Back to Work - The Final Stretch

Well, I am back to work after a nice week off for Spring Break. It was SOOO hard to get up this morning at 6 am, when I had just gotten used to getting up around 9:30 am. Spring Break is such a tease. It makes you think, "Wow! I made it through another year of teaching and it's finally summer! Wait, no...AARGH...its Sunday night and I have to go back to work the next day!" Horrible.

Other people get jealous of my spring break time off, people who aren't teachers, and I have heard many comments the past week about how nice it must be to have such a slack job with so much time off. I find these comments extrememly offensive! I think every working adult should have to spend one week at my job, teaching in a high school, feeling the pressure and stresses that teachers face, and then they will have a little hint towards understanding the need for breaks. Most people do not understand that teaching goes WAY beyond a 40 hour week job. Not only do we have to deal with all our "monsters" in the classroom, but we also have to continually be planning new and exciting and engaging and relevant ways to get our little monsters to learn our material, be learning and updating our teaching strategies and methods and classroom management skills, not to mention the grading. There is NO way that teachers can get all their grading done during a 40 hour work week, especially English teachers. We spend COUNTLESS hours slaving over papers, handouts, and projects to make sure that your children get fair grades, graduate high school, and become model citizens. I earn my spring break and summer every year. Just try to take them away. You'd have a massive uprising of teachers on your hands if you tried that little trick. Not to mention massive numbers of teachers having mental breakdowns from the stress and strain of this demanding job. I don't just earn it, deserve my spring break and summer.

Anyway, on to my day. I was really really really dreading it. I stayed in bed five minutes longer than I should have. I lingered in the shower. I played with Colin on the changing table just a few minutes more. But, eventually, I had to get in the car and come to school. AND, the biggest surprise was that I had a great day today. It was really nice being greeted by my students telling me that they missed me SO much and to never leave them with a sub again! (I'm sure that feeling will wear off!) It was nice to be asked how I was recovering from my surgery and to hear their concern. It was nice to talk with coworkers and to sit at my desk and plan. It was even nice to enjoy the sunshine during my lunch duty! I never ever thought that I would feel this way. I never thought that I'd enjoy being at work, so today was one of those nice exceptions and I had a fabulous first day back!

The only down side, of course there is a down side, is that I had to leave my sweet baby boy in daycare again today. I was worried about how he would do after being home with me for almost two whole weeks. I went and checked on him three times during the course of my day, but he was fine. He's a trooper and had fun playing, ate great, gave them two big diaper jobs to deal with, and even took two good naps! He never naps at school! Yay! Great day all around for both me and the boy!