I woke up with night sweats in the wee hours of the morning and fell in and out of sleep until the alarm rang at six thirty. I kept dreaming of waking up late and the last dream was the most vivid and the worst.
I dreamed that I was living in a huge house and had four bedrooms with huge closets. I ran from bedroom to bedroom looking for a jean skirt and wearing nothing but my socks, underwear and a long-sleeved, blue shirt which matched my headscarf. The kids were all wearing their uniforms and were ready to go and were so frustrated with me. I finally dressed in a mismatching cotton jumper, white with a red pattern, and went to find the kids only to see that they had changed out of their uniforms into play clothes.
There’s a lot to unpack in that dream. Feelings of insecurity. Feeling unprepared. Finding myself in a role that doesn’t fit properly. Being out of sync with my children.
After my week of teacher in-service days, Xenia told me that most moms don’t go to work until their children are teenagers and reminded me that Justin is only seven. After the first of three days I came home and went straight to bed exhausted. I am getting better at being able to spend more time with the kids after school and try to do lesson planning during school hours or when the kids are sleeping or having fun without me.
I love being a part of something bigger than my family world. Being part of the faculty is so much more than teaching. There’s lunch duty and faculty meetings and committees. I thrive in that environment which gives importance to my contributions made and values the time spent on a job well done. It gives me a whole new appreciation for the wonderful teachers my children have in our little private school. It’s also been rewarding to have conversations with the science teacher about the beauty of mathematics and the joys of teaching. I haven’t felt so intelligent in a long time.
The next week was one of orientation and no teaching. My first day of corralling the kids I walked with the head of the upper school faculty and asked her, “What should I do today?”
“You can do whatever you want to do,” she replied.
“I want to go home,” I thought out loud.
It was a good week to get to know the children’s names. I knew most of them from their friendships with Esther and Basil and my time substituting in the classroom last year, but there were several new faces in the upper school.
The head teacher asked them if anyone wanted to go back to zoom schooling. Everyone hated the end of last year. They were unanimous in being willing to take whatever measures are necessary to keep our people healthy and our school open. We spent the week learning hyper hygiene, mask wearing and social distancing. The kids tended to clump up and needed reminders to keep their distance, but they always obeyed. Their excitement and joy to be together again was contagious.
This is my first week of teaching. I’ve enjoyed the time in the classroom with my tiny classes. We have to turn in our lesson plans two weeks in advance which is a lot of planning, but it feels good to know what I’ll be doing for the next few weeks. The computer system we use to enter in all the lesson plans and assignments still feels a bit unwieldy, but I’m learning it. The pre-calculus class is the most fun because I do all the homework problems to refresh myself on what they are doing. The algebra and prealgebra classes are a breeze to teach. It feels good to know that all the training I had has stayed fresh in my mind. All the tutoring I did through the years has helped too.
On my first short day when I only taught one class, I ran to the post office, the bank, the pharmacy, Whole Foods, Albertsons, Costco, and the school. Then Sophia and I worked on dinner together and I caught up on the laundry and finished the dishes after everyone had put their plates in the dishwasher. I managed a quick trip through the Starbucks drive through with Jonah who came home from school stressed out and played cards with Justin while listening to an online video for faculty development about TBRI method of classroom management. Then I went to sleep by nine in order to wake up at 6:25 am and exercise, shower, drink my morning protein shake and get the kids and myself ready for another school day. To motivate myself to get up, I played “Gonna Fly Now” from the Rocky movies. Now I’m looking forward to a full day spent at school with lesson planning between classes and lunch duty because it just might be easier than the days off.
Mike has been amazing as a stay at home husband. Yesterday he managed the air condition repair guys and the bug guy appointments. Sophia has been a huge help with additional grocery shopping, cooking dinner, and picking the kids up from school. Only a few of her online courses have started and she’ll be spending the first half of her senior year doing school from home. The rest of the children have stepped up by helping with the laundry and clearing the table and have all been assigned chores to contribute. I think it will be good for us as a family to be working together.
I thought about buying a new wardrobe for the year but bought a new set of jean skirts and long sleeved shirts. They line both sides of my closet in uniformity, a witness that the wardrobe calamity of my dream is nonsense. The doctor will tell me in a couple of weeks if my cholesterol is better, but I’ve lost some weight, and everyone says I look great!
I woke up from that crazy dream thinking that it was telling me that I don’t have a good life work balance. I don’t have it yet, but it’s coming. It will take a couple of weeks to get into a rhythm, but it’s coming.
I dreamed that I was living in a huge house and had four bedrooms with huge closets. I ran from bedroom to bedroom looking for a jean skirt and wearing nothing but my socks, underwear and a long-sleeved, blue shirt which matched my headscarf. The kids were all wearing their uniforms and were ready to go and were so frustrated with me. I finally dressed in a mismatching cotton jumper, white with a red pattern, and went to find the kids only to see that they had changed out of their uniforms into play clothes.
There’s a lot to unpack in that dream. Feelings of insecurity. Feeling unprepared. Finding myself in a role that doesn’t fit properly. Being out of sync with my children.
After my week of teacher in-service days, Xenia told me that most moms don’t go to work until their children are teenagers and reminded me that Justin is only seven. After the first of three days I came home and went straight to bed exhausted. I am getting better at being able to spend more time with the kids after school and try to do lesson planning during school hours or when the kids are sleeping or having fun without me.
I love being a part of something bigger than my family world. Being part of the faculty is so much more than teaching. There’s lunch duty and faculty meetings and committees. I thrive in that environment which gives importance to my contributions made and values the time spent on a job well done. It gives me a whole new appreciation for the wonderful teachers my children have in our little private school. It’s also been rewarding to have conversations with the science teacher about the beauty of mathematics and the joys of teaching. I haven’t felt so intelligent in a long time.
The next week was one of orientation and no teaching. My first day of corralling the kids I walked with the head of the upper school faculty and asked her, “What should I do today?”
“You can do whatever you want to do,” she replied.
“I want to go home,” I thought out loud.
It was a good week to get to know the children’s names. I knew most of them from their friendships with Esther and Basil and my time substituting in the classroom last year, but there were several new faces in the upper school.
The head teacher asked them if anyone wanted to go back to zoom schooling. Everyone hated the end of last year. They were unanimous in being willing to take whatever measures are necessary to keep our people healthy and our school open. We spent the week learning hyper hygiene, mask wearing and social distancing. The kids tended to clump up and needed reminders to keep their distance, but they always obeyed. Their excitement and joy to be together again was contagious.
This is my first week of teaching. I’ve enjoyed the time in the classroom with my tiny classes. We have to turn in our lesson plans two weeks in advance which is a lot of planning, but it feels good to know what I’ll be doing for the next few weeks. The computer system we use to enter in all the lesson plans and assignments still feels a bit unwieldy, but I’m learning it. The pre-calculus class is the most fun because I do all the homework problems to refresh myself on what they are doing. The algebra and prealgebra classes are a breeze to teach. It feels good to know that all the training I had has stayed fresh in my mind. All the tutoring I did through the years has helped too.
On my first short day when I only taught one class, I ran to the post office, the bank, the pharmacy, Whole Foods, Albertsons, Costco, and the school. Then Sophia and I worked on dinner together and I caught up on the laundry and finished the dishes after everyone had put their plates in the dishwasher. I managed a quick trip through the Starbucks drive through with Jonah who came home from school stressed out and played cards with Justin while listening to an online video for faculty development about TBRI method of classroom management. Then I went to sleep by nine in order to wake up at 6:25 am and exercise, shower, drink my morning protein shake and get the kids and myself ready for another school day. To motivate myself to get up, I played “Gonna Fly Now” from the Rocky movies. Now I’m looking forward to a full day spent at school with lesson planning between classes and lunch duty because it just might be easier than the days off.
Mike has been amazing as a stay at home husband. Yesterday he managed the air condition repair guys and the bug guy appointments. Sophia has been a huge help with additional grocery shopping, cooking dinner, and picking the kids up from school. Only a few of her online courses have started and she’ll be spending the first half of her senior year doing school from home. The rest of the children have stepped up by helping with the laundry and clearing the table and have all been assigned chores to contribute. I think it will be good for us as a family to be working together.
I thought about buying a new wardrobe for the year but bought a new set of jean skirts and long sleeved shirts. They line both sides of my closet in uniformity, a witness that the wardrobe calamity of my dream is nonsense. The doctor will tell me in a couple of weeks if my cholesterol is better, but I’ve lost some weight, and everyone says I look great!
I woke up from that crazy dream thinking that it was telling me that I don’t have a good life work balance. I don’t have it yet, but it’s coming. It will take a couple of weeks to get into a rhythm, but it’s coming.