Goodness, gracious!

Yes, that is all I can think to say. It has been QUITE the week! Last week marked my first one back to work after maternity leave, and Z's first week at daycare. Our little boy fared very well adjusting to daycare. He was quite tired the first day, came home with puffy eyes after only an hour's nap, but has progressively slept more and more and is now having a standard 2+hr nap (though was pretty much forced to drop the morning nap). For what it's worth, we're still keeping the morning nap at home during the weekends, and he seems okay with that!

Hubby and I are finding our groove, working together to get ourselves and the little one ready in the morning so that we can be out the door on time. I do find that I'm more consistently early for work than I have ever been, entirely because I drop Z off at daycare by a particular time. I've given myself over to focusing on making dinner and just hanging out and playing with the little guy until he's ready to go to bed. I'm coming to terms with not doing a great job at prepping and sometimes paying the consequence for it the next day. But, you know what? That's what happens when you get hired the day before you start teaching and you have absolutely no time before hand to prepare! I still find myself working 2-3 hours a night sometimes, marking and prepping, but even that I'm trying to balance. Today, I took up a teacher on an offer to just use his math notes for two of my classes instead of creating my own from scratch. I won't even know if I get to keep the job I'm covering until the postings are filled next week. Such is the life of a teacher.

me and my little guy at the Saanich Fair

My mind has been on my pension a lot lately. I know it sounds ridiculous to be thinking about such a thing when I'm not even 30 (soon!!), but there are so many implications with my profession to my pension; many of them I still need to figure out. I just don't want to find out I'm supremely screwed when I retire. First, my year off on maternity leave (for which I didn't even get top-up - bah!), I believe I need to pay into that year to make sure it isn't missed. Sure makes a case for not having too many kids! Second, every part-time contract I get only partially contributes to my pension, at least that's my understanding. Considering full time contracts are very hard to come by, even continuing contracts (when they become available) are usually part time. How in the heck do I go about figuring out where I'll be when I want to retire?

I've been driving my husband mental with these questions! I've promised him I'll hold off on freaking out with the need for answers until Christmas, when we have a bit of down time to look into things. It definitely makes me wonder though, how do all the momma's who stay home with their little ones manage when they get old? Hope that they stay with their husbands so there's that additional income to live off of? I've always thought that as a teacher I would love to only work part-time while my kiddies (plural one day) are little, have the flexibility to focus some of my efforts and energy on our home life. But, how much of an effect would this have on my security when I'm old? Hope I'm not freaking to many people out with my questions... I wonder if the google search count on pension related questions will go up!

On a much more pleasing note, I made spaghetti sauce tonight, and I used fresh tomatoes from my garden! The romas are especially prolific.