Ooh, I'm feeling nervous but less stressed than I have been, so I think I've made the right decision even though I know I'll catch flak from friends and family alike for it...

As background, I'm currently in my last semester of classes toward my doctorate. It works out nicely, because I live about a mile from my school, and my classes meet just one day a week - for 2 1/2 hours at a time, so I can stop home between classes to feed Jacob and we have a truly wonderful woman here with him while I'm gone. I'm working two jobs, one as a supervisor at a testing clinic in the same building as my school and the other teaching at a nearby college - for those, I'm never away from home more than 2 1/2 hours at a stretch. So, it's been really, really busy for me, but it's all been working out, so I'm home with my kids a lot but still making some academic and professional progress.

So, on top of classes, this year I've been involved in the application process for an internship, which would run for a year starting in July. It was a huge, nasty application, and then I had a pile of interviews, and things were generally looking pretty good - like I was going to get a decent internship site. I didn't get an interview at my first choice, but the other places seemed pretty good. But I wasn't enjoying the process, and I kept putting off writing my thank-you notes, and was generally feeling very stressed out about how I was going to rank my sites (it's all decided by a computer program, I rank my top choices and they all rank me, and then the computer figures out where we all get placed), etc. And I realized that I don't WANT to go to internship next year.

Jacob will be a year old, Emily will just be starting kindergarten, and I just feel like I need to be home a little bit longer to help with the transitions. We'll be moving over the summer, my husband is going back for his doctorate in math, I'll be weaning Jacob sometime around then, and so on and so forth... I just feel like I need to be home more. If I take an internship, I'll be out of the house at least 40 hours a week, more likely around 60 (40 hour placement plus an hour commute each way). I just can't do it yet! But if I wait another year, then Emily will be in first grade, full days in school, and Jacob will be 2, much easier to place in day care or Montessori.

So, phew. It's been a really tough decision to make, and there's so much pressure at school to do everything a certain way, but I feel like this is the best decision I can make for my family...

Wish me luck, this is hard! At least I've done stay-home mom thing before, so that won't be total culture shock!