Collage of emotions

Fright, excitement, overwhelmed, blessed, thankful, scared, the emotions blurr together right now.

I don't know if I really had an idea that I was pregnant or if I was afraid to get my hopes up, or I was in denial. All of those seem to fit.

I'm in shock. Who thought after it took us so long to get pregnant with Jana that one time (slightly conscious of what my body was doing) would do it.

I'm feeling a little guilty. I remember seeing a lot of the signs that I was either ovulating or about to ovulate and thought oh heck, and actually initiated, which is extremely rare. I guess I knew it could result in me getting pregnant, but I never thought it would end up with me getting pregnant.

I know we wanted them close together and it is still pretty darn good timing with my job and the school year, but yikes!

I don't mean to sound ungrateful. I'm not at all. I feel so blessed by this gift. I am just really really shocked. I am excited.

We've already started talking about the baby. Jeremy thinks the baby will be a girl. He had his mind made up about that before I got pregnant though. He thinks we're destined to have only girls because we both wanted boys so badly. Now, we wouldn't want anyone other than Jana and I know we'll feel the same about this one.

We've talked about whether we should do the little room in the Pooh theme that is in Jana's room and pick something out new for her.

I'm scared of telling my family. My bro's wife is pregnant and due in February. She can be one of those that wants the stage all to herself. This is her second child, so I'm not sure she'll be like that, but who knows. My mom is going to flip!!! This time we can tell her a little better than I did the last time, but I know she's going to give me a hard time about our lack of birth control. I know she will not see her raising my bro and sis 14 months apart as relating at all.

I still can't believe I'm pregnant again. I have a doctor's appointment on Friday of next week. I'll have to take the day off, but I think that will be okay. I kind of need it.

I'm terrified that I'm drying up. I still want to hit a year nursing Jana. That is still my goal. I've had such a dramatic decrease in my supply, I don't know what to do. I'm focusing on drinking water and I'm going to start with eating oatmeal tomorrow morning. I don't know if any of the herbs are safe because I'm pregnant.

It's so weird to say that. I'm pregnant! I'm going to have another baby.

Holy cow!

How am I going to do that? How am I going to be able to balance both kids? Because jana's been such a good baby, does that mean that this next one is going to be a handful? I know it's an old wives tale, but everyone says that to us. I'm overly emotional and hormonal, so I start to think about that.

I better try round two of pumping and go to sleep because I'm struggling to keep my eyes open right now.

I think I might be kind of crazy

I know every good parent adores his/her child, but I think I might be a bit obsessive.

This is my fifth week of work. You'd think I'd be less of a mess about leaving Jana by now, but I'm not. I still get teary most days. When I come home, I can't seem to put her down. On the weekends, she goes everywhere with me; I can't handle not being around her. I seem to be the one suffering from seperation anxiety. I start to feel sick to my stomach when I have to be away from her for long periods of time.

Is this insane? She's 7 months old. I've worked 4 full weeks. Why is this not getting any easier? Why do I have the constant urge to hold her and cuddle her. Why do I cringe when people want to hold her and I begrudgingly hand her over... even to her grandparents.

What is wrong with me?

Decompressing

Wow this was a crazy week!

Monday we had an in-service day and it was a total waste of time for me. It was on our focus for our professional learning teams (which I won't be there to participate in). My principal did talk to me (shocking, I know) and he said that they had interviews for my replacement set up for this week. (I haven't heard any more about that, but unfortunately see that my job is reposted, but temporary this time. I'm guessing that it will take two or three more weeks to get my replacement in if that is the case).

Thursday I had a horrible fight in my classroom. A little background... we are an innercity school (if there is such a thing). We have a very high %age of hispanics, who seem to be the community with the gang problems right now. We have had only one gang in our school up until this year. This freshman class has a very large group of kids that are in the rival gang. So now we're having huge gang issues and fights on a daily (almost hourly basis). Until today, all the fights I have dealt with have been in the hallway and I've always had help. While the fight in my classroom was not gang related, I thought I would have been better prepared for it.

So, here's the story: We were working in groups. We're currently working on our grammar unit in my Sophomore English class. We're been working on sentence structure and the kids have been working on writing compound, complex, and mixed sentences. So, they each got a section of a story and their jobs were to combine that information into more advanced sentence structures. Then they were to write it on their poster, and we were going to have them piece the story together. Anyway, I'm not in my classroom (my classroom has become the sewing room, so I'm only in there for 2 periods a day) and I teach in the balcony of the auditorium. Because we're so overpopulated, they converted the balconies into two classrooms. So they are huge and have theater seats with the little flip up desks. There is no phone in the room or a call button to the office. There is just a thin wall that seperates the two sides of teh balcony into two classrooms. JROTC is on the other side of the wall.

We're working in our groups and I'm circulating the room. I hear this loud "BANG." I spin around to see one kid's feet and another on top of him beating the living shit out of him. I have no recollection of where I was in the room or how I got to where they were, but next thing I know I'm standing over them, yelling at them to knock it off and get off of each other. The Seagent in the JROTC room heard me and took off running to call the office. I am still yelling at them, because I was not going to get into it. (However horrible this is to say, I am worth more than either one of them; I've got a baby who needs me.) I tell one kid to go across the hall and have the teacher call the office for help. The kids are frozen because they are in total shock. Finally one goes. The kids stop and one student pulls the top kid off and stand between them. I escort that kid into the hallway while the other stays in the room. Finally at that point, another teacher shows up. I think two minutes must have ellapsed even though it felt like much longer than that. The kids are shaken up. I'm a wreck. I grab my principal and start yelling at him at how unsafe it is to have a classroom with no access to the outside world. At one point I know I said, "I know you don't give a shit about me, but Rachel is in there three periods a day. Get a phone in that room! Do it for her, since I know you'd never do it for me." Oops! I had a really hard time getting control of myself again. I was a total wreck. I finally went back in and lost it again. I've never cried in front of students before. I felt so dumb, but I guess at least they know I'm human and even as an adult, I find fights very disturbing. Needless to say, nothing got done for the rest of the class period.

After that, I have not been able to get back my normal enthusiasm. I severly don't trust the kids, which is not like me. I respect my students and treat them like adults... not now. I just feel defeated. I think if I could have, I would have walked away and not come back that day. I'm hoping with some sleep and catching up on my work (not to mention getting over my cold and figuring out what is going on with my body since it is now CD 40 and no AF), that I can dig in and get through the next few weeks.

Friday, I find that a mother has called twice between 3:15 Thursday afternoon and 7:15 Friday morning. Then she proceeds to call two more times before I can call her back at 9:45. She's notorious for yelling at teachers, so I'm dreading this phone call. I call two times and she calls three more times and then I stay late to make contact with her. I couldn't have been more wrong. Her son is in my first period class (the one with the fight) and has a variety of learning issues as well as being autistic. He's such a sweetheart and tries very hard, though. She starts off with how he's struggling and can't seem to get help from me (he's going to the wrong classroom). Then she tells me how much he loves me and loves my class. How I've made such a difference in him already. That he looks forward to coming to school to see me and be in my class first thing in the morning. (Almost made me cry there). Then she proceeds to tell me that I was hand picked by an administrator saying, "This is the teacher you want. You both will love her and she's a great teacher."

(SIde note: So here I am leaving teaching partly because I'm so burned out and hate my school. I feel like I work my ass off every day, year in and out, and am treated like crap by the administration. No one notices or cares what I do. I'm expendible. THey move me back and forth between departments each year and I don't have enough clout to actually move up in the world and start teaching more advanced classes. Yet, now I hear that they think I'm a great teacher and are handpicking me for certain kids because of who I am. Is it so hard to take the time to even say "you're doing a great job" from time to time? Why is it that after 5 years of teaching there, this is the first time I'm hearing anything positive about who I am, how I relate to kids, and what I teach them? No wonder studies have shown that employees that feel valued work harder and are more productive.)

While I soooo needed the ego boost (because I was really starting to feel like I must be a crappy person and/or teacher to not get any ore the jobs I've applied for lately), it really started to hit me that I'm abandoning these kids soon. I confessed to the mom that I was leaving, but haven't told the kids yet. The first thing out of her mouth was, "Oh, shit!" Because of her son's autism, he has become so attached to me that he will grieve me leaving as if I had died. So, now I have a whole other issue to worry about... how do I make sure he does well with me leaving and with my replacement..

I'm really scared about leaving teaching. I'm scared about ever being able to get back into it. I know Jana is more important than any job or any amount of money, but it's a little scary knowing that I may never teach again. Despite my growing frustration lately, I do enjoy it. I love the kids. I love getting students to love learning.


______ ______ _______ _____

Jana's doing really well. Last night her vocalizations really turned from the "aaeeeeee" sounds to "dadagagabaya", etc. She's just absolutely babbling up a storm. It's so stinkin' cute!!!

I am starting to get concerned a bit. She doesn't seem to be getting better at sitting. She was sitting for 15 min at a time, but now leans back against me all the time. I don't know if that's a not wanting to sit thing or a need to be cuddling Mama thing. She's also not making many movements toward crawling. She does move, but it's more of a slow migration than creeping or crawling.

I am amazed at how much I love this kid! She's all that I think about when I'm at school and rush out the door as soon as I can. I stay up until midnight to get work done because I don't want to do any work while she's awake. I won't leave her in the evenings or weekends. I refuse to go anywhere without her. I think I'm the one with seperation anxiety. I feel like I'm this out of control-psycho, overly emotional wreck when I'm not with her. What's wrong with me?

On the same note, since I now feel like I'm going to burst into tears, I have no idea what is going on with my body. Today is CD 39 and no signs of AF. My nipples were really, really sore last week, but not so much now. I feel like I've been bloated for weeks. I'm super sensitive to smells, get dizzy at times, and very, very emotional. I'm exhausted all the time. I know breastfeeding screws with hormones, but really this is ridiculous. I'm going to go crazy every cycle wondering if I'm pg or not. Ugh!

Sleeping beauty awakes. I better go.

Thanks for reading my rantings.

Blind Faith

So I'm a strong believer in the idea that things happen for a reason... whether that reason is a larger plan or your own choices depends on the situation.

In the spring, I felt so fortunate to have the opportunities we had be presented with. I couldn't believe how amazing the job offer was. I could make as much, if not more than what I make teaching, but be able to be home most of the time. Amazing I thought.

I could even teach some on-line classes to make some extra money.


Reality has set in and it's a bitch.

My $30k job will only make me $18k. I didn't get ANY of the on-line teaching jobs. I'm scared out of my mind about how we'll make it. I know we will. I'm willing to do almost anything. If I need to go work as a checker in a grocery store at night so we can have food, you know I'd do it. But it's still scary.

Besides it all being scary, my ego, my pride is so bruised. Not bruised, beaten to hell. I've always prided myself on the fact that I'm a darn good teacher... or so I thought. I push my kids hard. I work had to prepare lessons that teach them something and are interesting. I never take the easy way out and do lame lessons. I get my kids to do things they never thought they were capable of. I have kids come back and thank me for how hard I pushed them and for the skills I taught them. I pride myself on the fact that kids hate me at the beginning of the year because I push them so hard, but by the end of the year, when they are use to working hard, they love me. I connect with kids. I'm able to help them with life issues as well as teach them. I'm respected by 99% of the kids in my school and I haven't had most of them in class; it's all reputation. I hear mutterings all the time of "Yeah, I've had her... she's nice, but she'll kick your butt."

But, here I am two years in a row, not getting the jobs I've requested transfers for. There were 3 last year and many this year. I have a hard time swallowing the idea that I'm not good enough for those jobs. I'd like to think that it has more to do with my union involvement and the other issues in my building, but I can't be sure of that. I am, however, pretty darn sure that once I leave the district, I will never be able to get another job here. That is so incredibly scary, since this is the 2nd largest district in the state and there are only tiny districts around us that rarely have jobs.

I jsut felt as though I couldn't turn down this chance to be home with Jana. I'm so thankful of the amazing opportunities and gifts I have been given this year. But now I'm scared. I know we'll never lose everything; my parents have money and they'd never let that happen, but I don't want to ever get to that point.

I know people make sacrifices all the time for their families and we'll find a way to make it work. But I'm still scared.

I should be...

I should be working on school work while Jana's asleep because I can't seem to get my feet under me at school, but I can't.

I just read Kristi Ann's blog and am reminded how petty my angst has been.

I know I'm frustrated and unhappy at my job. I'm sad and extremely ego-bruised because I didn't get the job I applied for, but let's stop and think about the blessed life I live. I'm stressed about money now that instead of making 40k this year I'm making 18k. I'm scared I'm never going to get another teaching job when I want to go back to work. I feel sick to my stomach and teary because I'm feeling so unsettled.

And then I stop and think about it.

And I want to kick myself.

Five years ago, people's lives were shattered. Fathers, mothers, grandparents, children, friends were lost. Not lost, stolen.

How do I keep a better perspective? How do I not get wrapped up in my own pity party? Why do I let things get to me so much?

I better go plan so at least my lessons will be ready for tomorrow.