Tuition money well spent!

First, I want to say that I met C's Rebbi and he is wonderful man who clearly loves his talmidim and teaching the important building blocks of learning to the boys.

Anyway...

C comes home from school today and turns on the stereo, blasting Shabechi by the Yeshiva Boy Choir.

(Press Next for Sample)

He calls out to me, "Hey Mom, look! I am playing the guitar!"

It was true. He was playing a mean air guitar.

Stunned that my 5 year old (who has never, according to my knowledge, played Guitar Hero) knew how to do this, I asked, "Where did you learn that?"

"Rebbi."

Take This Job and Shove It?

Every day this working mother makes an inner Cheshbon  (calculation).  

Every day I think about my children getting home and my not being there. I thank G-d that they have no "real" homework and that they are not really going to suffer academically because I am not there until bedtime.  

I think about the missed baths, cuddles, stories, snacks, projects, opportunities. 

I wonder if the rush in the morning is worth it. Would I care about the girls fighting with me not to wear a particular shirt, skirt, pair of tights if it didn't mean another few minutes that I would be late for work. 

But then there is the flip side:

Tuition

Camp

Mortgage

Food

Health Insurance

Also, I do love where I work and the people I work with.  I admit I love the prestige of my job and the complements I get when people hear where I work. 

But lately, I don't love WHAT I do.  And some of the sacrifices AT work don't seem worth it. I am being backed into a corner and being asked to look at a future there that has a lot less appeal. 

There are also the little factors of my health, well-being, and happiness to consider. 

Lately, the scale of Cheshbon has been much more wobbly, much more tilted in favor of leaving this job.

But what about...

(I guess Camp would not be an issue.)

Tuition

Mortgage

Food

Health Insurance

THE ECONOMY??

It makes it harder to get up and go every morning. 

I am faced with what is perhaps the biggest dilemma of my life so far.

Winter Blues, Blahs, and Blechs

We have been home from Israel for a whole month, and life is just not back to normal. Just to highlight some of the major issues:

1. The house is a mess. Don't get me wrong, the house is usually a mess. However, every once and a while the mess builds and builds and gets completely out of control. Packing 5 people for a 3 week vacation and then returning from that vacation has created a situation that is just out of control. It is going to easily take a month of Sundays to fix...What's that? Pesach is coming?

2. We are sick! We came home with 2 sick kids, and all 3 have been rotating being out of school and on antibiotics for 4 weeks. If I see another runny nose, fever over 103, cup of Omnicef, or kid in their pajamas at noon, I might seriously lose it! Add to that my sinus infection that won't go away and poor H is ready to run screaming for the hills!

3. Work stresses. Mine bad, H's good.

4.Money Stresses. On our head: the economy, food prices, tuition payments, camp registration fees, the house not falling apart (poo, poo, poo) and so on...

5. The war in Gaza. Okay, this really needs a separate post, and I will get to is as soon as I can. Let me just say, we are worried. Very, very worried. Personally, I'd rather be there then here.

What a grumpy post. I could really use a funny Trips story. I'll let you know as soon as I get one.

Nachas Alert

Every once and a while, one of the Trips says or does something completely out of the blue that makes us think that we are getting some value from the exorbitant tuition.

Last night, I was looking for a smaller pocketbook to take to a shul sisterhood event (instead of the monster mombag that I take to work, etc.) I asked A to "Do a Mitzvah" for Mommy and see if it was hanging on my closet door. Usually one to be happy to help on tasks like this, this time A dawdled, hemmed, hawed, and basically didn't do it.

C says to me, "Mommy, I have something to tell you." He make me lean down so he can whisper something in my ear. On the first listen, I knew he was telling me that A needed something, but I couldn't decipher what that thing was! I was thinking "Yeah, a fire under her little tush..."

Well, in a manner of speaking so was he. We were finally able to figure out that C was saying that A needed Zrizus (Zrezut)!!

I asked him if he had it, and he RAN upstairs and got me my bag.

HUGE nachas.

I need a wife!

One of the biggest areas of tension between me and H is the management and pay of our domestic help.

We do agree that we need help, certainly to watch the kids from the time they get home until one of us gets home and to clean the bathrooms (which neither of us will do).

I need a (part-time) wife, domestic manager, homemaker, whatever you want to call her. I need someone who is going to help keep my house clean, do my laundry, keep a current shopping list (I will shop), load/run/empty my dishwashers, keep the scary things from growing in my fridge (I will cook.)

This seems reasonable to me. I work 32 hours out of the home (not including my commute!) and I am "on call" constantly. My blackberry is next to me all day Friday and Sunday (when I am not on site) and trust me, no one hesitates to call me with the most mundane, ridiculous of requests. When I get home, I want to have quality time with my kids and go to sleep. Honestly, there is not much time for much else.

Most important is that whomever we hire be exceptional with the Trips. Listen, I know how hard it is to deal with them. When people ask me "How do you do it?" I answer "I go to work." From the first time I gave three baths in a row, I knew that in order to be the best mother I could be, I was not going to be able to stay home with them full-time. Not to mention the fact that we could never afford that.

So right now we have exceptional childcare. AND she is a great cleaner as well. I think we could have a treasure on our hands. I know she needs more hours to be my "domestic assistant" and keep the house, laundry, and kids in check. She knows she needs more hours. Even H knows she needs more hours. The problem? We don't have the money to pay her for those extra hours! So H and I fight about it. I think we have to stretch to get those extra hours in so we don't live in a pigsty, or (as my girls say "Chas Ve'Shalom!") lose her. H says..."we don't have it."

I know he's right. The three yeshiva tuitions are wiping us out.

But must we be doomed to live in squalor?