The buzzing in my head . . .

What can I say? I don't really get to blog much any more. I was blogging weekly about Weight Watchers but even that has taken a back seat to the rest of my life. I am very busy now that school has started again. We have a new reading curriculum and while I think that it is very good and will be very successful, it is a lot of work and we haven't had much guidance. (They are trying but there isn't much time for it) This makes for a very overwhelming and stressful year. We are figuring out what is expected from this curriculum ourselves with some support from literacy coaches but even they have a lot going on trying to cover 5 buildings between 2 of them. I enjoy the teaching part but the planning part takes a long time. I went to my mom's (was just going to stop by for a few minutes) and ended up making student V.I.P. books and putting together Scholastic Book Orders while my parents played with IKup. Then we ate dinner and played a little bit until it was time for IKup to go to bed. I took him home, got him changed and put to bed and then started working. That was at about 8:30. Now it's almost 10 and I have reading, math, and part of writing planned. I looked back at my plans from last year but there isn't much I can do with them. Everything is very different. The writing curriculum hasn't changed but there is a little bit of overlap with the reading so some of the things I did for writing last year don't apply this year. We'll see.

The frustrating thing is that I planned on Wednesday and followed what I thought we were supposed to follow and then found out that there is a better way that was hiding in the back of the reading binder. Thank goodness Nuetz shared with all of us. The way she found is way better and less repetitive. It was starting to get boring. It's just too bad that the district never went through our CD with us to let us know what the reading curriculum had for us. Yes, I realize that they went through a lot of it over the summer. But guess what? I am a teacher for many reasons. One of those reasons is because I wanted to be a mom who had time for her kids. I have always wanted to be a mom. It's the most important part of my life. I don't think I would be happy any other way. Being a teacher gives me a schedule that allows me to spend as much time with my child as possible and still work. The summer is a huge part of that. Yes, they would have paid me to go the inservices in the summer. Unfortunately, I would have paid more in childcare than I would have been paid to be at the inservice. So, I stayed home and enjoyed my time with my family.

I really don't want my plans and school work to take up my whole life. I have to be able to think about other things. That's hard to do right now. I'm the kind of teacher that usually walks out on Friday with everything planned and copied and ready to go for the next week. This is the third week that I'm going into with plans made over the weekend. I can't even carry everything into my house from my car in one trip. That's not even including IKup. Thank goodness he can walk. I have a lot to do and I take things home but by the time IKup goes to bed, PKup is home and then I want to catch up with him because we never see each other anymore and by the time I have any time to do anything, it's time to go to bed so that I can get up in the morning and do it all again. Thank goodness for my parents. I was able to get two things done that have been going back and forth with me for a week and a half.

Well, I'm getting tired and there are more things that I'd like to get finished. Thanks for letting me vent!