Me again

Well, Adam is kind.  Maybe he should speak at my funeral.  Not that I'm planning to die anytime soon, that's just the type of thing one would want at their funeral I would think.

(Also, I can't begin to tell you how grateful I am for Adam.  He's picked up all the slack I've let go.  He has been preparing meals and helping me with school stuff and reassuring me and ordering diabetic supplies and being exactly the kind of husband I need.)

My life has been upended but in happy ways.  I am loving teaching.  Also I feel like I'm on a treadmill that is a little too fast or I'm juggling fire and someone handed me a puppy to hold, stuff like that.  It's been quite a week.  I've been working 10-11 hour days and I vaguely remember what my children look like.

I'm looking forward to a long weekend and I'm hoping to reconnect with my home life a little.  (Also, I'm going to probably spend a few hours at school...)

I'm trying to play catch up to all the things most teachers do in the summer and I'm trying to wrap my mind around the curriculum and schedule.  The standing in front of the class and teaching them part is what makes the rest worthwhile.

I have the cutest kids in the school.  They are funny and shy and chatty and affectionate and anxious and bright and naughty and angry and creative and have low impulse control and I love them all.  It's easier in a lot of ways to be a teacher after being a mother.  I have more context for why they're acting the way they're acting.  I'm more confident to just give them a flat out no to some of their requests and they accept it.

I'm abandoning the complicated classroom management clip chart one of the other teachers shared with me.  I've never loved clip charts because you have to stop what you're doing and have the students clip up or down.  It's much more efficient to just tell a student to settle down and move on.  So far that's been enough.

My students come to the classroom outside door in the morning and I love opening the door and seeing their upturned expectant faces.  Come on in!  When they leave in the afternoon, a few of them throw their arms around me and one student, who has angry outbursts on the daily, told me he loves me the other day.

I feel like a lucky girl.

(I will feel even luckier when I figure out how to not stay at the school for 10-11 hours a day.)