Baby Time

My wife finally had my daughter 9 days late, early Saturday morning. I had taken that Friday off again, but this time even my wife wanted me to take it off. We spent all of Friday walking from one store to the next, preparing for the impending blizzard. First we walked to the local movie shop just in case we got snowed in, and then that evening we walked a mile and a half to Wendy’s. As we were sitting there watching the local news, something was happening. Her contractions hadn’t stopped. We knew the plan was to stay at home as long as possible before going to the birth center, so we put in the movie but neither one of us was really watching it, “Are they still consistent?” “Yep.” I smiled, “I guess we might be having this baby tonight.” “Yep.” It had been snowing for over an hour, and there were already two inches on the roads. So we called the midwife, and she told us to hurry over to the birth center before it starting getting ugly. Our friend had an SUV, and she drove us through the then six inches of snow. The ride normally took thirty minutes, but in these conditions, it took an hour. My wife wasn’t talking anymore. She had brought a pillow, and she spent the whole ride with her head down, breathing heavily. When we got there, I wanted to get the hot tub ready because she was in major pain, but the midwife said there was no use, our daughter was coming. Twenty minutes later, Neve was born. Both mom and daughter were beautiful, and I was grateful that I was a part of it. My wife was a warrior, and I got to be the dad and husband that I wanted to be. While she lay on the bed exhausted, I got to put Neve in her very first outfit. It was hard pulling her tiny little arms and legs through the holes, and of course my wife just had to pick something with tons of buttons. But I did it. And I picked her up and sang “Ba Ba Black Sheep” until she calmed down.

We were hit with 26 inches of snow, and our new family made it back to the house that same morning, just before the brunt of the storm hit. Winter Break was everything I needed it to be. I also had the added comfort that I would take my paternity leave the first week of January.

I came into work the first day back from break just to set everything up for the rest of my paternity week. I still needed to make some copies and finalize my notes for the sub. I figured I could handle just one day with the kids to ensure I wouldn’t get any phone calls from the school about how all the subs had walked out on my class. To my surprise, Franklin had already called in my sub. I asked him if that meant I could leave early to be with my wife, and he said it would be fine. It was her first time with both kids alone, and I was more than willing to leave work and spend the remaining part of the day with her. As I quickly ran over everything with the sub, the class saw that I wasn’t paying attention, and they started getting rowdy. I yelled: “If you hear me, clap once!” Nothing. “If you hear me clap twice!” Only a few kids clapped. “If you hear me, clap three times!” No one clapped. After trying several things to get their attention, I gave up and told them I would be back the following week. As I walked out the door, I heard Mr. Preddy yelling, “If you hear me clap once! Why aren’t you clapping?! You are supposed to clap!”

Back at home, my wife was giddy that I was coming home early. Already the kids were taking over her life. She happened to read that Montgomery County was hiring teachers, and I anxiously waited for her to leave the computer so I could see what she was reading. Montgomery County was a much better school district than DC, and any school there would better than Daley. It occurred to me this paternity leave was perfect for job searching. I could call up one of the hiring schools today, and then go out and interview tomorrow, maybe have a second interview by Friday. I could be hired within a week or two. But hadn’t I just given up on escape? I applied for the position anyway, and I tried as hard as I could to forget about it. But I couldn’t. I called the HR office the next day to see my status, and it turned out the job openings were for the following year. That didn’t help me at all.

Over break, I met up with my teaching buddy, Matt. He had spent the previous year with a bad school, and now he was enjoying life at a new school as a math and science coach. I mentioned to him how anxious I was; he told me that he had the same issues the previous year, and I needed to get out. I already knew that, but he actually meant that I needed to get out after I made it through June; he didn’t know I was trying to get out before the upcoming Monday. He told me I could approach the next 5 months like a marathon; slow and steady wins the race. I counted the remaining days left in the school year, 97 days, divided it by 26.2 and found that every 4 days could be equal to one mile in a marathon. It was the first time I had ever allowed myself to think about June, and I was starting to think about how to get there. Up until this point, I never thought about June because I was planning on quitting before then. Now that I had given up on the struggle, I was coming to terms with reality. I just might make it, one step at a time. I even signed up for a marathon in Vermont on May 30th just to have a symbolic finish to my two years of hell. When Sunday night came, I knew I had 97 days left. I guessed that the hardest step of a marathon was the first, so I closed my eyes and took it.

When I walked in the building on Monday morning, each teacher I walked by welcomed me back, but there was only one thing I wanted to know. “Did he make it?” He did. Not only did Mr. Preddy show up every day, but there was no screaming heard in the halls, no fights in the line, and nothing was missing from my desk. Naturally, I had mixed feelings: it was a good for the kids, it was a good week for Mr. Preddy, but he exposed me. If they could be good for him, then I was the reason for their behavior. It wasn’t long ago that I would have beaten myself down in this situation, “You see, you are a failure. You need to get out now!” But I had a marathon to run and a new thought came instead, “So they CAN be good”