Wow

I feel like it needs to be documented here so that every other hard day in the future will be put into perspective, as in:  at least it wasn't like that day.

The first day of school is always hard.

Having so many students is going to be...hard.

But here's what else happened:

• My microphone didn't work most of the day.
• One student had a complete come apart.  She missed her mom and her dad and her stomach hurt and she hadn't had enough breakfast and she hated math.
• A few kids cried during math.
• I pulled out the place value blocks and half of them were fraction tiles.
• My Apple TV would. Not. Work.
• I logged into the new phonics program and I got an Access Denied message.
• None of the videos we were supposed to show with rules, etc. would play.  Or they would play without sound.  Or they would play and then freeze.
• I couldn't find the papers I was going to have them use to create passwords. (But then I found them later so it was OK.)
• My tooth.  Yes, that tooth, the one I have had trouble with for months, has been hurting.  A lot.
• They complained all morning about how hungry they were and how long until lunch?!? and then I was told that our lunch will actually be later.  Only by a few minutes, but still.
• Turns out it takes a long time for that many students to do anything--line up, go to lunch, hand sanitizer, get things out of their folders, stack chairs.  It takes forever.
• I didn't even get to reading comprehension.  Did not happen.

As a little cherry on top, last night there was lightning and thunder banging and crashing.  Living where we do we get some intense house shaking wind in storms like that.  

A tempest felt like an appropriate way to end the day.

Today will be better.  It can't be worse.  Mark told me that.  I said, "Well, the school could burn down."  

He said, "Yeah, but then at least you wouldn't have to go."

But I want to go.  After such an extravagantly terrible beginning, I know it will get better.  Everything is figure-out-able.  Up is the only option.

And they are very cute!  All of them.