Love,
Robo X