And Now For Something Completely Different

Life has a funny way of working out sometimes. I've been thinking about getting back into tutoring at night, as a means to escape my mundane existence and to get back to doing something I cherish, and lo and behold the phone rings last night...it was a previous client.

I worked with the woman's son for seven years, from third until tenth grade, when he became too cool for a tutor. He is a junior this year and is doing quite well, pulling off a B average. For a child who got stomach pains and never wanted to go to school (due to a terrible learning disability) he is doing amazingly well. And he has also become a vegetarian and a political soapbox-stander-onner, so I am particularly proud. From working with him I managed to get five other children in his neighborhood. I was the town tutor, so to speak. When the boys were born, I kept it up on and off for about three years. When Ian started to have issues I cut back as much as I could. I ended up only working with the original student and then eventually stopped working with him when his live-in grandmother became terminally ill and the family needed to simplify things. By that time he did not need me as a confidence booster anymore.

This time they've called me to work with the boy's cousin. His mother has taken care of her everyday since she was a baby, as her parents are divorced and her father is a single parent. He runs his own machine shop and works ten to twelve hours a day. Couple that with the fact that the girl is now hitting puberty (and talking on the phone and IM'ing everyone for hours) and you can see why her average to above average grades have slipped to D's and F's. She actually REQUESTED that I come to work with her. I am flattered.

The problem is this: I do not know if it is logistically possible for me to do it. They want me one or two nights a week. Darling does not make it home until seven o'clock most nights. When I tutored before my sisters lived close by and would stay with my kids until Darling came home (since I kinda watched their kids all day, they stayed with mine). It worked out well, and Darling came home between five and six. Now we are talking about an hour later. And the kids go to bed between seven and eight, it takes BOTH of us to get that done. When I tutored in the past I'd walk in the door to a COMPLETE MESS because Darling cannot multitask (can men multitask?) and keep the house relatively neat while he was "watching the kids." (read: I was too busy channel surfing or looking up cars on the Internet and did not notice Bugaboo swinging from the dining room chandelier and taking out your china. I had no IDEA that while I was dozing off on the couch that Bug Boy would get out finger paints and paint himself and his brother. And the dog. And the floor.)

So, dear readers, all five of you! What should I do? I want to do this. It means I have to be showered and have my hair done every afternoon when they kids get home. It means I have to do lesson plans again (just an hour, it isn't so bad). It means I get OUT OF THE HOUSE!!!! It means I get to do something I like doing. It is less than 15 minutes to get there. It pays well. It means I will miss out on bedtime and bath time one or two nights a week, but it also means that Darling has to give meds to the kids, something he isn't quite comfy doing. I guess he can learn...