A Hard Decision

Every time I think about returning to work full time in September, I get a little panicky. Leave my precious daughter with someone else all day? Let someone else get all those giggles and smiles and see all of the new things she'll be doing first? What about the first time we leave her? She'll be devastated! Granted, we'd be leaving her with her Titi Mari, whom Angie likes very much, but still. . .I don't want to do it. But we may not have a choice.

By returning to work, and thereby earning a rather nice salary, we have the wherewithall to not only meet our current bills, but to save for a rainy day. Right now, we don't really have any savings that aren't supposed to be earmarked for retirement. On top of that, we'd like to have another child, and going back to work helps to ensure that I could stay home again when we do.

On the other hand, I might be able to earn enough money tutoring and working at local colleges at night to make ends meet and maybe even get ahead a little. But I need to figure out just how much we need to make and then I need to be aggressive about going out and getting it. That's a hard thing for me to do, as I'm not a networking kind of person, and don't really know how to sell myself as a tutor. I have a hard time asking other's to help me out as well, which I'm going to have to get over.

So I think my plan of attack needs to be

• get resumes out to local colleges and determine the availability of adjunct teaching positions available at night.
• contact my colleagues at CHS and ask them to refer students in need of tutoring to me
• contact my own town's high school and ask them to refer students to me (less traveling, although CHS isn't that far away. . . about 20 minutes)

It will mean that Miguel and I will only see each other at night and we won't spend much family time together, but I am willing to do that if it means we don't have to leave our children with anyone else. I'll be with them (well, only her right now, but in the near future. . .) during the day, and Miguel would be with them in the evenings.

As an afterthought, I had originally toyed with the idea of me working full time and Miguel working partime, because I earn a bigger salary, but he won't go for that and I wouldn't want to be away from Angie that much. Besides, who's going to have the next baby anyway?