Back to School–One Week Down

On this past Tuesday, the alarm rang as it had been all summer long. But this time I didn’t have the luxury of only tending to myself. Nope, it was the long awaited–depending on who you ask–first day of school. As with the first day of anything, nervous anticipation is imminent.

While the kids are nervously anticipating who their teachers will be, if he or she will be mean or nice, how much homework they’ll get, what friends will be in their class from last year, etc. And Lawd, if they’re in high school, they’re sure to be excited about football games, homecoming dances, parties, and, if they’re seniors–like mine–it’s a whole host of other things on their minds: prom, ACT scores, college, graduation!

As a parent, though, don’t we have our own set of nervous anticipations? A few of mine are:

1. Will I get them to school on time EVERYDAY??? If my son’s school had implemented the detention policy set forth in the attendance policy, my poor baby–and me–would have spent many Saturdays at his school instead of soccer games and cub scout activities.

2. How many days will I need to take off work to go on field trips?

3. Will my son’s teacher be one of those teachers who will pester me constantly with notes home about every little thing he does in class?

4. What major school projects will I have to help with? Like the Black history assignment my son (2nd grader, mind you) had to do: 5 biographies along with collages over winter break!

5. How much money will I spend on special occasion dresses and shoes or special clothes for school performances.

What are some of yours?

A Sacrifice of an Unselfish Parent

I can’t do it. No matter how hard I’ve tried to convince myself that I can it’s useless. There will be another Social Media Made Easy for Authors workshop at some time in 2012. But this is the only year that my son will be in the second grade, eagerly anticipating participating in his schools Black History program.

When I first discovered this scheduling conflict my instinctive decision was to scratch off what I wanted to do on this particular day. It was a no brainer. The kids come first. Then yesterday, listening to the Michigan Literary Network blogtalk radio show, I heard Sylvia Hubbard say that all authors needed to be at this workshop. Immediately the fire was ignited to attend this workshop over going to my son’s school program.

“If you want to advance your career, you can’t miss this workshop,” I told myself, as a stronger voice was saying, “You can’t NOT let that boy be in the program. Bad mom move.”

Second guessing myself every step of the way, I ignored the latter until my son called from school this morning. He must have told his teacher that he couldn’t be in the program because I had a meeting. He was calling to tell me that his teacher said she could watch him until my meeting was over. Ouch!

See how much he wanted to be in the program! I knew then that he would be there and I’d be in the front row.

Times like these I wish I was one of those moms with nothing going on in my life but my children. Instead, I’m a mom who decided to publish a book and simultaneously chase my dream of becoming a successful author while raising my children. As that’s not the case I guess I’ll keep having to make these kinds of choices. Knowing me, the kids will always win. But I’m okay with that. Ironically, when they’re happy, I’m happy. Win-win, right?

LaCharmine (L.A.) Jefferson
Author, Writer, Blogger

Website: www.lajefferson.com

Blogs by me:

L.A.’s Literary Love Life@ http://lajefferson.blogspot.com

A Day in the Life of L.A. Jefferson @ http://lajefferson.blogspot.com

All Things Love @ http://all-things-love.blogspot.com

Naturally L.A. @ http://naturallyla.wordpress.com

Surviving Work @ http://survivingmydayjob.wordpress.com

Follow me on Twitter @lajefferson