A Glimpse of What's to Come

Today I went to work for our Olympic School Kick Off that we've been working on every Thursday morning for a large part of the summer. This allowed me to send Landon (and William of course) to their babysitter's house for a few hours. I dropped him off at 12:30 and picked them up at 3:30, since the event was only in the afternoon. He did very well and (not surprisingly) slept almost the entire time. He only had ONE poopy diaper. That's like a record for him, but he had just had a small blow out and then another poop for me right before I dropped him off.

The event was fun and I really think the students AND staff had a genuinely great time. It was so great to see so many smiles and hear so many cheers. I truly believe this kicked our school year off in the positive way we hoped for. Now just to keep the energy going...

After the Olympics and pep rally I was surrounded with some of my former students asking about the baby and my return. I had surprised them by coming to the event and they had endless questions.

It was also very nice to see my coworkers. I work with some of the most amazing, dedicated, funny, and all around awesome people. I felt overwhelmed by all of the compliments they showered me with in regards to my family and post-baby appearance; it felt very good and was just the little boost of energy I needed!

I told one of my coworkers that while it felt strange to admit this, I enjoyed being at work because it allowed me to regain my sanity. Then we laughed knowing that as soon as school starts back up for me I'll be wanting a day at home to regain my sanity. :)

As I drove back to the babysitter's house I was overcome with two conflicting feelings: I was so glad to have been at work to be a part of the excitement, yet I was so glad to be going back home to my boys. Honestly, even as great as it was to have been there I'm not ready to be back.

Our babysitter snapped this picture of Landon in her arms.  Obviously they got along well. :)

??? Questions ???

I want to document some of the questions that are running through our minds about the logistics of the next 2-3 weeks. And please don't panic, because we aren't!

Here are the questions Dominic and I are currently pondering:

? - What time will baby come? Morning? Noon? Night?

? - Will baby be born on a weekend or weekday? - Pulling for the weekend!!!

? - Will baby be a June or a July baby? - Aka what birthstone will he or she have?

? - Will I make it past the 4th of July? - I sure hope so!

? - Will I make it to my due date? - I'm actually the weirdo who is still pulling for going LATE!  Fingers crossed that this baby will be a Sunday baby just like his or her big brother, Mama, and Daddy. :) Or better YET - a Sunday the 15th baby like his or her big brother AND Mama!

? - Will Dominic be at work 80 miles away when baby comes? - When we had William, he worked in Perrysburg.  Even better, he wasn't even working! We went to the hospital over the weekend!

? - Who will handle William when baby comes? - I know this will just fall together when the time comes.

? - How long will I be in the hospital? - Fingers crossed that it won't be as long as last time!

? - Will baby be a boy or a girl? - We have to buy clothes either way, since William's will be the wrong size for the season.  Or perhaps baby #2 will just be in a onesie and diaper all summer.

? - What will baby's name be? (especially if it is a boy since we still haven't officially finalized one!)

? - How much will baby weigh? - My prediction is that this baby will not be as big as William was.

? - How long will he or she be? - See above prediction.

? - Will this baby be tongue-tied like William was? - Man I sure HOPE not...

? - Will this baby be on the bilirubin blanket like William was? - See above statement.

? - Will I be finished with all of my work stuff before baby comes? - Uh, I better!

? - Will we have the baby before or after we move? - Preferably AFTER we move, but that's not likely.

? - When will we paint the bedrooms in our new house? Currently the plan is for Dom to paint sometime around July 4-6.  But will we be having a baby then?

? - When should I schedule to get the carpets cleaned? - As long as the paint is done this will probably be the weekend of the 7th, but that is my due date... So.... who knows!

? - What washer and dryer will we buy? - Leaning towards the top-loaders now that the front-loaders have had so many negative "Mom Reviews".  We're also sort of waiting until we get a nice Lowes coupon in the "change of address" package because we were told by the Lowes worker that you can get that discount ON TOP OF the sale they are currently having (10% off appliances). Not bad, especially once we use our Discover reward gift cards!

? - Will we have our master furniture ordered and delivered early on or put it off until later? - I sure hope it's the former and not the latter. I don't feel like dealing with this once we have a baby.

? - Will William be ok in his big boy bed? - We may find out tonight!  Dom and William are currently on their way to get the new mattress and we are transitioning him tonight in order to to slowly start all of his many changes.

? - How long will it take us to move? We have until early August to move out of our home on Mapleway, so we know we will be fine but we are hoping we can move all of our big stuff in a day or two.  The tentative plan is to move our big stuff the weekend of July 15-17.  Of course that depends on when the baby comes!


And this was just the short list.  Hence the reason why I am focused on Philippians 4:6 right now.  Worry about nothing and PRAY ABOUT EVERYTHING!  Or the verse below from Isaiah - one of my favorite books of the Bible. I know that God is in control, and He is the only one with these answers.  Therefore I am calm and leaving it up to Him!!!

Thank you, Lord, for handling all of these many stress-ers.  I appreciate not having them all on my shoulders.  I am already carrying enough baby weight!

Monday = Mama's Day: Summer Vacation??? I think not!

So technically I have been on "summer vacation" for 10 days.  Our teacher work day was June 1st.  I admire the people who are able to leave that day and not look back.  I just don't know how they do it.  I have always worked a lot during my summer vacation, and this year is no different.  I have been in my classroom working every day EXCEPT last Friday, because I had to meet with the bank for our home purchase and then attend the home inspection of the house we are going to buy at the end of this month. 

So what have I been working on at school?  Well, first I needed to just tie up some lose ends from the year.  Then I needed to search for texts, supplies, and workbooks for my SEVEN classes that I will have next year.  That's right... I am teaching six new classes on top of the one I taught this year.  This might not be that big of a deal any other year, but the fact that I am going to be on maternity leave for the first six weeks of school and then have a newborn/no sleep for a large chunk of the remainder of the year makes this entire thing significantly more stressful.  I am excited about teaching these six electives (even though I am not excited about the fact that I will have the same number of regular English students as I did this year, crammed into larger classes) but I feel like I don't have a true sense of direction.  I guess the hardest thing about work is that I have too many freedoms.  I have always been given the freedom to do pretty much whatever I want in my classroom, which is nice and all... but I would prefer to have freedoms within a boundary that was designed for me.  Of course, in English we have the state Common Core standards so at least I have somewhere to start.  But with electives, I have even MORE freedom and no official texts, so it's a completely blank canvas.  That's great for most people, but that requires a lot of time to plan and search for lessons, time to seek out the best texts and documents to use, and time to create most of the documents on my own. I am working as diligently as possible right now WITHOUT kids to teach and papers to grade, and I STILL don't feel like I have the proper amount of time it will take to do an excellent job at all seven of these classes next year.  Hence the reason why I am always so shocked by teachers who don't have to take their work home or work over the summer. 

Most people just tell me to relax and let it go, that I don't have to do an excellent job because the expectations are not there since the classes haven't been offered in years.  However, I see it differently.  Think back to when you were in high school.... you sat in a desk assuming that the teacher in front of you knew everything (or almost everything) about the subject that he or she was teaching.  If you didn't think that about the teacher, then it was likely that the rumor was that he or she was incompetent.  I don't want the kids to think I am incompetent, but I would be lying if I said that I knew everything about what I will be teaching next year!  Now think back on your high school experience and ask yourself if you ever thought about how much experience the teacher had with the subject that he or she was teaching... I don't think I ever thought about this.  I just looked at my schedule and saw a teacher's name and then assumed that that person was going to do a good job... and if he or she did not then I didn't like them or the class.  Well shoot, now I want to go back in time and cut new teachers some slack!  It's exhausting trying to master the content of one subject, let alone seven!

Don't get me wrong:  I love my job and I am excited to do something different next year.  I just want to do as good of a job as possible and it seems like whenever a teacher starts getting into the grove, the game changes.  Pray that I will be able to handle all of these changes with ease next year and trust me when I say I am doing my part right now in preparation for what the next school year will bring.  Like I mentioned earlier, I have yet to start my summer vacation and I will be at work every day this week except Wednesday as well.  After I finalize the POs for my classes, I will begin to revise my syllabus from this year and create syllabi for my six new classes.  Then I will start writing my maternity plans. 

Ultimately, I feel a bit relaxed when I remind myself that as soon as this baby comes I will be off until October 1st.  I may be working hard now, but I will be doing everything other than working on school work once baby comes and all of this hard work and preparation will have paid off. :)