Ug

Okay, this post isn't really meant for any one to read, I just feel like I need to get some things out and this is my journal, so I figured this is where I could do it. So if you do read it, I'm not looking for sympathy, I'm not looking for you to tell me that life will get better, or that someone else's life is worse than mine, I just need to vent and get some stuff out.

Is that even how you spell "ug?" You know, the sound you make when you're too tired to scream or cry or have any type of real emotion? If that's not how you spell that word, that's what I mean anyway. This year has not been easy. And by year, I mean school year, not "this year" as in "it's only February." Ady's in my life now, so that's wonderful, but juggling everything... so many days I feel like I just CAN'T do it. Now that I finally sit down to write it all out, I can't even think of everything that sucks. But trust me... it sucks.

I'm telling you, if I just had one of singular life changing event, it'd be enough, but I've had a ton of major changes happen all at once to  me and it's over whelming (most every day). To start with, I have an all new team at school and I'm the team leader even though this is only my second year in sixth grade, and I wasn't even there the last part of the year last year because I was on maternity leave. Not only is it a new team, but both of them are new teachers. Don't get me wrong, my team is AMAZING, and I forget most of the time that they are new teachers, but that doesn't mean that all the stress is off me. I still have to give them direction on what and how to teach, I'm the one to inform them about school rules and policies, and I'm the one that has to talk to them when they are forgetting to have their students follow the school rules. Yeah, that's not fun. In addition to new team members, now that I'm the leader, I realize that our team wasn't really functioning the way we were supposed to last year, so I have to form a "propper" team without having a good example of what that is.

On top of the team leader thing, we have a new math curriculum this year, so my students are struggling because there's a gap between what the new 5th grade math core expects out of 5th graders now and what the old core expected out of my students last year. That's not my students' fault, or their last year's teacher, or mine, it's just how a new curriculum goes. But that doesn't stop students from feeling frustrated, it doesn't stop parents from calling me with angry voices, as if I am purposefully trying to sabotage their students' math career, and it doesn't stop me from feeling like I am sabotaging my students' math careers. And don't worry that there is a new literacy curriculum that we will be implementing next year.

Think I'm done talking about school? Think again. Each of those paragraphs would be enough to deal with, right? Yeah, on top of that through in the issues of my personal students. Yeah, in case you ever wondered, a teacher's job doesn't just focus on math, reading, writing, science, history, pe, and curriculum topics like that. No, our job is our students. At Geneva, sometimes that means a little more than at other schools. This year I'm having to deal with disrespectful students who aren't even aware that what they're doing is wrong. I'm trying to teach them respect, and some of them are boogers who know what they're doing is wrong, but worse are the students who are so oblivious to the rules of society that they don't even realize that the comments they make are demeaning, hurtful, and disrespectful. I've got thieves in my class, and there are some in the other classes as well. There's bullying going on, and things worse than bullying. Because I can't remember if I made my blog private, and even if I did, this stuff is so intense that I couldn't write about it anyway. Let's just say that the other couple (notice it's not just one other thing, it's multiples) of things are something that no other 6th grade teacher before me (at this school) has faced, everyone in the office is stumped about what to do, the school psychologist is exhausting her resources, including her professor, who in 20 or something years of working with schools has NEVER had to deal with.

And if all I had to worry about was school, I'm hoping that you're thinking, "Yeah, that's enough." But it does get better. Remember how I have a daughter now? Remember how she's the sweetest, cutest, smiliest, most adorable thing you'll ever see? Now remember how I have to leave her ALL day long to go and deal with sh** at school? Remember how Clayton and I both work so we had to find the daughter of a person in our ward to watch our princess angel baby? (Don't get me wrong, it was a miracle that we found this random daughter of a lady in our ward so that we didn't have to put Ady in day care. That I am grateful for.) So by time I get home, I'm exhausted, but I keep pushing through because I only have 3 hours with Adelyn a day. I can't just collapse after I get home. So I play with Ady and feed her until she goes to sleep and then I have more school work to do, or more house work, or more often, I collapse in bed exhausted from it all, only to be woken up in the middle of the night because my 9 month old daughter is still not sleeping through the night. She is capable of it, but between vacations, and teething, and being sick, and the fact that I feel SO GUILTY about leaving her all day long that I CAN'T stand to let her cry it out, she doesn't sleep through the night very often. And because I do usually just plop into bed feeling exhausted and guilty, my school work gets backed up so I'm never fully on top of it like I need to be, or I used to be, so I go to school every day knowing that I'm not giving my students everything that I'm capable of. My house work gets backed up, so I'm constantly frazzled about how dirty and disorganized my house is (which is only made worse knowing that a stranger comes into my house every day to watch my daughter and in addition to praying that she treats Ady well is the prayer that she's not judging my house work (lack there of). And there never seems to be time to make any of this missing time up. I'm failing as a teacher because I can't find the time to prep lessons and grade essays, and solve student home issues. I'm failing as a mommy because I leave my daughter every day and as much as I want to come home full of energy and give Ady my undivided attention, I don't have the energy to be everything I want to be for her. And then I'm failing as a wife and home maker because my house is a mess, Clayton ends up cooking the meals most of the time, and I'm so frustrated and he's really the only one who I can take it out on. And then I don't even have time to think about myself and how I'm failing me. I don't have time to exercise, stress is bad on my heart, and who knows what else I should be doing to take care of me.

But don't worry, there is a little more. Bless his heart, Clayton is killing me as well. As soon as we can financially afford it, I would like to quit working. Not just because this school year is the year from hell, but because I want to raise my own daughter. As great as our sitter is, she's not Mommy. But I don't know if I'll ever be able to quit, seeing how Clayton can't settle down into a job. He gets one, he likes it for a while, then something starts to irritate him, then the people he works with start to irritate him, then he gets it in his mind that he has to quit, and then he looks to me for advice, like I'm supposed to tell him, "Sure sweetheart, go ahead, I don't mind if you start bringing in no money. Even though I know that you aren't going to be able to stop buying extra things like movies and computer parts and expensive phones." So no stress there, just the chance of cutting our income but not our spending.

So there it is. Like I said in the beginning, I can't remember it all, so know that there's at least something else that sucks right now. Oh, yeah, part of the sucking is that parent teacher conferences are tomorrow night and Thursday night. On parent teacher conference nights I have to be at school until 7:00 pm. And I HATE parent teacher conference nights because I do not like talking to parents. But in addition to my petrification of communication, with my drive, that means for the next 2 nights I will be away from my house from 6:40 am to 7:40 pm (if no appointments go over) and will only have about 20 minutes with Ady before bed time. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to the next 2 days!