Truths about Teachers

For the past two weeks, I've steadily been working in my classroom at school trying to get it together before my students arrive next Thursday. I know! Crazy, right? Where did the summer go? I think back on everything Eli and I did this summer and even though it seems like a lot it's hard for me to believe that two whole months have already come and gone. It's such a bittersweet moment for me. On one hand, I LOVE that I was able to spend all day with my little boy. I LOVE that we've been able to go swimming, go to the zoo, go to museums, visit with family and friends, sleep in, do fun art activities, etc., etc. I hate going back to work because I know we won't get to do all that during the day anymore; we'll be resigned to try to squeeze stuff like that in on weekends and holiday breaks. On the other hand though, I LOVE my job. I love my co-workers. I love having a job where I feel fulfilled and content at the end of the day. I love feeling like I am making a difference in children's lives. So there's my problem...I love being a mommy and I love being a teacher. In a perfect world, I'd go to work for half a day and then get the other half to spend one on one with Eli. Alas, this world isn't perfect, so for now I'm going to make the best of my situation.

In other news, Eli has switched sitters again. Finding childcare for your child is just about the hardest thing there is about having children. All of our sitters have been WONDERFUL, but due to extenuating circumstances they haven't been able to continue watching Eli. The new place he is going is great. Mrs. G keeps kids in her home so it's not your typical daycare atmosphere, but Eli gets to have lots of socialization, which is definitely needed after being with me all summer long. Josh and I know most of the parents of the kids Mrs. G keeps, so she came highly recommended. We feel very blessed that he's able to go here, because otherwise it would have meant a long commute for us in the mornings. This week was his trial run there. He went half a day Monday through Wednesday and a full day Thursday and Friday. The first day was rough on him, but every day after that has been better and better. He still cries when I leave him, but he does that when we leave him in the church nursery. He's just gotten very attached to his mommy this summer so it's going to be a slow process for him, but we feel like he'll get to the point where he'll be running to her door when I drop him off in the mornings...at least, I'm hoping for that! Say a prayer for him and for us, if you don't mind :)

While Eli went to Mrs. G's house this week, I went to my classroom to clean, organize, and make it look cute. It took a full two weeks, but I finally did it! I love the way my classroom looks right now; in fact, this is the cutest it will ever look this year! Ha ha! While I was working I had some random thoughts about teaching and decorating:

1. Border makes everything better. No lie. You can slap a poster on the wall and you can call it a decoration, but put some cute border around it and now you have a eye catching display. I found myself putting border on EVERYTHING this week in order to make my classroom look cute. Bulletin boards, chalkboards, magnetic boards, posters, bookshelves, doors. You name it, border can probably go around it!

Notice the cute border? See how great everything looks with border? :)

2. Using clear packing tape to affix things to a table should only happen in emergency situations. If you must use clear packing tape to put something on a table, please loop it and stick it on the back. DO NOT LAY IT FLAT ON THE TABLE! I spent about 45 minutes scraping glue residue from the tape off one of my tables. WASTED TIME is what I call that! Do you know what else I could have done in 45 minutes? LOTS!

3. Teachers will go to any length to make their room look cute. Want to put a beach umbrella in one of your centers, but don't have a place to put it? Drill a hole in a table, of course! Want to mount your SMART board to your wall? Drill some holes in the whiteboard at the front of your room.

Totally drilled holes into my whiteboard without permission and then mounted my Smart Board.

4. The credo "Beg for forgiveness and don't ask permission" has been closely followed this week (see above example of the table and umbrella situation).

5. Teachers are ADDICTED to colorful, bright plastic storage bins. The stores know this, too, so they stockpile plastic storage bins for all the addicts like me who want to make their classrooms look like a rainbow threw up in it. Ha ha ha! The first step is admittance, so here I go. I, Amanda, have way too many plastic storage bins in my room. I am a plastic storage bin addict. There now I'm on the road to recovery. Just keep me away from Wal-Mart, Dollar Tree, Family Dollar, and Dollar General until school season is over. I may be able to make it without buying another plastic storage bin with help :)

Notice all the plastic?

Lots of plastic containers on this shelf, but I love being organized!

6. The cleanest my classroom will ever be is right now. Thursday morning, 20 germ filled kids are going to make their way to my classroom and start touching all my freshly dusted, antibacterial wiped, spic and span materials and germs will start multiplying. Hello, science experiment! I was taping down some cords earlier in the week and had one of those "A-ha!" moments. I realized that I was actually SITTING, yes, sitting on my classroom floor. This NEVER happens during the year because of all the germs that are breeding down there. Our floors do get cleaned but it's not every week. During the summer, they sweep, mop and put some type of sealant on our floors to make them nice and shiny and clean, so the best time to sit on the floor is right now.

The computer area...clean and germ free for now.

7. TLC should totally call me so I can pitch my new idea for a show to them. We go in and surprise teachers and completely update their classroom with the latest technology and gadgets, paint the classroom and make it look modern and chic, and get all the materials they would ever want for them to use. How wonderful would that be? I know that every teacher in my hall would love a gift like that. Oh, and if someone from TLC is reading this, I'd love to be a consultant and I know about 3 other teachers from my school that would love to be consultants as well. Contact us! :)

See, TLC? I love decorating classrooms! Call me :)

8. I'm not only addicted to brightly colored plastic storage bins, but I'm also addicted to pens. I have upwards of 100+ pens in my classroom and I use maybe 10% of that on a monthly basis. Yeah, I guess I should just come out and say it. I'm addicted to school supplies. I actually get giddy when the stores start putting out their new supplies for the upcoming school year. I guess that makes me a super dork, but I can live with that. I'll be the super dork with the coolest school supplies ever :)

9. Teachers are the biggest cheaters and stealers ever. We walk in each other's classrooms and steal ideas all the time. It's okay though because we all do it. This is probably why it takes us so long to decorate and arrange our classrooms though; at least for me it probably is the reason. I walk in Teacher A's room and love how she has her desks arranged so I go back to mine and arrange mine like that. Then I walk into Teacher B's room and I love how she has her bulletin board decorated, so I go in my classroom, take down my fully functional already decorated bulletin board and change it out to look like Teacher B's. We're just a bunch of goofy, plastic storage bin loving FOLLOWERS.

10. It's for all the reasons that I just listed above that I absolutely LOVE what I do. I feel that it is more than a job, it's a calling. I like to poke fun, but I have no doubt in my mind that I am doing exactly what God put me on this earth to do. I am so thankful to do what I do. I can't wait to see what wonderful things God has in store for this school year. It's going to be a great one!