Notes to My Loves

In T minus 3 sleeps I will begin another year of teaching. This year marks number 17. I can't believe that it has been that long since I first stepped into a classroom of my own. I remember how nervous I was being hired on the night before school started. It seems like so long ago,  yet in many regards it is still so fresh and new. I still get those first day of school jitters. I haven't been able to sleep well in the last week and I am sure that it is due to my mind reeling with what I want this year to look like. What I want to accomplish. What I hope to inspire in my students. My room is ready. The physical needs have been met with a few days of prepping and help from my mom and dad who are expert movers when it comes to unpacking boxes. The bulletin boards are color coordinated and the books are neatly on the bookshelf, for now.  The walls are ready for the work of those who will inhabit this space with me. The walls are waiting to be covered in things far more colorfu

      M otherhood is filled with tasks. Tasks that we were told about long before we ever held our precious babies in our arms. Talks we were given to from those who were older, wiser, and had navigated the rapids of parenting small children. Then there were tasks that we just have to learn on our own. Our "on the job training" if you will. From swaddling newborns to nursing night time fevers, from making the mad dash to the closest bathroom during potty training to getting all the necessary supplies for that first day of school. There is no handbook for these tasks. And often they are overlooked by those that are older and wiser. They are the small tasks. The ones that go unspoken. I could go on and on regarding such tasks. They are never ending and we, those of us in the trenches, know all to well the table of contents of which I am referring to. But this post isn't about those tasks. For we all have them. Instead I want to talk about the balancing of one's life wh