The Best Kind of Chaos

 Marketplace Day

Tuesday started out poorly. Backing my fun car out of the garage, I hit the rearview mirror on the side of the garage door hard enough that it broke... not off, but enough that it wouldn't just snap back into place as with previous similar occurrences. I would love to blame the mishap on my new progressive lenses, but the truth is I suffer from a lack of depth perception every day. I pulled the purple car back into the garage and moved my bags and mugs over to the minivan, feeling more comfortable driving in commute traffic on the freeway in a car with a complete set of functional mirrors.

Thankfully, this was not a sign of things to come. It was Marketplace Day in the fourth grade. The idea for a marketplace came from students in my partner teacher's classroom. As we began reading Lunch Money by Andrew Clements in conjunction with our unit on economy, a student question turned into an idea for a new summative assessment. We created a rubric as students were deciding on products and creating their businesses. 

I was a step behind my partner teacher in getting my students prepped for the big day because he ran with the student's idea the day the question was asked. But we brainstormed, students self-selected their business partners, and created business plans complete with a task list and person responsible for the action item before Marketplace Day.

Then I got sick. The week my students were using class time to prep for Marketplace Day, I was in and out of urgent care, asleep on the couch, and so sick with infected diverticulitis that ripping carnival tickets (for Marketplace Day) necessitated a three-hour nap. I wrote sub plans as best as I could while I was really not functional and linked the rubric into the slideshow. I hoped and prayed for the best as I took yet another nap.

Students who did not travel for spring break had that time to continue to create units of their product to sell. Monday was the first day back after spring break. I was not well on Monday - moving slowly and probably suffering from the decimation of the microbiome in my gut from the two ridiculously strong antibiotics that kicked the infection out. 

I had the students focus on brainstorming activities for the written reflection that was the last item on the rubric, and the activity that the teachers covering for me (primarily from my school's staff) had not gotten to during my absence. My students told me, when asked, that they had not looked at the rubric since before I got sick. The staff members who covered for me assured me that was not the case, but given that was the student perception, it was worrisome on the eve of the big day. 

There was also time to meet with groups to finalize plans and do a preliminary set up of booths. I checked in with each group and asked them if they felt ready for the 200+ students whose teachers had signed up to attend. Most seemed overwhelmed at the idea of so many potential customers.

I decided there wasn't much I could do at this point to change the trajectory of the first ever Fourth Grade Marketplace. I gave each group as much encouragement as possible but also asked them to plan for how they could ensure they would have enough units in stock to have something to offer the final class of the day. We brainstormed holding back some units of product and raising prices.

After my car mishap on Tuesday morning, I arrived at school without further incident. I ripped more carnival tickets for a class of preschoolers who signed up on Monday evening and would be our last class of the day, and handed out 20 tickets per student to each teacher who had signed up. Every shopper would have $5.00 worth of tickets to spend. My students arrived with supplies and energy.

The day was an amazing success. Students had products ranging from jewelry and vinyl decals to lemonade and brownies. At least two groups had created Google Site websites and taken preorders from students. Some were offering discounts for students who came with coupons that had been posted around the building in my absence. None of my students' businesses ran out of product until the very last class, the late sign-up preschool class, came through. Although, during the break when fourth graders could shop, I did have one student creating more product for his booth, and one booth resorted to selling whipped cream on a napkin when they ran out of brownies and plates.

During the day, I felt like I sat on a student desk, pushed out of the way in the front of the room, during most of the action. But my smartwatch told a different story. Even though I was still recovering from a fairly severe illness, I took over 9,000 steps. Whoops. But in reality, my students created the first ever fourth grade marketplace on their own. Really. I was not in the building during their prep and my lesson on Monday seemed to freak them out more than help them prepare for the big day.

Feedback from the teachers who came through was nothing but positive. They told me how excited their kids were to attend Marketplace Day, how impressed they were with the products for sale, and how happy the students were with their purchases. The products sold had real value for their customer base, which included many teachers. The middle school schedule did not allow the seventh and eighth graders in the building to attend. Their teachers informed me they were sad they could not attend. Middle school students were sad that they could not come to a fourth-grade event. WOW.

One teacher in the building purchased a fold out drawing from two of my students and took it home to her toddler. She sent me a video of her daughter playing with the picture: unfolding the shark and roaring when the teeth inside a gaping mouth come into view. The boys who created the drawing turned red, grinned, and gave each other thumbs up when I showed them the video,

I had one parent helper who was in the room for the entire Marketplace Day. He cleaned up spills, picked up dropped products for buyers over encumbered by their purchases, collected random debris and threw it away, and took over booths for students who needed to use the restroom or wanted to shop for themselves. As our final class of preschoolers left for the other fourth grade classroom, he told me, "That was the best kind of chaos." Indeed, it was.

My students had so much fun and learned so much about economics. They were not upset in the slightest that they had to man their booths during their morning recess and commented on how quickly the day went by. The first ever Fourth Grade Marketplace Day was a roaring success that I really can't take much credit for.

Well Enough to Work

 After missing a week of school due to slow to respond, infected diverticulitis, I spent the first weekend of my spring break catching up on the grading I had at home from before my absence but had been too ill to worry about. On Monday I drove myself to school (the first time I had driven in over a week) to trade out scored papers for those that were turned in during my week-long absence.

My desk was a sea of papers, mostly the sub notes I had sent and extra copies. So many extra copies... because a quarter of my class missed part of the week I missed for their extended spring break trips. There's going to be a heck of a lot of work to chase on the other side of spring break.

I got to see the Easter mosaic pictures students started the week before I got sick. Most are still works in progress, but three students finished. And now I know I have to plan time for the rest of the class to complete theirs.

I figured it wasn't fair to measure where staples and paperclips are increasing the width, but it's still a pretty hefty stack of work for my spring break. It was important to me to get in early in the week so I could begin sorting through the work students submitted in my absence. Ideally, they would have started their spring break knowing what they owed me and I would have started mine without much (if any) grading to do. But that wasn't in the cards this year. Fortunately, I found several sets of already scored papers, the grammar and spelling assignments, within the stack. I also didn't write anything too demanding into my sub plans. Other than needing to reread the chapters they read in our novel, Lunch Money by Andrew Clements, to ensure I remember what happened before looking at their worksheets, it's all pretty quick to score.

My friend and co-worker left an answer key for the math review sheet she created (yes, created!) and test she administered that had all the work shown. Since I'm still not 100% well, that was incredibly helpful for my sanity. But the best part about the math test was that she told early finishers to "draw pretty pictures for Mrs. Conrow on the back."

I am still recovering. It's disappointing to give my spring break over to recovery and catch-up work, but it's a lot better than needing to take two weeks off in a row, and huge orders of magnitude better than needing emergency surgery... which was an eventuality the urgent care doctor was preemptively planning for during my first visit.

Diverticulitis

 

While the weather has been going crazy, oscillating from 75 degrees to snow and hail within days, I have spent the early part of this spring mostly asleep. I recovered nicely from the five sick days I took mid-March and was well enough to enjoy Zoom conferences. 

However, I felt myself slowing down the first week of April. I knew I didn't feel right but couldn't put my finger on what was wrong. I didn't want to move. I couldn't make myself walk fast. Nothing hurt, but there was definite discomfort in my abdomen. I didn't want to bend or reach for anything if I didn't have to. It wasn't that I couldn't... again, I wasn't in any pain, but I just didn't want to.

Last Saturday night I finally realized I might have a UTI. I was supposed to meet friends for a pedicure and a boozy brunch on Sunday morning so I bent and reached to shave my legs and dressed in pants that could be pushed up above my knee. We weren't meeting until 10:00am, so after I was ready to go, I logged onto my medical app and looked at my care options for a Sunday. After a bit of clicking around, I called the 24/7 advice line and spoke with a nurse. She, in turn, spoke with a doctor, and they hatched a plan that was only slightly illogical. I was to go to the only urgent care center open in the area on Sunday, in Bellevue, where she had already put in an order for a urine analysis. Then I would return home and call the advice line in the afternoon to receive my results and most likely get a prescription for antibiotics, that I would have to drive back to Bellevue to pick up.

Grumbling about having to drive to Bellevue, probably twice in one day, I cancelled on my friends and asked my husband if he would come with me. It didn't seem necessary at the time, but I didn't want to have to go alone. 

Upon arriving at the urgent care facility, I told the person at the front desk I already had a lab order put in by the advice nurse. She said, "I think we have to check you in for urgent care anyway." I was checked in but had to wait for triage before being allowed to use the restroom. It was an uncomfortable wait. I knew I was very grumpy, so I apologized to my husband for dragging him on this longer than expected excursion.

Something in my description of symptoms alarmed the doctor enough that I had blood drawn and was scheduled for a CT scan. But during my uncomfortable wait sitting in the waiting room, I had overheard the front desk being informed that there was no CT tech until 1:30, and if anyone came in with an order for a CT scan, they'd have to come back the next day. Luckily for me, they were able to refer me to the hospital across the street, and a nurse took me through the underground hallways in a wheelchair for my CT scan.

Having the scan done across the street was great because I didn't have to wait several hours. But having the scan done across the street meant my doctors had to wait for the other medical facility to read the scan and send them the results. In total I spent four hours in urgent care, climbing in and out of the hospital bed to use the restroom probably at half hour intervals, even though I wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything.

Finally, the CT scan results came back, and I was diagnosed with infected diverticulitis - basically my intestine is infected. I asked the doctor if I should be looking at taking time off from work. He said I needed two days of complete rest and put me on two different antibiotics. As we waited for the release papers, I emailed my school and told my principal I wouldn't be in until Wednesday and that I'd write sub plans when I got home.

Leaving urgent care, I had a difficult time figuring out how to get into the car without extreme discomfort. I hadn't eaten all day but discovered I really didn't want to eat. I let out a squeak of discomfort when the car went over the curb to get into our driveway. My husband noted that he noticed a significant difference in how I climbed in and out of the hospital bed at the beginning of my stay in urgent care vs. the end. It turns out, I was in much worse shape than I even realized. It was a good thing I cancelled brunch with my friends in favor of seeking medical attention.

On Monday, coming down the stairs, on my butt because I didn't want to walk, had me in tears. Interestingly, I still wouldn't have called the sensations I was feeling pain. I was uncomfortable and didn't want to move, but it never was the sensation I think of as pain. There was no sharp twinge, no dull ache... just I sense of "I don't wanna!" But it was so prevalent that I was in tears. 

Monday was the worst. My husband told me on Monday night, "There's no way you're going to work this week." Stubbornly, I still held out hope that I just needed to give the antibiotics one more day to work their magic and I'd be able to see my students on Wednesday. But on Tuesday morning, I sat on the couch and didn't eat for a long time because after getting downstairs, making tea and toast seemed too hard. 

My husband was right, I needed the week off. On Wednesday I tackled what felt like the smallest task on my work to do list: ripping carnival tickets into sets of 20 for an event my students are hosting after their spring break, which is next week. I needed a two-hour nap after the work of ripping and folding tickets before reaching to set them on the table next to me. And I only got halfway through what I need for the event. So, I checked in with my medical team again. As can be expected from medical professionals who can't examine you in person, they recommended I head back to urgent care.

Thursday's trip to urgent care was only about three hours long. I had the same urine and blood tests done and waited around in a hospital bed. As I told the doctor how bad I had been on Monday, I said, "But I didn't come back because I figured I needed to give the antibiotics time to work." He said, "That's right." Small validation for how unwell I continued to feel. In any case, I was sent home without additional treatment, which could have ranged from antibiotics administered via IV, a procedure to drain something or other, or out and out surgery. Yesterday was a false alarm visit to urgent care - I was diagnosed with slow to respond, partially treated, infected diverticulitis. 

Meanwhile, in my classroom, one of the friends I was supposed to have a pedicure and brunch with offered to teach my math class while I was out and the other one offered to make whatever copies were needed. They've both been texting me throughout the week to check on my well-being. When my absence stretched from two days to five, they sprang into action to find internal coverage for my class because two other teachers had already tried and failed to find a sub for Thursday. We were already covering them in-house, and in fact I was slotted to cover eighth grade homeroom on Thursday morning while my kids were in a specialist's class. I'm really not sure how the school managed with three absent teachers on Thursday and no subs. But they did. As far as I know, no one complained, everyone just jumped in to help where they could. Since I spent the bulk of Thursday in urgent care again, I was incredibly grateful that my classroom was not something I had to worry about. My school community is pretty amazing. I'm also grateful for the timing of my spring break, next week, so I have another week to relax where I don't have to worry about finding a sub or writing sub plans. I just hope my students aren't too traumatized by my two five-day absences almost within a month of each other.

Zoom Conferences

We held spring conferences via Zoom again this spring. The end of the mask mandate made the admin team at my school skittish about inviting all the parents of all the kids into the building over a two-day period. After my recent seven-day illness, where I napped for five to six hours a day and slept for twelve or more hours per night EVERY day for a week, I am glad for the decision.

Last week I made it to Tuesday before missing five consecutive workdays. I returned for the last day before two days of conferencing over Zoom. I was concerned that my students would not be prepared for conferences because they had to start their conference prep with a sub, and I didn't have time to meet with any students individually while trying figure what had and hadn't happened in my classroom during the two partial weeks I missed.

However, I needn't have worried. My students are confident and articulate when presenting. Their self-ratings and goals were thoughtful and reflective. Some parents expressed surprise to learn that there had been no coaching from me on the presentations. Even the student who has been traveling this week with her mom and was not able to do any preparation before her conference, was able to talk about her successes and struggles with specificity and set goals to meet before she becomes a fifth grader (all while sitting on a beach with sunglasses on and palm trees and blue skies in the background).

I love conferencing with students and their families. In my first few years of teaching, they were intimidating and anxiety-provoking. But I've reached a point where I have to do almost no preparation outside of preparing my students to lead their conferences (and the slideshow templates I've created for Zoom conferences thanks to COVID make that part ridiculously easy), and no longer have anxiety about talking to families about their student's successes, challenges, and goals. In fact, I look forward to it. As I ended my longest run of conferences (eight in a row), I commented to my husband, "So much smiling!" It's a good problem to have.

Day two of conferences featured a strange strobe effect on my work computer where the laptop screen would literally flash repeatedly and then stop. It happened while I was browsing files, on Zooms, and while I was doing other things, ignoring the computer completely. Thankfully this did not transfer to the monitor I had all my windows open on, but even checking the display configuration made no difference.

The flashing laptop screen in my peripheral vision was a major distraction during the first four conferences of the day and became more difficult to ignore as it increased in frequency. But as my fifth conference of the day started, my audio settings went haywire. The external speaker stopped working, and the only audio I could get was very, very faint through the laptop speaker. I literally spent the conference with my laptop on my shoulder just so I could hear what the student and parent were saying. At least the screen strobe effect didn't bother me with the laptop screen angled over the top of my head.

In a brilliant trouble shooting maneuver, I shut my computer down and walked away for lunch. Magically, turning it off and back on resolved the quirky issues of the morning, and allowed my final conferences to run smoothly.

Well over half of my families paused at either the start of end of the conference to ask how I'm feeling and express how glad they are that I'm feeling better. Every family of a student who is new to the building this year, one new this calendar year, told me that the rigor at my school and my expectations are much higher than they had experienced in their previous school. But every family was grateful for the change. One set of parents said they didn't realize what their child should have been learning in third grade. Two told me they felt blessed that their child was in my class. But the highlight of my spring conferences was the moment where one of these families began by saying, "Thank you for being you," and then proceeded to credit me with reigniting their child's passion for and joy in learning.

Have I mentioned how much I love conferences?

Sick Days

 Tuesday was a fairly normal day at school. The principal gave us time to work on our report cards rather than attend a staff meeting. This was despite the fact that the principal, on the advice of the admin team, had already decided that due to the timing of report cards and spring conferences (spring conferences are Thursday and Friday of next week and report cards go home the following Monday) we don't need to write comments on our report cards for this term. 

I used the time to prepare to run my regional teacher meeting, which happened to be on the same afternoon. The regional meeting went well. The teachers in my region brought friends who may be interested in joining the program next year, and were full of great ideas for the requested "big idea" list. I even remembered to locate the code so that those who attended could claim a clock hour for their time. I was feeling pretty good. It's not every day I get to offer other teachers credit for spending their time listening to me talk.

I came home intending to score all the late work that had been submitted that day and the one additional assignment that had been turned in... after all, it is report card week. But when I got home I felt more tired than expected. I created my slides for the following day and decided it wouldn't hurt to put off the grading for one night.

I woke myself up in the middle of the night, coughing. I tossed and turned, looking for a comfortable position that wouldn't allow my nasal drip to end up on the pillow nor aggravate my sore throat or developing headache. Gradually I became aware that I should not attempt to go into work on Wednesday with that many symptoms keeping me awake.

I roused myself and made my way downstairs where I took an antigen test. Negative. I still put in for a sub and spent over an hour writing a document to go with my slideshow and locating digital versions of everything that would need to be copied. I sent an email to my principal and the school secretary after 2:00am telling them about my symptoms, negative antigen test, that I was planning to try to sleep it off the next day, and expressing hope of seeing them on Thursday. Working on sub plans while sick in the middle of the night is absolutely no fun. But I'd rather there be some possibility of my students' learning staying on track without me than none at all.

I woke up when my husband's first meeting of the morning started. He still works from home thanks to the pandemic. His first meeting started at 8:00. I got up and showered, thinking I'd tackle the papers I had neglected the night before. However, when I made my way into his office, across the hall from our bedroom, the twin bed in there suddenly looked like the most comfortable spot on the planet. I was on my way back to sleep when another meeting started and his boss' voice jarred me awake again. I found my way downstairs, and made myself some tea and toast. Then I fell asleep on the couch until my husband came downstairs to make lunch. After eating soup for lunch I slept some more. 

About 2:30 in the afternoon I called my school. When the secretary answered, I said, "Hi, this is Natalie." She said "Uh-oh! It doesn't sound like you slept it off!" Another day off. Although it was easier to create sub plans at two in the afternoon than at two in the morning, working on sub plans while exhausted and in desperate need of a nap (even though napping is all I had done all day) meant the task took about two hours, maybe longer. But it was for a good cause - I could sleep again all the next day.

Only on Wednesday I could not sleep at all. The neighbors had four trees removed beginning at 8:00am. There were loud mechanical noises - engines, chainsaws, I don't know what - until about 3:00pm. It was loud enough to rattle my windows. About 2:00pm the secretary called me to find out how I was doing. I was dizzy with lack of sleep. We decided that if not being able to nap made me dizzy, I shouldn't try to push through the crud to spend the day in my classroom on Friday. It took another two hours to create sub plans. How much was due to dizziness and how much due to the heavy machinery running on my cul-de-sac, who can say?

So here we are. Friday. I haven't been in my room since Tuesday. I napped less today than Wednesday and had enough energy to type this up. But I'm still coughing, still napped after waking up late, and still overly-tired. Maybe the first antigen test was wrong? 

It feels weird to have missed three days. I can't say that I haven't been sick since the pandemic started. I have taken at least a handful of COVID tests, not including at least two when I had to drive somewhere to have medical staff perform them. And since at-home antigen tests have been available, I've kept a stash in my house for any time I've felt a little tickle in my throat or had a headache. I'm a hypochondriac that way. Every one of them has come back negative. But since the start of the pandemic, this is the first time I had to opt myself out of my regularly scheduled life to just sleep.

My amazing teacher friends have made copies for me and one even brought me all the work students have turned in this week... even though I live 10 miles north of the school, in the heavy traffic direction. Since it's report card week and conference prep week, I feel like it's important to try to catch up on grading this weekend. Hopefully I'll be able to stay awake long enough to get the work done.

Wise One?

Twice this week I have been addressed as "Wise One" by a co-worker. Actually, the first time it happened it was my principal, turned partner teacher, who strode into my room and said, "Okay, Wise One.." and proceeded to ask me a procedure question. I don't even remember what he asked. But I had an answer that he liked, so in that moment I lived up to his vision of me as wise. The second time was in a text thread, that I didn't see until the question had been answered by a fellow "Wise One."

How wise am I though, really? These days I feel like I'm just barely keeping my head above water. Having my boss as a partner teacher is... interesting. It's great to have his energy and know he really knows what it's like to be "in the trenches," really sees the work that goes into doing what I do. But it's still less than ideal. As thin as I feel stretched, he is stretched even more. I mean, he's holding down two full time jobs that are both notoriously MORE than full time jobs. Before and after school there is literally a line of people waiting for his attention.

This means he has no time for lesson plans. So, when I put my slides together for tomorrow's lessons, I have been making a copy and tweaking them for my boss to use. I tweak the schedule slide so his specialist class of the day is on the list instead of mine. I remove my bitmoji - but really, I've just been building without my bitmoji more and more so that I can skip this step. I delete the math and reading slides after the one that introduces the topic and switch out the spelling slide for the one I used on the corresponding day last week. (When my partner teacher left, she was one week behind me in spelling, so the homeroom my principal is teaching is still one week behind.) Admittedly, now that I know what needs to be done, this all takes less than five minutes. But when I am teaching and run across a typo on my slides, I am embarrassed spend more time wondering if my boss noticed than is probably warranted.

Every morning I go into the classroom across the hall and bring up the copied slide show on the SmartBoard. I leave copies on the teacher's desk, and on Fridays, put together a tray of supplies for the art project. I feel responsible for the progress toward meeting academic standards for two homerooms. On some level I know my boss would disagree - he is the adult in the room across the hall. But he is using my lesson materials.

The past two weeks with my boss as my partner teacher definitely have me feeling less than wise. Instead, I am seeing many areas where I could grow and do better. 

For example - how can I really embed my math and religion lessons into our IB units of inquiry? I've spent this year tweaking writing and reading to fit within the units. But I have not spent any time at all working toward enveloping the math and religion standards into the transdisciplinary units. 

On a lower level of overall importance, but an extremely practical one for every day - how do you really get kids to understand that there is a correct way to use a piece of binder paper? By high school I think most kids know the holes go on the left and the margin lines have a purpose. But kids do not know this innately, they have to be taught. I have a couple of kids who, despite my best efforts this year, still don't seem to understand.

I know my principal knows I'm good at what I do, and I know he's not looking for mistakes or problems in what I produce. However, it does add a heightened level of attention to detail to know he is not only seeing, but actively using my slide presentation every day and relying on my expertise to answer questions about procedure, daily lesson plans, long term unit plans, student background... and anything else relevant to the day-to-day operation of a classroom.

The silver lining in all of this goes back to a thought I had on repeat in my brain during my first year of teaching: "If I ever feel like I know everything there is to know about this job, that's when it will be time to get out." I'm still a long way away from feeling like I know everything there is to know. That's fantastic because I'm not ready to get out of the teaching profession yet.

Atypical Week

 We have staff prayer every Friday morning before school. Each teacher and staff member signs up for one week where they host the prayer in their classroom, lead the prayer, and provide a breakfast treat. This morning one of the kindergarten teachers hosted. She started with an activity where she asked everyone to write down the reason(s) they became a teacher or decided to work in a school. When we were done she shared that many years ago someone had her write down her reasons for becoming a teacher. She has kept that paper and it has brought her joy throughout the years - a reminder of why she got into this profession and a source of inspiration to get through the tough times.

It was timely for me. Spending a few moments focusing on the WHY of what I do was the perfect way to start my day. Whenever anyone has asked me why I became a teacher, I have always cited Jason, my foster brother that attended kindergarten with me. Jason lived with my family for five months, at most. But somehow his presence in my childhood had a huge hand in shaping who I became as an adult. Jason is why I became a teacher. Jason is why I was a foster parent and am heartbroken that I was not able to adopt.

Last week was nutso. That's already been established. This week was... atypical. Monday was Valentine's Day. My husband put a vase of roses on the kitchen table while I was in the shower. That evening we ate leftovers for dinner, while our new cleaning lady was *still* cleaning our upstairs. We felt bad for her, having to work so late on our dust and clutter on Valentine's Day... but eventually had to eat while she was still working.

On Tuesday, as the end of the school day and the first of my three overlapping meetings was approaching, I felt a migraine coming on. Generally, my migraines result from dehydration or poor nutrition. But I knew Tuesday was going to be crazy, so I had paid careful attention to my food and water intake throughout the day. I mentioned to my co-workers as we were coming in from carpool that I would need ibuprofen before our meeting because I felt a migraine coming on. One offered to bring Excedrin to me at the meeting. When I arrived, stopping after carpool only to remove my coat and use the restroom, I was distressed to see there was nowhere near the door for me to sit. Knowing I'd have to duck out early, I was not happy about having to slink to the back of the room. My friend brought me the Excedrin, which I took before going to a different co-worker to ask if she could take over the Zoom breakout room in my second meeting in case I had to leave for my third meeting before the breakout session ended. She told me our principal had told her to skip the second meeting. I walked to the space in the back of the room where I had set my stuff and started crying. Fortunately, she noticed and basically escorted me out of the meeting.

After settling me into my chair and listening to me vent for a bit, my friend returned to the staff meeting. I was not functional enough for that. I drank a liter of water and attempted to sort student papers. Half an hour later, I was still not very functional, so I chased the Excedrin with ibuprofen and drank another liter of water. This was enough to kick the migraine down low enough for me to attend the Zoom meeting. I ran my breakout room and pitched my friend's book. As soon as I was done pitching my friend's book, I gathered up and walked down the hall to the interview.

Also throughout the week the fourth graders were planning ways to show my partner teacher their love. They created a memory book that included pictures they asked the principal to take during recess time. They brought clipboards, handmade cards, and coloring supplies to the playground and made sure every fourth grader signed a card. Today, my homeroom students made her cards, and after lunch recess we trooped across the hall to deliver them, and share Krispy Kremes brought in to celebrate a student's birthday.

Just in case this wasn't quite enough, sometime this week we had a COVID positive case in our grade level. The email came mid-week, and students in both homerooms believe it to be a student in the other room. Since many schools have mid-winter breaks that stretch beyond the one day my school has off for President's Day, lots of families are traveling, leaving attendance spotty in both classrooms.

This afternoon the interviewee from Tuesday came to teach a lesson in my classroom, and we interviewed another candidate after school. This schedule had me unavailable to say goodbye to my partner teacher. I have mixed feelings about that. She walked out of the building for the last time while I was interviewing her potential replacement.

I finally found time to open my Valentine cards from my students tonight. I may have come into teaching because of Jason, my foster brother, but my students keep me coming back for more year after year.

I don't know what next week will bring, but I do know my husband is doing what he can to help me relax during these high stress times. He's taking me away for a couple of nights on this long weekend. We booked the trip on Monday night, as we ate our leftovers and tried not to feel guilty as someone else vacuumed and scrubbed our home. We'll be a few hours away from home, spending time together that we just haven't had in the past couple of weeks. 

No matter what next week brings, I know I have amazing support. My husband, my co-workers, and my principal are all willing to jump in and do what it takes to keep me sane! I am grateful for all of them.