a change is gonna come

I have big news:  I have a full-time job lined up for the fall!  Pretty much the dream job--teaching 7th grade English in a highly competitive school district with a history of very high performing students.  The school is just a town away, so my commute is nearly negligible (about 15 minutes), and the panel of my soon-to-be colleagues who conducted the interview were all incredibly welcoming, professional, bright, and warm, so I am confident that I'll have a supportive staff around me.  It's pretty much the most awesome thing ever.  I am still pinching myself over landing the interview, let alone the job.  I was lucky to have superb people supplying my references, and a good word from the high school principal in the district I've been working in for the past few years as well.  Whatever combination of luck, fate, and major interview preparation culminated in this turn of events, I am PUMPED.

Well, mostly pumped.  I have to admit that the prospect of going back to work full-time is terrifying in a couple of ways--logistically & emotionally.  The Natster and I had such a great day together yesterday, just the two of us.  These days of mommy-daughter adventures will quite suddenly stop being spontaneous and twice-weekly once the school year starts.  That kind of quality time will require planning and effort in a way that it just hasn't throughout Natalie's life.  Chasing her around the playground & driving her to gymnastics & treating her to an ice cream cone yesterday felt So Good (mostly because she was on incredibly good behavior), and definitely pulled at my heart strings when I started thinking about how different weekdays are going to be for us in just a couple of months.

The more practical end of things is also going to pose a challenge, but I know that families do it all the time so I'm trying to remain optimistic about how it will all come together.  We've already made the tough decision to transfer Natalie from her current daycare location to a facility closer to my school (it's run by the same people, so we are confident that the teachers & resources will continue to be excellent), which means that she will need to adjust to new teachers and make new friends.  We have been lucky to settle into a very comfortable routine at her current daycare, and I am absolutely dreading the transition that will begin next week.  She'll start going to her new location two days per week for the summer, and then switch over to full-time (or near-full-time) daycare for the first time in her life once the school year begins.  Eek.  I am excited for her to have the routine and structure and stimulation of more daycare time, but I have a feeling it's going to be a rough adjustment for her. 

Also?  I have gotten kind of accustomed to a couple of weekdays off that can be pajama-coloring-play-dough-sticker-book days.  It's going to be more than a little weird to be a five-day-a-week adult in the real world.  Double eek.

But!  I am so excited about the job--the teaching, the classroom decorating, the more professional lifestyle, the holy-heck-this-is-my-real-career feeling, all of it.  I am planning on writing a little post with some of the tips I found helpful for preparing for the interview, and some links to the Pinspiration I've found already for my classroom and lesson plans.  Woo hoo!