Some Things have happened in the last 2 years. Let's go over them, shall we?
Maggie, our first-born, was so awesome that we decided to have another before I finished my PhD (because assuming you have a willing partner and aren't up to your eyeballs in debt, I still maintain that graduate school is the BEST TIME to have children). So in summer of 2012, I got pregnant with Baby #2. In September of 2012, I learned that Baby #2 was Babies #2 & #3. This is what happens, I learned, when I try to over-plan my life: Life smacks me in the face with something unpredictable and occasionally overwhelming. When the ultrasound tech said, "And here's Baby B!" I burst out laughing on the ultrasound table, and I couldn't stop until the tech offered to get my a paper bag to breathe into, since apparently my maniacal laughter sounded a lot like hyperventilating. She thought I took the news remarkably well, actually. But my vision of our life had always involved TWO children, not three. Three children would outnumber us. Three children would require the purchase of a minivan. Three children would require me to break cookies evenly into thirds instead of into halves.
But we got used to the idea. We bought a minivan. And we started working on our zone defense options, since clearly man-to-man wasn't going to work anymore. Tom and Kate were born on February 26, 2013, about a month before their due date. I'd planned on carrying them to 38 weeks and persuading Tom (Baby A) to turn head-down by sheer force of maternal will, but again, Life decided to smack me in the face for attempting to plan anything, and I ended up having a c-section delivery at 35 1/2 weeks. I didn't hyperventilate this time, at least-- but I did finish the line edits of my dissertation while I was in triage in the hospital. I filed my dissertation when the twins were a week old. And then I accepted a job teaching English at a boarding school in New England.
Some time after Maggie was born in May, 2011, I began reassessing my goals with the PhD. Why, I asked myself, did I want to pursue a career in higher education? Actually, I'd been asking myself this question for ages-- pretty much since I started the whole process. The tenure system is broken, most institutions would rather spend money on new dorms and athletic facilities to wow donors, alums, and prospective students than on support staff, academic facilities, or even on full-time faculty salary lines. My own building at UC Berkeley leaked during the rainy season. The supposed goal of every incoming graduate student-- a TT job at an R1 university or a top-tier liberal arts college-- began to seem less and less compatible with reality, let alone the kind of lifestyle that I had in mind.
But, I love to teach. And I love to teach high schoolers. The transition wasn't a tough one, and the decision to take a teaching post at a boarding school in New England was a no-brainer for me, albeit one that surprised some of my peers and most of my professors.
So here I am, orchestrating a cross-country move with 3-month-old twins, a 2-year-old, a wondermutt, and an incredibly supportive, though somewhat frazzled, spouse.
