Migraine town

 I don't like visiting migraine town.

I had a headache all day on Tuesday.  It was manageable and we had a pretty good day.

It was the big day that they had earned their reward.  They all came in fuzzy pajamas and within minutes they complained about being hot.  Pretty soon it just smelled like sweaty children.

Luckily they haven’t hit puberty yet, so they were not too smelly.

They had their stuffed animals and blankets and I put everything on a top shelf none of them can reach.

A boy huffily told me that in second grade their teacher let them keep their stuffies if they weren’t a distraction.

I said there were probably a lot of ways I was different than their second grade teacher.

We had a pretty typical day, but the last thirty minutes, we pulled out all the blankets and they got cozy with their stuffed friends and we watched three Pixar shorts.

One of them was Bao.  They loved it.  There is no dialogue and one point a kid said, “Why do they not speak?”

An English learner who usually is pretty quiet said, “They’re Asian bro.”

They nodded like that explained it.

After school, wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, the ac was on.  

We were not sad about it!

Also, Matt had come in our classrooms near the end of the day to give coupons to the students for the book fair.  In the gaggle of after school teachers that congregates in the hall sometimes, a few teachers were fretting about the state of things in their rooms when he walked in.

I soothed everyone’s worries by telling them we were watching a Pixar short when he came into my class.

At least they weren’t doing that when the principal walked in!

Parent teacher conferences are always a wild ride, especially the first ones of the year when you realize which apples didn’t fall far from which trees. 

A mother came in breathlessly and said, “I am sorry we are SO late.  Is it still ok to meet with you?”

They were actually 30 minutes early, but I had the time then so it was fine.  The woman unclear on the time she signed up for is mother to a student who is never quite sure of what is happening in class.  

A super chilled out islander girl came in with her tired looking pregnant mother and four siblings.  Her brothers tumbled around and soon enough the two littlest brothers had their shoes off and they were doing what seemed like a haka on top of my kiva.  Their older brother repeatedly jumped over the kiva (which is a big no in my class) and was equally wild.  The mother didn’t seem to notice.

My student said, “We aren’t supposed to….”

But then she gave up mid sentence.  I didn’t worry about it either.  Not my circus….

All the parents were really nice which explains why I like their children so much.  My headache kept getting bigger.  I went home and finally took my migraine medicine.  It didn't help, which is woeful.  It is the nuclear option and when it doesn't work, I've got nothing.

It did work to make me feel awful.  I hate the feeling of it.  Usually, it makes my headache go away so I can sleep and I don't feel the effects.  But since it didn't work, I was just miserable.  I couldn't sleep.  Finally at 1:00 AM, I gave up and wrote sub plans.  Sub plans written at 1:00 AM are never going to be great and these were extra bad because I said in the plans to have them go to iReady and do the math lessons I assigned and then I never assigned the lessons.  I realized my mistake and texted my team.  I told them to please apologize to the sub and I posted the lessons then, even though math was over.  I figured if she needed some filler in the afternoon, they could do math lessons.

I felt super frustrated about being home.  I would so much rather be at school.  I like it there and I have stuff to do there!

I spent the morning in comfy clothes and I tried to drink a lot of water.  I don't know if that really matters, but it feels like at least I am doing something.

After I took a nap, Mark texted to tell me that he had had an allergy shot between classes, was having a bad reaction and was coming home.

On the heels of that text, he texted that he had driven Adam's car and it wouldn't start.

I told him that there was a battery charger in the car.  Mark said he didn't think it was an electrical problem.  The lights and everything were on, it just wouldn't start.

We both tried to call/text Adam with no success.  I drove to UVU.  I was wearing mismatched t shirt and sweatpants and I looked 100% like I had just rolled out of bed because I had in fact just rolled out of bed.

When you have short curly hair you resemble an alpaca if you don't spray some water or something on it.

I was just rumpled alpaca.

I finally got ahold of Adam by doing a find my phone ping.  He called me back immediately (he'd been at a dinner with his phone on silent).  Mark and I miscommunicated about which building he would be at and we were neither one doing all that well.  He had hives all over his face and neck and seemed pretty miserable.  Adam thought that there was something else wrong with his car--maybe the starter or alternator?-- but he thought the charger would get it back on the road and home.  

Mark and I, in our various disheveled and miserable states, opened the hood and contemplated our life choices.  A guy drove by and rolled his window down and asked if we needed jumper cables.  We said we didn't.

Then the battery charger had 25% battery life which wasn't enough to get it going.  Adam kept saying to try again and I kept wishing our friend with jumper cables would return.

A girl drove up and parked next to us and asked if we needed jumper cables.

It was time for all the nice students at UVU to help the strugglers!  So kind!  She got us going and Mark and I drove home and I directly tucked myself under a blanket.

I realized that I need to be a lot nicer and give people the benefit of the doubt more often.  The horrible sub plans?  I was doing my best.  The guy with hives and his alpaca mother at the UVU parking lot?  They were doing their best.

Later in the afternoon, I took a walk with Kim that was very restorative.  It was what I needed.  When I got home, Mark was coming out of his allergy medicine haze and he and I tried to figure out what we wanted for dinner.  We ran through a whole list of things, but landed on toast (me) and beef jerky (him).

Some days are just like that.