First Day

Today was my first day of "school." No students were there, it was just a day of meetings and teacher preparation time. I have a few more days of meetings and teacher preparation before the students come on August 25!

Syracuse Jr High is organized into teaching teams with several sets of 3 core teachers (English, Social Studies, and science) and I got to meet my team today. Turns out I already knew the English teacher. Her name is Melanie Jones now, but I knew her in high school when she was Melanie Lund. I was already excited about working in a teacher team, but now I'm even more excited. She has a 4 month old baby boy, so she knows what I'm going through leaving Jack all day. It will be so great to have a familiar person to talk to about the woes of being a working mom.

I am still pretty apprehensive about the classes I'm teaching, but I am looking forward to this new challenge. This may sound dumb, but in some ways I haven't felt like I've had enough on my plate lately. Ever since I finished student teaching I've spent way too much time being unproductive. Of course being a full time mom is a hard and very time consuming job, but I feel like I wasn't spending my down time (when he's napping or playing happily on his own) very well. Now I won't really have any down time, so it will be hard to waist time. It always feels good to be busy (have you noticed my overly positive outlook on the subject, yes it is sort of my way of convincing myself that things are going to be ok).
Anyway, that's the scoop on my first day.

Tyler is finishing up working for JC this week, and then he will be stay at home dad and take classes in the evening, at least for this semester. We're still trying to work out at least a part time child care situation that I feel good about. It's hard to find someone that you really feel good about leaving your child with for most of the day.