It's off to work I go...

I think it’s common knowledge that when I went back to work after having Wyatt, my heart did not accompany me. Sure, I did my absolute best. I worked part-time, co-teaching with a wonderful friend and colleague. But in those rare quiet moments in the middle of the day, my heart would ache to be home with Wyatt. So at the end of the year, I talked to my co-teacher, then to my principal, about resigning.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I didn’t resign from the profession altogether. I in no way was saying, “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

I love teaching. And even my first year of teaching, with all of its chaos and the HUGE learning curve a year-one-educator, was a wonderful experience. I grew from that first year into a teacher that was comfortable in the classroom and in the job field.

But choosing to stay home was also something that I have loved as well.

Cooking breakfast in the morning while the hubs gets ready for work, drinking coffee while Wyatt learns to crawl, finally for the first time since we bought the house getting all the laundry folded and put away, it has been a wonderful year. But, after the Sandy Hook Shooting at the end of 2012, I have felt that at home isn’t where I am supposed to be.

I remember my mom saying, “I am so glad you aren’t teaching now. I would be so worried if you were in a school.” But I didn’t feel relief. I felt like I was sitting at home while kiddos needed me. Like I was the only teacher who could give them comfort. Like somewhere, wherever, there’s a kid that needs MrsG and only MrsG. Don’t get me wrong, I know that teachers everywhere were and are doing everything in their powers to make students feel safe, but that didn’t stop me from feeling like I should’ve been helping out too.

So in January, I started looking around for work. {In case you don’t know, January is probably the worst month for a teacher to look for work. It’s a seasonal job in that hiring is really only once a year, in the late summer.}

I had a few calls from various daycares and such in the area, but none of them seemed like the right fit after interviews and discussions on operations in the facility. Remember: anywhere I chose to work, I was also choosing for Wyatt to attend. So yeah, my standards were already pretty high.

But a few weeks ago, I was browsing through ChattanoogaHasJobs.com (now called Chattanooga.careerlink.com) and I stumbled upon Siskin Children’s Institute looking for a few Teaching Partners. I had actually applied to Siskin a few years ago through this site and never heard anything from HR. at all.

So instead of using the website as a mode of sending my resume, I copied the e-mail contact and sent my resume directly to them that way. This time I got a call the very next day scheduling an interview. Of course I accepted. And the interview went really well. {Shout out to my high school FACS teacher Bonnie—who encouraged me to participate in a job-interview-event which has helped me remain calm and simply TALK and CONVERSE with the people you meet with. If you’re comfortable, they’re comfortable. If they’re comfortable, they’ll want you around. If they want you around, guess what—you get to be around, as in hired. This tip is free. Enjoy.}

Anyway, after the interview one of the two ladies interviewing mentioned that I should hear back “early next week.” So I waited until Thursday before breaking down into tears. {Yeah, I might have been overly emotional last week. I cried a lot. And Kimberley went back to Memphis. So I cried some more. And then Wyatt ran to Colt instead of me. Bad week for pouty girls everywhere.}

Thursday afternoon I decided to e-mail my interviewers {in retrospect, I should’ve e-mailed them a thank you the very next day, but the week got away from me and/or I had a huge brain fart}. It was a simple feeler, saying that I really enjoyed the opportunity to interview with them, I am still very interested in the positions available, and then I gave them my contact information. Twice. {Once in the body of the e-mail, then again below my name at the signature.}

And guess what? They called me Friday morning to get 3 personal references. What the wha? I’ve never had anyone do that before, but mmkay. I pulled a few old colleages/friends/mentors outta my cell-phone-book and got back to the lady in HR.

And then today, I was offered the job. I got a physical {First time I’ve ever been drug tested for any job. Truth. It’s good to live the clean life, because I was like, “Wha? I have to pee in a cup? And Wyatt can’t come into the bathroom with me? Who’s gonna watch my kid while I put perfectly good pee into a tiny little cup for you?” #naiiveabouttherealworld}. And I got fingerprinted for the cabillionth time in my life.


FYI: If you ever decide to go into education, just go ahead and get ready to be fingerprinted more than a common felon. Seriously. I’m not sure why they can’t just put me into the FBI database already. Under my name would be the dos-font-words: “Lead-foot on the gas, now has cruise control set 98% of the time, once got pulled over for driving too slowly. Borrrrrring.” #truth

Anyway, my tentative start date is Monday, May 6^th. And I am super-stoked, super-nervous, and super-ready. There is a little ache in my heart for Wyatt, but I think this is going to be a great thing for him. He needs that socialization with other kiddos. I cannot be all things, even though I would love to try. 

On a side note, and probably more important than the inner-crazy-inside-Ashley's-head-written-into-a-blog, I am feeling great peace about this position at Siskin. As a matter of fact, ever since I interviewed, I can't seem to get Steven Curtis Chapman's song Do Everything outta my head. I feel like God has put it there just for me, so I don't let the ambition of working in a public school system, thus being paid more, get me down. So if you're already thinking, "If she would just wait until August, she could get paid boat-loads more cash to stress-out-until-her-hair-falls-out and still have to drop her sweet baby boy off at a daycare all by his lonesome, you should click the video below and enjoy a song God placed on this earth just for you (and me). It's about doing every little thing in your life to glorify the one who made you. ...because he made you do to exactly what you're doing. Enjoy.

|MrsG