Where Have I Been

I look over the blogs and it seems so surreal. Where have I been? It's like the world of teaching/motherhood just sucked me right in. I don't even know where I've been, what I've been doing or who you all are! So much has changed in all of your lives that it seems unfamiliar to me and almost as if I'm eavesdropping. Here it is almost Christmas and the year is almost over. I ask myself...what have I been doing? How would I catch you all up on ME? My life is much more boring than any of yours, but it is busy.

I guess I've been waking up at 6:30 since the time change. It was 7:20 before that, so it has been a HUGE adjustment for me. I'm still not there. But my little rooster wakes me every morning.

I nurse my little baby and look at her face, remembering soon she'll be 13. I wonder what she'll be like. I then wrastle everyone else out of bed to get showered and dress. We eat. I go for a walk with a friend, do my exercises, stay in my workout clothes almost all day. But while I am away, we start school immediately. I cram as much information and activities as I can in one day. We used to run errands but I had to stop that. Now I do that on the weekends only if I can help it. We have lunch and continue our cramming. And I juggle the baby and housework and chores getting done, trying to find a little free time for everybody. Sometimes a moment strikes me that everyone is busy and the baby is sleeping. And though I should make the bed or something, rather I lie in it for one or two minutes reveling in the mystery of that two minutes.

And then someone needs me, or four somebody's need me. I get a certain someone ready for their evening classes day in and day out. Sometimes it seems that's all there is. And we return home to make dinner, eat, put away laundry, go pick up that certain somebody. Then I listen to countless stories of all the exercises, laps she ran, how many bumps and bruises she has. I coddle and hug, shower and dress. Put her to bed. Figure out what to do with the baby. And Elizabeth has activities, too.

My life very much feels like touch and go. I'm always figuring out the next moment. And then I go to the next.

So these last few months have been swept away with me trying to keep up with everything, particularly school. In one sort of day I am a math teacher, an astronomy teacher, a physical science teacher, English teacher, History teacher, a physical education and health teacher for three different grade levels, and at the end of the day I'm just plain tuckered out! Sometimes I walk through the house at night muttering to myself as I get things picked up and put away. Usually I get sent to bed for that. I think I'll put myself to bed, too.