Some kinda big doings

The weekend turned out to be tiring, but ultimately good and very eye-opening.

Munchkin and I left on Friday morning and didn't have any problems getting out there. The suddenness of my Aunt's death had everyone kind of a mess, and it was good to be able to be around during the grieving. There was a two session wake that we stayed for most of, and had dinner with a couple of our cousins in between. We stayed with BFFg (and her fiance that I introduced her to in their spectacular apartment...I digress) and it was really nice to see her! I still talk to her almost daily, but it has been entirely too long since I have actually seen her.

The funeral itself was actually really nice...my uncle (her brother) gave a really nice eulogy and a couple of other people said some brief things. We were all invited to speak if we wanted to, and there were things that I would have liked to say, but I didn't think I would get through it...and I really just wanted to sort of reflect quietly the whole time instead.

So...the eye-opening part. Actually had nothing to do with my Aunt or my family or anything else like that. It was all about Munchkin, and a stark realization that I have been a pretty bad mother lately. For her, at least.

She is wildly independent and incredibly mature and adjusted...but that is no excuse for me to shirk my responsibilities, and I have been doing that too much lately. I do it because it is easy to...she doesn't get in any trouble or act out or otherwise suffer outwardly if she doesn't get enough attention. Her grades remain impeccable, her social life is booming and she remains a complete joy to have around. It may not be obvious, but it matters to me, and it is unacceptable for me to let it happen.

Having children is not an excuse...you don't get to forget the older ones when you have new ones. My responsibilities to her haven't changed just because I have two kids now, and I am somewhat ashamed that I let it get to this point. Because it was my decision to stay in school the whole time and it was my decision to go back to work last fall, and that is where the problem lies.

What I realized is how nice it was to have three days with her non-stop...and sadly how removed I have become from her life. I won't go into the specifics (which are boring and probably not as alarming to you as they are to me) but I am far too distant. Not by sister standards...I am a lot more involved still than most anyone is with their sister...but by mother standards. And I have a moral (and, ahem, legal) obligation to her to be her guardian and her parent as well as her sister.

The net result is that I found it necessary to make a pretty big decision. Not one that I am really happy about, but one that I think I owe to Munchkin, whether she says so or not (she would never say it). The easy thing would be to quit working for the next four months until school was done...and that was my first thought.

But that is easier said than done. I would feel obligated to finish a project I have been working on, and at the very earliest that will wrap up in early March, and that kind of defeats the purpose. In addition, we are still planning on moving this spring or summer, and the plan for that involves my working until then...I don't want to put that off if we don't have to.

Add in my general frustration with school, and that becomes the thing that I want to cut out for now. In the interest of full disclosure, I sort of considered this a month ago, and I talked to the dean about the possibility before eventually deciding against it. So, I had already kind of figured out what I would need to do and how to go about it.

I still have a semester to go, and I am a little upset about not graduating with my classmates. But not really that broken up, at least not enough to re-think the decision. I also thought about maybe just taking a class or two this semester and another one or two in the Fall, but decided that I will benefit from the total break. I am simply taking a leave of absence for the Spring semester, and will go back full time in the Fall to bang out the last part of the degree, and have it done by next Christmas.

Ideal? No, but it is the best I have for now.