Micah McKinnon
Aug 31, 2018 · 6 min read

“She handed me her poop.”

“What do you want to be when you grow up?” my mom asked a 5-year old me.

“Either a flight attendant or a barrel racer!” I said.

That dream eventually faded and moving to Hollywood to be a movie star was my top priority. When being a college athlete didn’t align with the high demands of being a theater major (the rehearsals, the set designing, the technical work, etc.), I conceded to my second dream to be a high school English teacher and softball coach and — something I knew in my heart I was destined for. And just like that, four years later I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in English Education.

Now when people say “ball is life” I get it and this was me. BALL. WAS. LIFE. I loved the tan lines and grass stains and sisterhood, the fans, the atmosphere, and the hype. And now I was making a career out of the sport my dad signed me up for for fun when I was five years old. As a side interest, I had an increased thirst for literature, and the possibility of making the literary classics relatable to high school students became an ever-increasing curiosity.

My ultimate career goal: To be a head softball coach, to be an English teacher, to be at a school I loved, and to motivate and encourage students and athletes on a daily basis.

After a master’s degree, a three-year stint at coaching college, and several different high school teaching and coaching positions that were building my career, I was finally achieving what I’d imagined. I was a head softball coach and I was teaching AP English, both of which I’d been building my career toward. And on a personal level, I had finally gotten married and had my first child. Life was where I had imagined it, 10 years after graduating college.

Being a mom was always on my to-do list, but no one had ever told me that with that would come some tough decisions I’d have to make about my priorities, my goals, my dreams, and my hard sought after career.

In April 2018, toward the end of my second season as head coach of a team I adored, a school I was proud to be a part of, and almost one year after my daughter Finnley was born, a chaotic night ensued. It was yet another evening where I was out late coaching a district game, and me and my husband were argumentatively trying to coordinate schedules around our daughter, and also find time to spend with her. Then on the drive home, in a welp of tears, it hit me: “I’m gunna have to give this up, aren’t I?” I had beckoned the Lord for peace on this quandary no less than 100 times since we found out I was pregnant again in January and now His answer was anything but still and quiet.

I’d watched dozens of friends and colleagues admirably work full time jobs with multiple kids. Why couldn’t I? Why couldn’t I do it all? The kids of my coach friends grew up at the softball field or the football field or the gym after school. This was their life and I wanted my own kids to experience this too. With a traveling salesman for a husband, reality suddenly sank in that at the height of my career, I was going to have to choose.

So…at the end of my second softball season as head coach, just one year in to my “perfect life” I’d imagined, and with tears in my eyes, I resigned. I had devoted 28 years of my life to this sport and now I was saying goodbye. For the first time since I was 5 years old, I would not be a part of any team. Who was I without that?

In my selfish head I threw myself a pity party that I was no longer interesting to talk to — that my social life was fading — that a gap in my career would be unrecoverable. And I was in mourning for my lost dreams — my lost “friends” — you know, those work friends that you wouldn’t normally hangout with or talk to if you didn’t work with them. I missed them now. In my head I knew my daughter and daughter on the way needed me, that there are thousands of women out there that want to stay at home with their little ones and can’t — but my human heart had broken a little.

Now, one month after resigning from the best job I’d ever had, I stand in the shower with my one year old daughter at my feet (because I’m 6 months pregnant and can’t bend over the bathtub for her anymore), and with the sweetest, cutest, most curious little face she looks up at me with those big blue eyes and…she handed me her poop. If you’re a parent, I know you must be familiar with the recurring “accidental poop in the bathtub” setback and now it was happening in my shower…and my cute little monkey was showing it to me.

My husband, whom I love and admire, is the neat freak-germaphobe-high maintenance one in our home and if he were to see this, the shower would then undergo an intense sanitization treatment with a huffy attitude that I had zero energy for. So, unashamedly, as we moms must do disgusting things that we laugh about later, I quickly and efficiently scraped her poop into the drain with my bare foot, smashing it beneath the cracks and ferociously stomping on it to hide the evidence. And an almost instant rush of giant tears run down Curious Georgette’s face as if to say “How could you dare push my precious poo down the drain, Mommy?!” I had suddenly gone from dealing with turds in the classroom to literal turds in my own shower. The difference was, my classroom turds usually became some of my favorite human beings. I gave in to the new chaos my life had become and I sat down with her in the shower to console and play. A former college athlete with big dreams, a former college coach with the desire to motivate the masses, a former high school coach with passion for the positive development of young women, a former high school English teacher with motivation to encourage writers, a former working woman with things to do and places to be and people to influence was now sitting in the shower cleaning up her daughter’s poop. I had to chuckle at her innocent face and the very different life I had now that I never quite prepared myself for. And in that moment I realized there was no other place I’d rather be.

Who was I? The exact. Same. Person. Everything I’d prepared for in my journey to achieve my goals was now being 100% devoted to her and my marriage. It would be delayed gratification no doubt, but an investment and a decision that I would never regret. Instead of influencing students, I’d be influencing my daughters and how could I doubt the importance of that?

I’d always heard people say “Dream big!” “Shoot for the stars!” “Accomplish your Dreams!” But why didn’t anyone tell me to prepare for changes in these dreams? I’m certainly not allocating that your dreams should change once you have a family — shoot, I’d be doing it all if I could! But I wish someone had told me that my dreams might have to change whether I want them to or not. I might have been more mentally ready to give up “the perfect job” for my family if I had known this ahead of time. I might not have been a total basket case the first month of my newfound “freedom.” Goals and dreams shouldn’t be forgotten or forsaken, but perhaps a paralleled stress on the importance of marriage and family is necessary in educational upbringings. A different blog for a different day I suppose. But those of you out there who have also struggled with the transition from a busy work life to a busy home life, let me offer you some encouragement: If you’re like me and have spouse that you love but has a lot of quirks, spending full time with your kids will make them more like you — and let’s face it, you’re who they should be like! I write this with a smile on my face, as I am only partially kidding. Bless you in your parenting endeavors. It’s the most selfless thing you’ll ever do.