Friday, August 24, 2012

Breathing, breathing, breathing, panic

On Thursday morning my aid and I smugly discussed how our room was pretty ready to go. We still needed to get things on the walls, but everything was organized, unpacked, and set up. We were in good shape.

Three hours later I was frantically scavenging for boxes to pack all of my things in.

Three hours after that our well-organized room had been hastily packed into boxes and piled into the middle of the now empty, no longer set-up classroom.

Eight hours later I woke up in a cold sweat thinking about all I have to go to get ready for September 4th, the smugness of Thursday morning mocking me. 

When we found out we could move rooms we were ridiculously excited (and still are). It puts our room right in the middle of the kindergarten and first grade rooms- the perfect place for a room with primarily kindergarten and first grade students. Our kids will easily be able to join their same-age peers and then come back to us when it's more appropriate for them to be in a self-contained setting. We'll be able to be a part of morning assemblies and whole class activities. We won't be finagling our way up and down the elevator multiple times a day. 

The new room is a huge relief. I hadn't even been letting myself think of how inconvenient the previous room was- I'm flexible and I'm willing to work with anything (almost). But the new room is 100% better for the kids.

Which is what I keep telling myself in my moments of utter panic when I think of all the things I have to do to re-set up the room. Today we don't have to be at school but daycare is open so I'd given myself a day to breath. I have a massive stack of books I planned on reading by the pool, uninterrupted. I had a craft project or two I hoped to get to. I announced to my husband that it was "Mrs. Lipstick Day" and I would not be using this day to do any chores- it was a celebration of being alone. "Mrs. Lipstick Day" will have to occur some other time... but that's OK. It's absolutely what is best for kids. In two weeks I won't be thinking about losing "Mrs. Lipstick Day", I'll be thinking about how great it is to have my kids right next door to their peers.

One day I'll have an organized room again...
We can do hard things!

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