Dear Teacher

Dear teacher of my student,
..who likes to send me notes about being the mother and my responsibility with homework and absences.
First of all, I am not "Mrs." Peisley, and would appreciate your not addressing notes to me in such a manner. Miss or Ms Peisley will work if you don't know my first name.
Secondly, I would not think that missing one half day Friday while they visit their father, and four days back in September to be "a lot of absences recently". Thirdly, I appreciate your concern when you said "I'm sure it is just TOO much to deal with to try to catch up AND do the daily homework as well"... I'm sure the sarcasm I read in your emphasized "TOO" is just in my own interpretation.
It appears to me, through your note, that you have the opinion that I'm not spending the time that is required with my child. Perhaps you're right, and with that in mind, I have decided to step back and assess what I can do better. I've decided to make a "budget" of my time, so we can determine where I can improve.
My day, as of now, goes as this:
5:03 am (but in all fairness some days I hit snooze to 5:13, perhaps that's 10 extra minutes I shouldn't be "wasting?") I get up, very slowly I admit, but I do it just the same, as we all do.
5:20 I'm sorting laundry and starting the first load of my day.
5:45 I check my bank account and sort bills, paying them if it's a payday.
6:00 I shower, taking a long hot one, and shaving every morning (again, perhaps I could eek a few minutes out of this time for something more valuable, but I'm selfish, I suppose, with my long morning shower).
6:30 I'm getting dressing, lotioning, brushing wet hair, and picking up the bathroom.
6:45 I wake up all four girls (ages 4-9).
6:50 Waking the girls up again while pulling together my breakfast to take with me.
6:55 Waking them up again. What can I say? They wake up slow like their mom and pulling together my lunch to take with me.
7:00 I blow dry my hair and get my makeup on all while yelling from the bathroom various phrases such as "are you up yet?" "Are you dressed yet?" "Do you have shoes on?" "Do you match?" "Did you put socks on with those shoes?" "Who's ready for me to do their hair?"... and so forth. And then also doing four heads of hair.
And if I'm lucky by 7:30 I'm leaving three girls who are ready for the day and eating breakfast before they walk to school and hitting the commute with the fourth girl. (Please note that from end of shower to walking out the door is ONE hour in which I get all five of us ready).
7:45 Drop girl #4 at daycare.
8:00 Clock in at work .
4:05 Get a phone call from the three girls, of which my part of the conversation (repeated three times) is "How was your day? What did you do? Do you have homework? Please do it and put it on my bed so I can see it. Please do this chore before I get home, yes you can play with the neighbors." (These phone calls continue up to every five minutes for the next two hours).
6:00 Clock out. (That would be a ten hour day, just to keep track here, as I usually work through lunch).
6:15 pick up girl #4 from Daycare.
6:30 Get home and start dinner, rotate laundry.
7: 00 Eat
7:30 Clean up dinner and rotate laundry again while making girls finish chores they didn't finish while I was at work.
8:00 Start girls in shower rotation, and pajamas.
8:45 Where's the homework?
9:00 Bed for girls, chore time for me.
10:00 Bed.
Dear teacher, looking at this schedule, I can see that I certainly do not spend a lot of time with my child for homework. You are absolutely right. What ever was I thinking? My sincerest apologies, I'll make sure to rectify the problem immediately, thank you so much for boldly bringing it to my attention. Thank you for pointing out that I'm not being the type of mom, that I actually always wanted to be, had I had the opportunity. I'm sure that, even though all families don't have a sweet stay at home mom to do pages of homework with three different children, we must all act like it anyway. Hopefully next semester, I'll be able to be the mother you think I need to be concerning absences and homework.
Sincerely,
Stephanie