Phew!

It was a very busy weekend for our family. I had parent-teacher conferences with my kids' teachers during the day Friday; a family get-together with my husband's side of the family on Friday night; piano performance judging all day Saturday; a dinner date Saturday night that unexpectedly bloomed into the kids joining us for dinner; early Sunday Easter basket-putting-togethering; dying Easter eggs on Sunday morning before church; Church meetings; Easter egg hiding and hunting after church; and a visit to my side of the family on Sunday evening for Easter dinner. Phew! It was a wonderful weekend for socializing with family (my favorite thing of all) and trying to focus a little on the sacred event we celebrated.

Today I am looking around my house and trying to figure out where to start on what didn't get done for Saturday jobs. Rather than actually doing something about it, of course, I am posting something on my blog. What a productive mother I am!

Actually, I am taking a hard look at how I'm doing as a mother, especially after parent-teacher conferences. I found out my youngest is very far behind his classmates and his age for early reading skills and some other important developmental markers. His teacher isn't the least dogmatic or bossy about these kinds of things, but my son should be doing some things better in school than he is. As his teacher and I talked, I realized that much of it comes back to how little time I have been spending one on one with this child. I've focused so much this school year on keeping my family together by helping make ends meet financially and just "getting through" every day that the personal attention each child needs hasn't been there. My husband changed jobs unexpectedly (for the better!) three weeks ago and the ripples are still going through everything. One of the ripple effects is that my income isn't so crucial now. However, I have so many different feelings about my personal commitment to teaching piano in general and to each of my students in particular. I love my students, every single one of them. I look forward to seeing them each week. I feel so strongly about children having music lessons and how it can build them and give them skills they can serve with. We need so many people who can play the piano in our church. And yet, I am spending four afternoons a week teaching piano lessons to other people's children until 6 p.m. My own children do not get the benefit of music lessons from me because there isn't time after trying to get through dinner, a minimal amount of homework help after dinner for the child in greatest need (and you can guess that hasn't been the kindergartener), and then getting my children into bed at a decent hour because we get up so early every morning to start the next day's rush all over again.

This balance between self-employment and family is played out in homes all over the place. I know I'm not the only one trying to establish what balance is best for my family this week or this month. And I have to look carefully at how things will change for my children next year too. They will be attending a school that is six minutes away instead of thirty. I'm reminding myself there are only a couple of months left in this school year and that we'll manage as best we can for now and re-examine the family schedule for the summer. And of course, what will work for the next couple weeks may dramatically change for the next few weeks after that! Welcome to life in the twenty-first century!