It's a beautiful morning!

WOW. Today is the first day that I can remember... yeah, that I didn't HAVE to get up for any reason. J&B were not here, Cohen did not have school or a playdate, nor did Lili, no appointments, NOTHIN! Even Luci cooperated - I fed her at 4:30am, and again really briefly at 7:30. It's now 9am and I just had the most wonderful shower (Luci is still asleep), and today is stretching out in front of me like an endless road.

There is nothing we HAVE to do today, really, until 6:45 tonight when Lili has skating (and Ian's taking her. In fact, Ian has agreed to take all the kids, so that I can go see a movie by myself! - unless anyone else hasn't seen Sex and the City, call me if you wanna come -)

Of course, I will get stuff done - I plan to spend the next hour cleaning house, then at least 30 minutes going through Luci's clothes, then work on our budget a bit, and then take the kids grocery shopping once Julia gets here. After that, though, nothing.

And the weekend - nothing planned. OH how sweet are those words. And we ONLY have our own children to care for on Saturday and Sunday. Granted, Ian will be sleeping all day and at work each night, but I'm ok with that.

I know everyone (myself included) expected me to miss work a lot... but the truth is, I'm happier than I can ever remember being. I love spending this time with my kids. It's hard work - in many ways, harder work than my job ever was. However, the stress level has been reduced considerably - all the logistics of transporting kids to various dayhomes/schools, have to fight traffic every day (that's a BIG one), the politics that come with a small office made up nearly entirely of women... I don't miss those things right now.

I will admit that every day I think about next year, and what the future holds. Should I stay home with my kids? We can do it, if I can find a decent number of music students to teach at home. Should I go back to my job, which I really do enjoy, and which allows me some flexibility to watch J&B and be present at my kids' events? Or should I start fresh and chase some new dreams elsewhere? Maybe part-time only, and take a few students as well? Maybe I should go back to school part-time?

I really want to be able to stay home with the kids, but I'll admit that we've become quite comfortable with our current standard of living, and not to mention our dreams of owning a house in 4.5 years. I can teach, yes, but we all know that teaching music is unreliable sometimes. Students quit! It's hard to get a full studio, and here I would have to teach out of my living room, which is never fun for the family. Plus, teaching would mean that I'd be pretty much unavailable from 4pm - 8 or 9pm, so I wouldn't get to see the kids much anyways, once they are in school.

ARGH I don't know. Good thing I don't have to make this decision today! Such a wonderful day it will be!

Hope you all have an equally stunning day.