Tomorrow Morning

Well, I guess diving it is.

Right now my lunch is packed, my outfit is laid out, the coffee is all set for the morning and I'm about to take a shower even though my last shower was only two days ago. Tomorrow morning is my first day of work at my new part-time job.

If you're keeping track, this will be my third job. I'm adding this in with the one kiddo I see for therapy twice a week and the work-at-home nursery coordination I do for our parish. This is is more legit though. It's an actual job job. I have to leave the house and I can't bring my kids with me. I'll be working ten hours a week doing assessments on 9-24 month olds for Autism Spectrum Disorders. It's at a research clinic associated with the university in town. The test I'll be giving is actually the same one I studied for my thesis years ago all the way back in Missouri. The professor is a professional idol (too strong of word? well, someone I admired in grad school then) and I just can't believe the "small worldishness" of me actually ending up in her town and getting hired to work for her clinic.

Seriously, I feel like I was made for this job.

When we moved to Florida a year and a half ago I left a great job in Mississippi that I loved. And although it was hard to leave, I was beyond excited to get to stay home with Hannah. When people asked if I was going to look for a new job in Florida I always replied, "Not right away. If God wants me to work He'll put something in my lap."

This job could not have fallen more directly into my lap.

So I'm excited. Excited to get back into the world of speech therapy. Excited to have colleagues again and adults to talk to and a reason to put makeup on. Excited to have a little external pressure built into my schedule in the hopes that'll it help me better manage my time. But I'm scared. Scared that my kids will be unhappy without me. Scared that it'll be too much too fast and that I'll buckle under the pressure.

But a lot more excited than scared. It feels right. And, at least for the time being, we have a sweet college student coming to watch the kiddos who is equal parts Catholic and speech therapist in training. She's me...about seven years ago. It'll be the first time we ever pay anyone to watch our kids. And it's weird. It's really weird. I feel like I am a college student taking care of other people's kids. Not the person with the two kids paying the college student. Life happens so fast.

After my initial weeks of training, I'll be able to do about half the hours from home. Which will be great, but definitely a test in self discipline. And I have no previous experience having passed that test. So that'll be interesting. But for now, I'm about to venture outside the walls of this house without my kids for ten hours a week. I will miss them. They'll most likely be fine. And I hope we'll all be the better for it. I hope we'll have a little breathing room in our budget. And I hope that I'll be an asset to families just finding out that their children have Autism and be able to get them the help they need.

It's going to be a big adjustment. I've done working mom and I've done stay-at-home mom. But I've never tried to marry the two. I'll probably lay awake in bed far too late tonight with that first-day-of-school mix of nerves and excitement. I'll probably be completely exhausted at this time tomorrow.

So if you could spare a prayer for me tomorrow, I wouldn't decline your generosity. Pray for Bonnie too, while you're at it. And I have two special intentions that would greatly appreciate your prayers as well.

Here goes nothin'!