2 things

On Monday, I took the day off to take MacKenna to the eye doctor.  I’ve had 2 things on my mind since then that I can’t seem to shake…

(Side note:  Don’t you hate when you write down an appointment wrong?  This is the 2nd one in a week that I had wrong.  Last week, I had written down my yearly ENT appointment for 4:50, but the receptionist didn’t hesitate to tell me my appointment was scheduled for 4:30.  I SWEAR I didn’t write that down wrong.  It takes some effort to put an appointment in my phone for 4:50, NOT 4:30.  Ugh.  Then, Monday, I wrote the appointment down for Monday morning at 8:30 when it was really Tuesday at 8:30.  SOOOOOO very thankful they could get us in later that day since I really couldn’t take another day off work.  Ugh, stupid mommy brain.  End side note.)

(1) We are so fortunate that this whole eye thing isn’t so much worse.  Yes, in the beginning, when everything was unknown, it was super scary.  But, now that we know it was caused by a virus and not something more serious or life threatening/altering, it’s no big deal.

Our appointment Monday was mostly a success.  The ophthalmologist saw the same improvements we’ve been seeing over the past 3 weeks.  Her eye is now going about 2/3 of the way over – still not totally to the outside of her eye, but she can at least go past midline, which is HUGE.  So, we’re thankful for that.

However, the new concern is that when her eye is “resting”, it rests toward the inside (crossed).  MacKenna’s eyes are attempting to work together, but her medial (inner) eye muscle is much stronger than her lateral (outside) eye muscle, so she still is technically cross eyed, even though her lateral muscle is working again.  The way to fix that, unfortunately, is through surgery.  With the surgery, he will go in and loosen up her medial muscle.  This will help her lateral muscle pull more toward the outside and hopefully straighten out her eye.  It’s an outpatient procedure and he won’t have to cut a muscle, which is a good thing.  He is giving us another 2 weeks to see if it improves, but it looks like surgery is probably in the near future.  With adults, you would normally wait 6 months, but since this is such an important developmental time for her, he doesn’t want to wait that long.

Like I said, even with the thought of surgery, I’m thankful this is not a nightmare.  This could be sooooo much worse.  We are so lucky that God has been looking out for us – for MacKenna – and a simple surgery is all that she will hopefully need – at the worst.  I’m even OK if we have to have follow- up visits for the rest of her life, and glasses, etc.  She’s still a happy, healthy baby, and really, that’s all I could ever ask for!

(2) I really, really, REALLY want to be a stay-at-home mom.  Don’t get me wrong.  I do love my job and I am thankful DAILY for the fact that I have the job I do.  It’s not the easiest job and I never knew I could be so mean in my life ever, but I still love what I do.  And thankfully, I get plenty of time off – summers, every holiday, and lots of other random days.

But, nothing can compare to how I feel when I get to spend the day with my child.  Matt even said that Monday was the happiest he had heard me in a long time.  Maybe it’s the stress of a new job, the stress of hard kids, the stress of not feeling like I have enough time in the day to get everything I need and want to get done.  But, I know that my heart longs to stay at home with MacKenna.

Is it even a possibility?  Maybe.  But, we definitely wouldn’t have the same luxuries that we have now.  We wouldn’t be able to save for the future.  We would probably have to stay in our house even longer than we would like.  We couldn’t live as comfortably as we do now.  It’s not that I have to work.  But, I enjoy all the things we can do now (and in the future) as a family and I’m not sure it would be worth that stress.  Geez, which stress is worse?!  Ugh.  I wish it were just that easy.

I will try to look at the bright side of my job, which there is plenty of.  I LOVE coaching and see myself moving up sometime in the next few years.  Our whole school structure will be changing next year as well as my job description (I won’t just be teaching 8th grade – thank GOD!).  I love the staff and feel like I was meant to be teaching out there (at least right now).  Plus, we’re are just about done with the semester, which means rinse and repeat and it’s summer break!

And then I’ll get my time as a stay at home mom.  When is telecasting going to be a trend in the school world?

Are you a working mom?  Do you ever wish you could stay home with your kids?