J.O.B.

~August 16, 2010~

Well, I am no longer a SAHM (stay at home mom) and am officially employed. A full time employee. I have a j.o.b. It's been over 4 years since I've had a job, unless you're one to consider being a full time mom a job. This was not actually in the plan for me to get a job at this point but thank God it was in His plan.

So here is how it all happened. Before baby #2 was in the picture, I had planned on doing my student teaching this fall, while CeCe attended school. Since baby #2 came in the picture, I had planned to move my student teaching to the Spring so I could stay home with the baby. And, CeCe would still go to school because I thought it would be better for my sanity and hers. Then Josh and I started to look at the budget for having CeCe in school for the fall and then having both kids in school/daycare for the Spring while I did my student teaching, and it seemed completely impossible, even with Josh working two jobs, to manage all of the expenses. We were definitely in a bind and had no idea what to do.

So I happened to be on the UNT website looking at the school calendar (to determine exactly how many days we would need daycare) when I came across a program they offered. It is an Educational Aide program that helps with tuition costs, but also exempts students in Education from student teaching, if eligible. That was the part that I was interested in and decided to look into it further. Although I had always planned on completing my student teaching, it has now gotten to the point where that is no longer an option for us, since there is no pay. Especially with having 2 kiddos in the mix now.

So I researched the qualifications required to be eligible for the program and I had everything covered except for having experience in a school district as a substitute teacher or aide. I decided to look up job openings in the area on the off chance that an aide position was open. And as luck would have it, there were 2 open in the same district Josh works for. So Josh put in a good word, I applied, interviewed, and got the job! And all of this happened, from the day I found the program online to being offered the position, literally in about a week. Talk about craziness. We went from being completely stressed and in a hole we had no idea how we were going to dig ourselves out of to having hope. God was definitely looking out for us.

As far as the program, I'm not completely out of the woods. I can't officially apply for it until after I have this year of experience under my belt, so it ultimately could end up not working out at all, and me still having to do my student teaching while delaying my graduation for another year. But I'm hopeful that everything WILL work out and in December of next year, I will FINALLY have a degree.

So about the actual job. I am an inclusion aide at Lovejoy high school. It's a great job and I'm enjoying the experience I'm getting that I otherwise would not be had I just completed student teaching. The only thing I'm nervous about, at this point, is having to leave our then 6 week old in the care of someone else, especially after being able to have CeCe stay home with me for 18 months. But I know working parents do this all the time and things work out. I just know that I'm gonna need some heavy anxiety relief when that day comes.