Sabbatical

I got home today after being gone for a whole week taking classes for my master's degree. I'm not sure if that was a sabbatical from my regular life or if coming home is a sabbatical from my academic life. Both are pretty intense right now.
When I pulled into the garage I was met with enthusiastic hugs from the boys. Tobias exclaimed, "Mommy! I missed you, Mommy." Benjamin shouted, "Mommy! You were gone so long I forgot about you!" Trigger the Mommy guilt. I got all choked up and tried not to cry as I hugged them and kissed their heads. David John handled my return with his usual pragmatism, "Um, hi," and a shoulder shrug. I think he might not have noticed that I was gone. That's okay. As an almost eight-year-old he has more important things on his mind than the location of his mother. Elijah was eager to see me and tell me about maybe getting to play a game with Dad tonight if he continues to get along with his brothers. "Dad and I are friends now!" he yelled as he ran off to play. I'm not sure what changed while I was gone but it made my heart happy that he was so happy. Gabriel gave me a shy smile and a, "Hi Mom. How was your trip?" I love these boys. So much. I truly missed them during my seven grueling days of graduate classes.
I'm grateful to be home but I've got a lot of work to do in the next couple of weeks before the summer term is over. This work includes a lot of research and writing about leadership and education. I'm thinking that maybe this is a research sabbatical in which I can just use my family to test leadership and organizational theories and then write about it. Maybe it would get published and I could be hired as an adjunct professor and I could get a real sabbatical. One where I get paid.