Sub for a Sub

I was called on to substitute for our Kindergarten teacher a few weeks ago. Unfortunately, I’d had a terrible few days with pretty bad nerves and I had gotten off schedule on some natural stuff I’m taking for that, so I really didn’t think I could handle it. I ended up standing in as monitor in the Lower (1st – 3rd grade) Learning Center, a position the K teacher also fills, on Monday. That Friday, I also accompanied them on a field trip. By the following Monday I felt like I had become reacquainted with them enough that I was looking forward to working with them again.

In the meantime, I’d received a call from Pastor Mowery asking if I could possibly give the Kindergarten class a try. They needed a substitute for the substitute. I agreed, knowing that I would be surviving the week purely on the Lord’s strength and none of my own.

It didn’t take me long to realize I was in my element again in the Kindergarten classroom and I came home Tuesday night making Tony’s head spin with all the anecdotes of the day. At one point I told him that I just loved seeing their eyes sparkle when they were having fun learning. He grinned and said he knew that I loved it because MY eyes were sparkling recounting it.

I came home energized on Tuesday, even stopping off at the library to find books for a special story time for later in the week. On Wednesday, I was feeling a bit more normal, but not exhausted quite yet. By Thursday, the kids were starting to get comfortable with me (loosely translated, they had more frequent moments of mischief) and my “not-early-enough nights” were catching up with me. I came home and totally crashed. But not before telling Tony about our fun story time – A Farewell to Winter.

We had stories and songs about all things snow! Each student had been asked to bring as many mittens and/or gloves as they could find from home. We piled them a few at a time into a “mountain of mittens” while reading the story of the same title. They had a blast (until we got ready to return them to their rightful owners and fellow bloggers, Travis and Jody Johnson’s middle child had a meltdown because she was positive that I gave a pair of her gloves to another student. She was so heart-broken I wanted to cry right along with her. Fortunately I had foreseen this happening and had taken photos of each batch of mittens by the labeled bag they came in so I was pretty sure, but just in case…thank goodness for cell phones, we were able to call her mommy and get it all straightened out.)

God totally gets all credit for my survival of a full week of work. And praise to Him and my daughter’s that they made Honor Roll in time to have the day off school Friday. More details of our day off to come!

P.S. You'll definitely want to click on those pictures for a beter look. The bare feet are due to the fact that about 20 kids were magnets for mud puddles during lunch break. They came in with soaking shoes and sopping wet socks.

My Love Language

Nothing says, "I love you" more than coming home after being Kindergarten substitute teacher four straight days, (now remember, I took a leave of absense and have been soaking up my days of freedom b/c even my youngest is in school all day, every day) knowing that we have used nearly every dish in the house and I haven't had time nor energy to even load the dishwasher and planning that I would need to do that immediately before I lost my adrenaline rush and stepping into my kitchen to find it spotless! Then finding out that Tony even sacrificed his lunch break to get it done.

P.S. No, this isn't REALLY a picture of my sink, but close :)

Our Baby Graduates Kindergarten

FCA Kindergarten Class of 2007
Keegan, Connor, Kerrigan, Alayna, Samuel, Hannah, Kayla, Nyree, Kole, Ava, Jaida

All those months of learning how to read made for a sleepy graduate :)

Random Thoughts from Today

Going on the email I have received often in the last few months about not buying toothpaste made in other countries from the dollar store because they don’t have the same Food and Drug regulations as we do in the U.S. And then seeing that my tube of Colgate was made in Canada…

… “They don’t use anything from a raccoon for toothpaste do they?”

After explaining to a Kindergarten student who’s been complaining of a recurring ear ache that the Children’s Chewable Tylenol was all gone because she’d had the last ones yesterday and upon hearing her tell her Mommy on the phone, “I ate all the Tylenol in the office and I still don’t feel good!”…

…“Her mother is going to think we’ve overdosed her for sure!”

While unloading my salad shooter from the dishwasher…

… “Wow, I love not having to scrub this by hand anymore!”

And then unloading the silverware…

… “I could do this better myself.”

And then taking out a very cheap, slightly warped plastic bowl …

… “Hmmm…there is a reason it says ‘top rack dishwasher safe.’”

And last but not least, while watching our new mommy cat (who still seems like a kitten herself) care for her little ones…

… “How ANYONE can believe that we had a big bang or evolved from something else and can still acquire that nurturing instinct is beyond me?!”