Slack

With the end of the school year came a boatload of papers from Alyssa's cubby, her desk and her locker at school.

Among those papers was her report card. It was great, which wasn't surprising. She's a good student. She likes school and works hard. Her teacher always says she's a delightful student.

Written on the report card was her teacher's recommendation that all students finishing the second grade take advantage of the reading intervention program that was being offered this summer.

It was going to be at the school this week and next, Monday through Thursday, from 8:00am to 9:30am. I thought, "What a great opportunity to make sure A's still reading, retaining all she's learned over the past year."

And then I thought, "Oh crap, how are we going to manage that schedule?" I dithered, thinking, "Well, I could be late to work by about seven minutes those eight days. My boss is pretty understanding. And I could see if my mom will pick Alyssa up. But wait...she has Olivia and Jaxon, that's a lot to ask of her..."

Then it hit me. I have a husband. One who works FROM HOME, which means, he doesn't have a timeclock (literal or figurative) to punch. HE can take her AND pick her up, dropping her off at my mom's after the class is over each day.

So I hemmed and hawed about asking him to do this.

He's totally on board with her taking the class, but I wasn't sure how he'd feel about the drop off and pick up interfering with his 'work' time.

So, last week, before emailing the coordinator of the program to enroll Alyssa, I put on my big girl pants (literally and figuratively, I am, afterall, a 'big' girl) and told Tom that if he agreed with me that A should go to this reading intervention program, he'd have to do all the transportation work.

And imagine my surprise when he shrugged and said, "Okay."

He's slowly picking up the slack that I'm leaving behind. He's been home with us for five months now and we're still acclimating ourselves to this living together ALL THE TIME thing. We're getting there. It's taking some adjustments on all our parts, the girls still look to me for most of their needs/wants but they're getting used to having a second parent in the house.

And that's nice.

I'm also realizing that I have to ask for help more often. Instead of sitting around, seething about how much I do and how much of what I do is unappreciated, I need to speak up and tell those I love the most in the world when they're driving me crazy. In the end, it would be kinder to do so than to storm around the house like a crazy woman, mad at the world but not telling anyone.

No one can fix anything if they don't know what's wrong.

I'm a work in progress, just like my family is. As long as we all continue to work for the greater good we're going to be just fine.