Day 2: My Day (In a Nutshell)

OK, so here's today...it's a typical workday for me, so things might sound kind of boring...

5:25 am-I am awake before my alarm due to the fact that my dog is snoring so loud that at first I thought it was Andrew...I go through my normal shower, hair, makeup, breakfast routine that happens before work.

6:35 am-I arrive for work a little early, which is good because I did absolutely no planning over the weekend and I have no idea what I'm doing with the kiddos. Therefore, I have time to make up some morning work and put it on the Promethean Board, make a few copies (oh wait, the copier is waaay screwed up), I mean come up with a plan B for my Reading lesson.

8:05-10:20-The kids slowly trickle in, finish their morning work, and we get through reading with little or no sidebar discussions about "one time, me and my mom went to the store and...". You'd think they'd run out of those stories...oh no, they are indeed endless, and as pointless as they sound.

10:20-12:15-So, Tuesdays and Thursdays are crazy days because in addition to the kids' normal 45 minute Specials time (my planning time), they also have 45 minutes of Spanish class, which takes up their Recess and means we go straight from Specials to Spanish to Lunch.

During this time, I make some copies on the copier downstairs in the office (which seems to be the only one in the building that works currently), put together their Tuesday folders (which will go home on Wednesday because of the holiday), socialize a little, go to a Problem Based Learning meeting (where I learn nothing, since I have no clue what the lady is talking about...I haven't been trained yet), aaaannnnddd....I forget what else. But just know this is an extremely busy time for me still, even without the kids there.

During lunch, I get about 15 minutes to eat once I make sure everyone has been through the line and gotten food, knows where to sit and have heated up one of the little darling's Hot Pocket, which goes with his mini doughnuts and school lunch (funny enough, he's the smallest kid in my class).

12:15-2:50-After lunch, I do read-aloud with the class. Then we go through a whirlwind math lesson, and watch a short video on Ecosystems and write what we learned on a chart. Thrilling, I know.

2:50-3:30-Dismissal. Ugh. All goes well until I leave the class to take the bus riders down to the gym, where they always wait for their buses. We get all the way there and one of my special little girls realizes she's forgotten her lunch box. She says her mom will be mad she forgot in again, whereupon I suggest that I just go get it for her, since I don't want her to risk missing her bus. I should mention here that dismissal in the gym, for whatever reason is 90% of the time a complete zoo and the fifth grade team (including me) usually stays to help out until most, if not all, of the buses have gone.

3:30-4:00-I run around some more like a chicken with its head cut off and leave at 4:00 when I can't figure out what I need to do next. Yeah, shoulda gotten morning work ready for tomorrow morning when I have a meeting until 8:30 and my class will be watched by one of the specials teachers. Whoops.

4:00-5:00-Run a couple of errands on the way home, including pick up prescription and grocery store.

5:00-6:00-Dinner!

6:00-7:30-I continue running around, vacuuming, doing laundry and dishes and Lord knows what else, until I finally stop and sit down and realize I've been cleaning for an hour and a half. Boo.

Now I just need to make our lunches for tomorrow and fold the laundry in the dryer...in which my husband has just informed me I might find his iPhone headphones because he neglected to take them out of his pockets...of course I should know by now to check his pockets first, but by golly I guess I just seem to have other things on my mind that make me forget to...