Up barely, like barely barely. We had our first snow of the year with these huge, beautiful snowflakes in the middle of the day at school which made all the students antsy-pantsy. I used a lunch break to take a few laps on the school track one afternoon and it was kind of amazing. Most days I use my lunch period to wolf down some food at my desk while entering grades and making copies, but I'm hoping to be able to make it more routine to get in a few laps either at the track or the gym during lunch for a little happiness/movement boost in the middle of the day - it was honestly uplifting!
Reading and finishing The Hallowed Ones by Laura Bickle and starting our next Books & Brews book club book The Nix by Nathan Hill. I took a bunch of my books into school to borrow out to students and twice now I've had students stop by to show me the bookmarks they've discovered in my books. I always use random nearby items and so far, the kids have found a $30 check from my sister from 2011 (hah! what was it for?!) and a boarding pass from Nashville (when I traveled there with my two best girl friends for our 30th birthday celebration!) The students were cracking up and so intrigued to hear the stories behind the bookmarks.
Pulling out our Thanksgiving/Veteran's Day book stash for the kids and Gemma has been the most enthusiastic kid about getting them out and 'reading' them. She learned about wrap-around covers in school recently and she loves holding up every.single.book we own to ask us in her teacher voice if the book has a wrap-around cover. Hah! Some of our favorite holiday books this time of year is Who will carve the turkey this thanksgiving, This is the Turkey, Veteran's Day, and Sharing the Bread
Hosting el día de los muertos food day in my Spanish classes. We had our first food day and it was a huge success. The kids brought in great food to share with each other and we spent a full relaxed day listening to Spanish music and eating and chatting to celebrate the holiday. The kids can hardly wait for the next one and most of them tried something they had never had before!
Spinning wheels is what it felt like. Three Thursdays ago when I was rushing through the doors to start my day at school and I just broke down on the inside, like suddenly I realized we were just spinning wheels for the last nine weeks and I just could not do it one more day. B and I had a long chat about how crazy everything is right now, the rushing every second of every day and the chores never getting done, and the pressure of all of our commitments and lists and things we need to do. We agreed that we've been running around with our hair on fire and we were burning out. At no point though did either of us feel like me working was the wrong choice (yay!) so it's about figuring this out and not doing all the things all the time - and figuring out new routines and scaling back - way back. And since I had been pushing and pushing and ignoring myself for so many weeks - I then was....
...Getting sick or making myself sick - who knows. I broke out in this terrible, itchy rash all over my neck and spent a weekend and a day called off work lathering my neck in steroid cream and feeling mad at myself for not paying attention to my own well being for so long. The rash is no longer on my neck (mostly) but I still have it scattered around the rest of my body (shoulders, hip, wrists) and it can be terribly distracting. I truly believe it is self-induced because I haven't quite figured this all out yet - how to care for myself and also feel okay about how our life is either - but I'm getting there both mentally and physically - and everyday my rash seems to be getting a teeny bit better.
Focusing on gratitude, because that is where it all needs to begin. I am so lucky to have such an amazing support system. Grandparents who snag kids for a few hours and aunts and uncles you pick up and run to the rescue last minute, cousins who take kids off the bus or have our kids for sleepovers, family who surprise us with dinner or gallons of milk (we are neverendingly nearly out of milk, how?!), friends who text, call and send me sweet messages to let me know they are thinking of me. Best friends who stop by quick or open their home with cups of tea and cookies at the last minute.
Re-Prioritizing and settling on the things that I can do each day. With our new back to school schedules and four kids at these exact ages - there is just never enough time in the days for all the things I'd like to get done. After our long chat about hair-on-fire living, we're trying to figure out how to make the hours in the day work for the things we need to get done. So we've decided to push all chores to the weekend - including laundry, good Lord the laundry - because I just can't do it during the week. I'm so tired of feeling like we rush through every part of the day - even the good parts: the dinner, the bedtimes, the chatting with kids - and so we're pushing nonessentials to the weekends. B is also tackling lunch making duties in the evening because I am straight up passing out asleep between 8:30-9p. We will get there, slowly and with new routines and expectations. It's a long, slow process but we're moving in the right direction.
Learning more about Gemma's "superhero brain" (I told her that her brain tries to jump up to the mountain ledges because it can instead of climbing the ladder - she can do things that are more difficult but struggles with the more basic ideas - which is really cool but it she needs to learn how to climb ladders too!). She had her initial consultation and it felt so good to answer questions and talk openly about the things we've been seeing - both her amazing and incredible talents and characteristics and also her academic struggles. We had her parent-teacher conference too and as always I was so grateful to get time to chat with her teacher who is such a champion for our girl on the frontlines of learning. Gem has been making incremental progress, especially with her twice a week after school tutoring with Miss P! And she still loves school so much and pretends to be a teacher at home - I never want her to lose that, so we move along to figure out how to support our girl as best as we can!
Celebrating Veterans' day with our favorite veteran, my little sis aunt Kitty. She came all the way from Bermuda for a few days to visit her new baby nephew Ben and to visit with us in Johnstown and celebrate our dad's early birthday. It was with the magic of the universe that her train pulled into town the morning of the kids' school Veteran's day program and lunch and she was able to attend with them. They were so proud! At my school, the teachers helped student council pull off a breakfast for local veteran's and I had a great time on Friday morning at school chatting and serving coffee.
Enjoying Original5 Adams time with our parents and my two sisters - just the five of us while we played 'Chumardy" (Jeopardy but all about my Dad, hah) to celebrate Chumsgiving (aka Dad's birthday that is always right around or on Thanksgiving).
Playing cards with the kids every evening. Go Fish and Double Smacking is our two favorite games.
Sharing lunch with my hubs at our school Thanksgiving Day lunch. B came down from the district office and we had lunch in my classroom together. First of all, YUM stuffing balls. We were having a nice little lunch until the eighth period bell rang and my sophmores started to collect outside the door giggling and whispering about us 'having a date.' It was hysterical and I smiled about it for the rest of the day.
Walking in our local Christmas parade with my sister and her work AUCP. Gem slept off a fever at Gigi and Pappy's house while the other three kiddos, my mum, Uch, Kevin, Aunt Lisa, cousin Morgan, and Mya the pup and Mozart the kitty all walked in the parade. After the parade, they lit up the giant Christmas tree in our downtown Central Park!
Officially starting basketball season with the first day of practice last night. Which seems like, "oh no." but as we are every year - we are excited and nervous. It's total madness (more than already, oh gosh!) but it's only November through February. And it makes Coach Daddy so happy and we love getting to know all the players and we love spending so much time with our 'basketball family'...so we got this.
Making chicken and gravy in the slow cooker over mashed potatoes, mummy hot dogs for Halloween dinner, hawaiian chicken over rice (actually Abba put that in the crockpot for us!), cheese quesadillas, taco tuesday, 3B porkchops, spaghetti, baked chicken & cheese ravioli. And for breakfasts - , egg and sausage breakfast roll-ups, and 3 ingredient chocolate chip pumpkin muffins.
Vi's baby teeth & smile are JUST THE BEST in that first picture!
ReplyDeleteHow you love & support Gemma through her struggles inspires me to LOVE my kids as I challenge them to try harder & (together with their teachers) find a way to best serve them as they are. You are SUCH a good mama.
Also, your yard and property just slay me in the best way. I love them!
Wearing yourself out- Oh, sister. I wish I had magic words to share to make everything easier/better/smoother for you. Cutting back is so hard. And we, as mamas, always want more, more, more, from our lives & from ourselves. I will be praying for you as you traverse this tricky, busy, crazy time in your life. Things will slow down, become normal, but in the meantime keep your chin up. You are SO loved by everyone and SO admired!!!