Yep, I’m home. With a sick-y.
Joshua needed me this morning. At 4:00 when he started moaning and crying out, he needed me. So I went to him. And because he is the reason I breathe, I stayed with him for a little longer than I maybe needed to. Comforting him and holding him while he drank a little bit of milk. (Which then seemed to sour on his stomach so I could smell that he’d spit up all over his crib without even turning on the light o_o )
Staying home with him was the right decision to make. It was a hard decision, but the right one nonetheless.
It’s frustrating to miss a day of work. When I was in banking, if I missed a day of work other people picked up the slack (and we were really, really slow, so there was barely any slack to pick up.) Here? As a teacher? Being absent means being an entire day behind in some cases. It means cramming twice as much as I ordinarily would into one day of classes so that I can stay caught up. Especially when there’s only 4.5 weeks left in the semester.
It also means opening myself up to criticism from whomever is brought in to sub for me.
I’m always afraid my students, particularly my freshmen, are going to be ridiculously out of control on the days I’m absent. I can count on a couple of boys in my 3rd period to be especially unruly and disrespectful. And I feel like that’s a negative reflection on me as their teacher because they act up when I’m not around (though these boys act up when I AM around, so…yeah.)
It’s like the feeling you get at Target when your child is throwing a tantrum in the middle of the aisle because you won’t let him have a ball. Or a car. Or whatever it is he wants. You just feel like you’re being stared at. Judged. I am always concerned with what the person filling in for me thinks of me as a teacher and as a person.
I’m always concerned that my co-workers think I’m slacking off. That I’m not there because my child is “sick” and not because he’s genuinely sick. Or that I just wanted to take the day off instead of having a legitimate reason for not being there.
I’m always so worried about what everyone else thinks. The only thing I should be worried about is what Joshua thinks.
And today, he needed his mama to hold his head and snuggle him. So I did. And I will. For as long as he needs me.
Today, he is my priority. I’ll face the critics tomorrow.
