wow.......am I lame, or just incredibly caring?

I figure that as parents, you have a couple of options. You can both work similar hours and allow a daycare/sitter to have a major influence on you children or you can find another combination that will allow at least one of you to be home at all times and raise your children. We chose the latter of the 2. We even went to the further extreme and decided that my wife would not work at all. We chose to sacrifice finacial gain rather than sacrificing moral and heart training. Too bad it couldn't last forever.

My wife had been given the chance to work from home when we first bought our house. We actually bought it on the premise that she was going to be doing that work for quite some time. It payed well and she was told that she would only need to spend about 2-3 hours a day doing her job and that it could be done at any time. That wasn't quite the way it wound up working as her job required her to contact clients and they don't seem to like it when you call and wake them up at 11:30 pm anymore that they like it when you call them at 4:00 am. Needless to say, that plan was't going to work for very long. She left that job just over a year ago. We had mananged to sta afloat for some time, but then found ourselves sliding down the slippery slope and knew it was time for a change.

She was able to get a job delivering newspapers to area businesses on a nightly basis. It is about a 3 hour job and she can start it anytime between 1 - 4 am. She uses my truck and makes the rounds. it will provide the cash difference that we need in order to continue to stay in our house and work towrds our goals. Last night was her first night. She left the house around 12:15 to head to the starting point to pick up the papers. I knew that she was going to follow someone else the first night to learn the route and what-not. I did not sleep well knowing she was out driving around. I think I woke about every 1/2 hour from 4 o'clock on. Just waiting to hear the garage door open and know that she was home safely. Somewhere around 5:30 I must have drifted off into a deeper sleep as the next time I looked at the clock it was 7:45. Not a big deal, I didn't have to leave for work for another couple hours. I rolled over and saw that she wasn't in bed. It didn't surprise me too much as she had said that she would sleep downstairs when she got home so that the boys and I didn't wake her up from the abbreviated sleep she was going to be able to get.

I rolled out of bed, started some coffee and headed downstairs to make sure all the doors were shut to try and keep out as much morning noise as possible. I noticed that she was not in the room downstairs. I wandered back up the stairs and opened the door to the garage, but the truck was not in there. Something didn't seem right, so I grabbed the phone and called her on her cell phone, but there was no answer. It was at this moment that I let my mind take over and the spinning wheel of "Worst Case Scenarious" began to play through my head. This went on for about 30 minutes until I was greeted by a tired looking little boy who was looking for a shoulder to cuddle up with. As I sat there holding him, all I could think of was "How would I EVER be able to raise these kids without her around?" Fortunately for me, those thoughts had not escalated to outright panice before I tried calling her once again and she informed me that she was almost home.

Thank You God!!!! At least someone knew that these kids would have been in trouble without her around.

We'll see how long I let her keep this new job ;)