The Door Is Open

(It's a long post, but you may not see another one for a while... so you can take your time.)

Once upon a time there was a teacher.  She taught first grade.  She loved her students, the parents, the feeling of giving some tender bits of wisdom to little ones each day.  This teacher always wanted to be a Mommy.  After some blessings of fertility doctors and happy spirits, the teacher became pregnant with not one, but two little angels.  So the teacher hung up her teaching hat (and by hung up I mean stowed about 400 boxes of primary colored goodness in her garage) and eased into her new role (and by eased I mean cried harder than her colicky son) as a Stay-at-Home-Mom.  She loved it.

Life went on.  The twins grew.  She started a blog.  She embraced her role.  And then Target played some voo-doo magic on her in the form of putting Back To School supplies at every turn.  Oh how the SAHM longed to buy 20 packs of crayons, 20 glue sticks, 20 sets of Fiskars scissors... instead she bought plastic toys and swim suits for $3.99, birthday gifts for play group friends, and Green cleaning products.  She liked that too.

One day, the SAHM had an overwhelming urge (and by overwhelming urge I mean she kicked everyone out of the house in the middle of a Sunday afternoon so she could get her letter -groove on) to compose a letter to the Principal of her Dreams, at the School of her dreams, which happens to be 1.1 miles from her new home.  She decided to compose this letter 2 weeks before the start of school, knowing that all positions would of course be filled, but that she ought to put her name in the ring for next year.

The letter was lovely.  The SAHM hit "send."  The letter did not send.  In fact, the letter disappeared into cyber-eff-you-ness.  The girl knows from watching Oprah that the law of attraction means that you think really hard, put it out there, pray a wee bit, and hope for the best possible outcome.  The SAHM did not know the best possible outcome, after all the SAHM was getting rather used to staying in her jammies until ... um, lunch.  But she did this little thing called praying.  And she composed a new letter, hit send, and waited.

Meanwhile, 1.1 miles from home there was a Principal.  He was a lovely man.  He received the SAHM's letter, got a chuckle, and likely dismissed it as a good try.  As I understand it, within moments of reading the email, the Principal received a phone call from the District.  The phone call said that the Principal needed to open a new classroom, a first grade classroom ASAP.  The Principal could have gone to the District for a list of 50 teachers from which to choose.  Fortunately, the Principal also believes in the law of attraction and could not believe the email he had read moments before from some crazy SAHM announcing her eligibility to teach first grade.  He sent her an email:  "You're on."  She set out the next morning to see him.

He played a good hand.  Never did he let on that he even had a job to offer.  The talk was casual.  The feeling overwhelmingly fantastic.  Then, he showed his cards.  There was a job.  It was first grade.  We didn't even know how I was sitting in that room with him, mere hours after the news of the opening.  I couldn't explain it.  He couldn't explain it.  In what can only be understood as an act greater than the two of us, I think we both realized it was truly, meant to be.  

Later that day, after we both had time to process, the Principal proposed to me.  He told me that things would not be easy, that the circumstances were particularly difficult, but that he would support me, and that we would make it through the good and bad times.  It was easy to put the ring on my finger, glow, and accept.

So here I am, no longer officially a SAHM, off to the world of Working Mother and first grade teacher.  As the nature of perfect coincidences happen, there is a fantastic preschool blocks from our home which happened to have two spots left for Junior Kindergarten.  How do you script it better?

I can only hope that we all have the proverbial fairy tale ending.  I'm not sure how I will navigate blogging and such, but I know that the circle of incredible people I read will understand.  

As I walk through the next door, I hope that I do not disappoint.  Although I will miss terribly seeing the intricacies of my preschoolers first-hand, I know we will all prosper.  Cross your fingers.