norelle & co.

I've always been a (sort of) stay at home mom.  After Norelle was born, I took a year off school to stay home with her, and the September following her first birthday, I started to go back to school part time two evenings a week.  It was definitely a huge adjustment; a lot harder than I anticipated.  My mind was always on her, and as she got older and actually asked for my time herself, it was even more difficult!!  But, I made it, and graduated this past Spring.  I have always felt so extremely lucky to have been able to stay home with her, and it is something that I would never have changed.  I toyed with the idea of putting off furthering my education even more, by putting off teachers college; but I thought, what the heck, I'll apply and see what happens.  What happened is, I got in.


I am so excited to become an (official) educator {I say official since aren't all us mom's and dad's educators!?}.  Teaching is something I've known I wanted to be since I was little (which sounds cliched), but I remember sitting in my first actual history class in grade 6 and knowing this is it; this is what I want to do for the rest of my life.  I am even luckier to be going to a school that the majority of the "in-class" in only two days a week!  But for 2 week at the end of the summer, I will have to attend 8:30-5pm Monday-Friday.  Since I will have to travel to the US, it involved a bit of a drive (not too bad though), but I've heard it includes a lot of group projects, etc.  I had originally planned to just drive home every night, and maybe stay over the Wednesday night if I was starting to feel burnt out.  A friend, who has gone to the same school, informed me that I would be crazy to commute, since I'll have so much stuff to do.  So I made the decision that it's best for me to stay the week.  The only thing that is getting me by.... is that my husband, who is also a teacher, is still off on summer holidays then, so he will be able to come visit me with our daughter!


Have any of you moms (or dads) out there ever have to spend a lengthy amount of time away from your child? How did you cope and get by?  I'll be thanking my lucky stars for my long distance minutes and Skype, that's for sure ;)


-A