Done!

Grades are turned in, papers are filed away, students are graduated, and four months of delicious summer yawn ahead. This is my favorite time of year, when everything seems possible. I will finish writing two articles. I will complete the book manuscript revisions. I will prep all of my fall courses. I will research and write two conference papers. And the weather will be mild and sunny and we’ll go on a trip to Provence where I can lie in the sand while smelling of coconuts and reading mystery novels. There’s a glass of rosé in there somewhere, and fried zucchini blossoms. And you know what’s great about this fantasy? It’s perennial. Despite all previous sticky hot summers where I was lucky to complete one project, the fantasy keeps coming up year after year. This summer will be relaxing! And productive! And fun! There will be zucchini blossoms!

Ok, probably not. But it doesn’t matter, because this is the summer after my first semester as an academic mom.

I made it.

This is a significant milestone for me. When I returned to school last January I had no idea how I was going to teach my classes, fulfill my service to the college, stay on top of my scholarly projects, AND continue to actively care for my baby. Sammy was still nursing every 2-3 hours back then. I was still averaging only 5 hours of sleep a day, and sleeping through the night was a dream even more remote than my sun-drenched-writing-and-wine fantasy.

In fact judging by the first day of classes I was fairly certain I couldn’t do it. Wading through the day at school, I felt like I was missing a vital organ. After my morning class I barricaded myself in my office only to discover I had left a necessary part of the breast pump at home. Then while explaining the syllabus to my afternoon class, I discovered that I had misread the schedule and would have to redo the entire thing. But what troubled me the most was the loss of my little yellow pocket trout, which I’ve been using in language classes for over 10 years. That little plastic fish has helped me teach everything from prepositions to the intricacies of verb tenses. Students love it. The trout’s disappearance seemed like an omen. Have I lost my teaching mojo? Can I be both a competant teacher and a competant mother? I felt like part of my mind had run off with the pocket trout, along with my confidence, my expertise, and quite possibly my understanding of grammar.

But of course, somehow, even without the fish, I managed to pull it off.

Now it is especially sweet to look back on that bleak January day when my head was full of limitations from a sunny day in May where all is possible. I welcome the May fantasy along with the fuschia azalea blooms. Who knows? If I can survive the semester with a baby maybe I CAN finish all my scholarly projects with plenty of time left for nibbling beignets de fleurs de courgette in the sand. If nothing else, motherhood has sharpened my imagination… and my senses. I will also be quite happy to spend the summer nibbling only on Sammy’s toes. They’re delicious.