I was on paternity leave for the past three weeks, but I’m numbering these weeks by the weeks of the school year. Even though this is my 9th wßeek of teaching, it’s the 12th week of the school year, so I’m going with that.
The school was quiet, and very still as I stood in the hallway. The traffic on the way to school was abnormally light, so I had gotten to school earlier than most of the teachers and the students. The caffeine in my tea was starting to kick in bringing me more to normal, than energized, but it was helpful regardless.
It was different than coming back after summer break. I was away for fifteen working days when the rest of the school kept moving forward. The complex life of the school kept moving forward on without me. I fully committed to not be involved when I was away.
More often than not, especially this past summer, when I was away from school I’m working from home. For fourteen of the fifteen days I was on my paternity leave, I really didn’t do work. I’d be lying to say that I didn’t peak at my email once in a while, but with power of the email vacation message, I was free from emails.
It took me a couple hours to dig myself out of my inbox, the day before I was back in school, and once that was well in hand, I felt more or less ready to go.
There were moments today of great exhaustion (from living with a three week old), and moments of teaching that I was proud of (relating the story of Hanukkah to modern day systems of oppression for my third graders). I allowed myself to enjoy really awesome musical moments with my 8th graders, and I felt myself challenged by my students, forcing my brain into that higher teaching gear that pushes beyond following lesson plans.
The regular time crunches of trying to fit in too many tasks (and lunch) during my lunch break. As much as I tried to spend other times in my day focusing on my own tasks that had to get done, I ended up talking to other teachers catching up on how things were when I was gone and baby talk.
Through it all, it was a satisfying day. I worried about how Ollie would deal with me not being home. He had told me last night that he was sad thinking about me going back to work, and I told him that I was sad about it too. I wasn’t too concerned about Diana and Ethan. Diana was doing great with him, so I knew they would be fine. I also knew that I would miss Ethan more than he would miss me, which made me feeling slightly feel better about being away from him.
It was great to see my students. Some of these were apathetic that I was back, but many were excited beyond words. There were some hugs, cheers, smiles, and questions about Ethan.
Standing in the hallway at the end of school, I felt at peace watching kids get ready to go home. In that moment their presence was enough for me to be content.
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