Happy New Year! (kind of)

I bet if you ask every teacher you know, most would say that they consider September to be their New Year.  If you are not a teacher, do me a favor and close your eyes and think back to when you were a student.  Do you remember that feeling of excitement and new revitalized energy?  The knowledge that this was your year?  That is how I feel every September.  How lucky am I?  I love the feeling of a fresh start.

I always think of the movie You've Got Mail at the point when Tom Hanks tells Meg Ryan that he would send her a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils.  I have a fond memory of getting brand new pencils and the pencil case.  And the Trapper Keeper!  My favorite had kittens on it.

But there is also a nervousness, a bit of anxiety even, about how everything is going to work out in the upcoming year.  There are always changes and part of being a good teacher is going with the flow.  This year I will not be working with my friend Julie anymore and that makes me so sad.  She is an amazing school social worker and friend and I was honored to work with her for 2 years.  Her new district is lucky to have her.  Also one of my team members is expecting her 2nd baby and I am so excited for her!  But I also know that means we have to ramp up our work to get it all done and get into those classrooms.

If you follow my blog you probably realized that I had a tough year last year.  If you know me IRL you know just how tough that year was.  I really wanted my home life to not interfere with my work life but is that realistic?  I was out for 3 days when Lilly had her EEG testing.  I was out for a few sporadic days when Nanny was getting sicker.  I was out for a week when she died.  You can see why the teachers saw less of me than I or they wanted.  I still think that I did a good job.  I just want to do even better this year!

Getting back to my New Year theme, I decided this year to really make some resolutions this September.  I actually don't like the word resolutions, because it always sounds like something that will be broken.  Maybe I should say that I made some decisions about how I am going to conduct and live my life during the school year.  Being that I am entering my 3rd year in my position at work I now know some things I need to do to be successful.  I have also been living a healthier lifestyle, so that necessitates change to my daily work routine as well.

Make and bring lunch every day
You might think this is a no-brainer and it often was.  But it needs to become an everyday routine, not a  "Wow I have enough leftovers" kind of thing.  I really believe that bringing my lunch every day to camp helped me lose weight and I want/need that trend to continue!

Prepare (wash and iron) outfits on the weekend
Again, you might think nothing of this.  I did well in the beginning of last school year but that went out the window by the end of October.  Nothing stresses me out more than trying to pick out an outfit at 6:00am.  Well, maybe trying to get Lilly to pick out an outfit at 6am is more stressful, but you know what I mean.

Get enough sleep
I have to be at work earlier this year due to contract changes.  I cannot be late.  I must go to bed on time so that I can get up on time and get my butt out the door.  Besides, I just need more sleep!  This leads me to...

I need to walk in the mornings before work
I always have wonderful intentions to exercise when I get home from work.  Or after Lilly is asleep.  This year I am trying to get more early intervention clients, which would get me home later.  After Lilly is asleep I tend to just sit on the couch.  And play silly facebook games.  I don't exercise.  Plus my dog needs a lot of regular exercise.  This is in line with the getting enough sleep issue.  I need to go to bed earlier so that I can get up early enough to walk in the mornings.  I would love to get some yoga in, too.  Maybe I can alternate mornings....yoga or walking.

Be organized in general
There is a lot of paperwork involved with my position.  There is a lot I need to do to remain accountable to my boss, the superintendent, and the state.  I also need to stay organized at home so that I can follow through with all the above resolutions.  I am creating a schedule for myself and my family for cleaning, grocery shopping and even cooking.  I want to cook or prepare meals on the weekends so that I always have food ready to go for dinner.  I want to live in a clean, organized home.  We can do this!

I know that it may seem like a lot, but the truth is that I have been doing a lot of this already.  I just need  to be consistent and follow through once the school year begins.  Sometimes that can seem so overwhelming that I lose my routines.   But I know that routines in the face of transitions and change are when they are most important.

I feel blessed to get this fresh start every September!  What are your New (School) Year resolutions?

And so it begins...

Tomorrow is the start of the 2011-2012 school year.  It marks my 10th year teaching (minus the first year I was a kindergarten wrap teacher with no clue); my 6th year in Hoboken; my 2nd year with the Hoboken BOE as a master teacher.  It also marks the 3rd year that I had to go back to work after some time off and leave Lilly.  Oh, how hard it is!  I don't think it will ever get easier, will it friends?

There are so many positives to working, not the least of which being the paycheck and having health insurance for my family.  I love what I do and hope that this year I can become even better at it since I know what I am doing a little more.  Tonight as I was putting Lilly to bed I asked her if the reason she was giving me such a hard time was because she was sad that I was going back to work tomorrow.  She nodded yes, buried her head into my neck and sobbed as if her little 3 year-old heart was breaking.  Oh, how my heart broke at that moment!  I do not even know how to describe how I feel right now.

I know that I need to work and even if my husband had an amazing job that paid megabucks I think I would want to work.  And I know that I am leaving Lilly in good hands with her Daddy and MumMum.  Hopefully we will get good news this week about Vinnie's job and Lilly will be able to go to daycare, which she loves.  It is just this, right now, sucks.

But fear not fellow Hoboken teachers!  I promise not to bore you too much with Lilly pictures and stories.  I am actually really excited for this school year.  I think it will be a great one!

New Daycare???

It is almost time for me to go back to work.  I start the day after Labor Day but I will start to get up earlier next week so that it is not too much of a shock.  Naturally, Lilly has started sleeping until 8-8:30am just in the past 2 weeks.  But what I am really thinking, worrying and obsessing about is where Lilly will go to daycare. 

She has been going to one daycare since she was 18 months old, when I became a working mom.  In that first year there were a few issues here and there, but we generally loved her teachers and all the other people she encountered at daycare.  After she was there a few months she had a seizure at daycare, bringing one of my worst fears to life.  They were amazing in their response - every single person from the teacher who was with her at the time to the director who went in the ambulance with her and stayed at the hospital with my husband until I was able to get there.  In many ways, I excused little things that bothered me because of their response to her seizure.  It always felt like a warm, welcoming place.  Even though I did not know all the teachers, they ALL knew Lilly.  And in the good way, not the Oh, it's Lilly way, but the Hi Lilly!!! way. 

Last September she moved up to a new class called Pre-k 1.  I balked a little at the thought of calling 2 year olds preschoolers, but that is what they called it.  From the beginning I had some issues with the change in how the teachers interacted with the children.  We went from cuddly, hugging teachers to much more detached teachers.  In fact, even though the daycare calls all of them teachers it felt like we went from caregivers to teachers.  The teachers were not cold and did give hugs, but were just so different than the downstairs waddler & toddler teachers.  (The exception being the most wonderful Ms. Gloria.  Yesterday Lilly was talking about Ms. Gloria and described her as the one who gave her hugs.)

I definitely had issues with the way that things were going in the pre-k 1 class because they were developmentally inappropriate.  As much as they tried to convince me it was okay, a 30 minute circle time is NOT appropriate for 2.5 year olds.  Making them sit on the rug for 20-30 minutes listening to book after book on tape as the teacher turns the pages, and yelling if they creep off the rug...also not appropriate.  The assistant, in particular was troubling and she and I butted heads several times.  The lead teacher in the room was nice, if not a bit blah and ignorant of developmentally appropriate practice (DAP).  And for those thinking that of course I know about DAP because I have my masters for goodness sakes?  It is actually officially organized by NAEYC (national association for the education of young children) which is for ALL early childhood facilities, even home-based ones.  I let go of a lot of little things (like dittos and cookie cutter art), but not the big ones (like time outs that were too long, and my daughter's arm being stuck and you did not even notice).  I was NOT the favorite parent. 

Anyway, all these things added up to us looking into a new daycare for this coming year. We pulled her out for the summer since I am home, but there is a waiting list for the upcoming year.  There is a new one opening not too far from us that would actually be easier for me to get to work from if need be.  (Since I take Rt. 22 to the Pulaski instead of Rt. 78.)  And theoretically, it sounds like a great place.  But don't they all, theoretically???  My real issue is her seizures.  Thinking about Lilly having a seizure at daycare makes my breath catch in my throat.  There is a comfort level for me in knowing that she has already had a seizure at her old daycare.  They know the drill, what to do.  The hospital that we use, when needed, is about 2 miles down the road.  All her info is there, many of the doctors and nurses have seen her before.  And at her old daycare they were great about checking her temperature at the slightest flushed cheeks or warm head or crankiness. 

In general, I am a bit of a control freak.  In particular, about my daughter, I am very much a control freak.  I think most moms are.  We know that we really don't have the control.  It is just an illusion that we can somehow control the world so that our child has the best possible outcomes in every situation.  I have no control overy Lilly having seizures.  But I can try to put her in the best possible daycare to meet all her needs, especailly if she does have one. 

New Year = New Goals

As 2009 drew to a close, I realized that I had accomplished my big goal for the past several years. I finished graduate school! I won't be walking until the May ceremony but I am finished with my classes. I am just awaiting grade and that very expensive piece of paper. I have some new goals for 2010. Most of these are things that had to get put aside as I finished school as a FT working mom of a toddler. Yikes! When I think of all I had to fight through, or maybe work through sounds better, I am even more proud of myself for having done it. I don't think that anyone would ever say that I am not persistent. Or stubborn. Either one. I think that did me well in this case. Without persevering I would have quit a looong time ago. I mean, I wrote papers while nursing Lilly. Literally. I would lay her across my lap and nurse her while I propped the laptop up in a way that I could type. Craziness.

So, my new goals/resolutions/whatever we want to call them today.

1. Exercise - Totally went out the window when I started working.
2. Eat healthier/cook more - Also went partly out the window when working and taking 2 night classes. Lots of take-out and quick, not necessarily healthy meals.
3. Organize - I sometimes feel like I am drowning in paper.
4. Pay down debt - Believe it or not I am still paying off credit card debt that was accumulated before the un-wedding and the aftermath. Plus there is added debt that I/we are committed to paying down/off. Being a SAHM for 17 months may not have been the best financial decision, but I don't regret one minute I was home.
5. Go to church more often. - I just have not gone, not made the time and I regret that.

I know that they are the stereotypical resolutions that everyone makes. But in some way that makes me feel better. I am not alone in my need to make positive changes in my life. I had wanted to join the gym before this week so that I was not like all the other new members starting on the 1st. How silly is that! Maybe the momentum of others around me will help propel me forward.

Tangentially, Vinnie will be starting school in January. I will be supporting him as much as I can in this huge, but necessary endeavor. It will be great if some of his almost 9 years of Navy experience would count toward something academically speaking. He will be working full time as he starts and I know how hard it can be. I hope that I can be organized enough to have lunch and dinner packed for him on the nights he has school. He also has class Saturday morning which will take a Herculean effort on his part. He likes to sleep in, as evidenced by the amount of times I have been able to sleep in on a weekend. I know he can do this. I am not sure if he realizes how much a Bachelor's Degree can change his life. He can go in a totally new direction of he wants! How exciting!

Okay, off to make some coffee. I went to sleep a little before 2am and I was up a little after 6am. Good times.

catching up...again

Phew...I have not written in so long because my life has just been, well, hectic, crazy, overwhelming... Need I say more? So here is the long and short of it. I am fully entrenched in work now and it is good. It challenges me and I challenge my colleagues. I challenge them to look a little differently at how they have been doing things. My supervisors have told me that one of the reasons I was hired was because they believed that I could help shake things up. So, I am, slowly but surely.

Lilly has been doing so well in daycare. Really, it has been more than I could ever hope for. Basically the entire month of November she was there full time (not 3 days a week) because my mom was sick. That seemed to have gotten her in the groove. She does not cry during drop off or pick up, but goes right in, waves and blows kisses to Vin and starts to play. I can't really ask for anything more. The only thorn is that it seems as if she has been constantly sick! I am actually home with her today because of a fever/cough. Poor bunny girl.

Vinnie and I have had our struggles as we have adjusted to the changes from me being a SAHM to a working mom. Adding in the last semester of grad school never makes things easier. :) It has not been easy, but I truly believe that our struggles are bringing us closer and helping us grow as a couple and as individuals.

I will be finished with graduate school next Thursday. WHAT??? How can that be? It is not real yet. I am not sure when it will be. Because I am involved in a federal grant with my graduate advisor (very cool thing!) I will still be doing some work for that through the middle of January. But, I am not stressed by that. I have 2 big things due next Thursday and then I will be finished!! Unbelievable. I have had so much support through my grad school experience. I could not have done it without them.

And I now have a chance to support Vinnie as he starts his journey in college. I am so incredibly proud of him as he enters Union County College this January. He is going to do great!

I have 2 goals for myself over the next few months. #1 is to lose the weight I have gained in the past 6 months. Grad school and then starting work has really killed me in that regard. But I am committed to getting healthy again, and healthier than I was before. #2 Is to get started as a Developmental Interventionist in Early Intervention. I will hopefully have updates on that in the next few months...

Lilly is calling for me from her crib so that is my exit cue. I am really hoping to keep up with this blog and develop it more in the next few months. Watch for it!

She napped!

We got through it, as I knew we would.  It did not happen as quickly as it usually does.  The making up and apologizing, that is.  Unfortunately, I could not fall asleep last night.  So instead of trying to reduce the sleep deficit, I added to it.  

The good news is that I was able to get some of my schoolwork done today.  Lilly took a 2 hour nap!  It was a wonderful thing.  I made it through an entire phone conversation.  I almost forgot how to hang up without the baby being the cause.  Later in the day I was able to do an interview I needed so that I can do my first big project.  The woman was kind enough to allow me to bring Lilly along.  Besides doing raspberries in the middle of the library, she was great.  (lilly, not the woman I interviewed.)  

So I have one big project due this Thursday and one the following Tuesday.  Now that I have all the raw data, I am going to get started ASAP.

We are going to attempt to go out to dinner tonight, so off I go.