Deep thoughts with Crisanne

I've been staying home with my kids for 4.5 years now. Prior to that I taught junior high math. I had our first child in September of my last year of teaching. I took about 9 weeks of maternity leave and then finished out the school year. Claire spent her mornings with one of her grandmothers and her afternoons with Jeff-he scaled back to half-time to avoid putting her in day care. That summer we moved about 6 hours away from our families so Jeff could start medical school. We decided it was best for me to stay home rather than move to a new city, start a new job, and put Claire in day care all at once. I am so thankful we made that decision. I love being home with the kids. I know what it's like to work all day out of the house and I know how much help Jeff was in taking care of dinner and the house during that year. There was no way we could have shared responsibilities once he was in school though. The studying kept him busy day and night. Some weeks it was all I could do to get him to stop just to eat meals. Now that residency has begun and student loans are no longer attainable, we really need more income. With the baby due in September, I couldn't really look for a teaching job here this fall. So now the questions become...how will I make some money without having to put it all in to day care? do I want to teach again? can we keep our house/family together if I'm working full time? what could I do that would be part time or can be done at home with 3 kids?

On the note of teaching...I was watching this show about people teaching cooking classes and one of the men said something that really made me think. I wish I could remember his words now, but it had to do with finding your passion and it will be fun to teach it to other people. What I got from it is I enjoy teaching and working with kids, but maybe math is not my passion. I know for some math (or history or whatever) is just the vehicle to reach the kids, but with standardized testing and all the stress with it, I think I lost that sense of passion. Am I making any sense here?

These are some of the thoughts bouncing around in this head of mine. I'll let you know if I come to any kind of conclusion.