Not a Wasted Word

I ended up being able to come in for most of today. My test results were emailed to me by 8:30am, and I was down at work an hour later. I was relieved that colleagues did not have to cover for me, but frustrated that I spent three hours of my Sunday driving to work, and in my classroom, getting ready for coverage that I ultimately did not need (except for 1st period).

I guess I should have expected the Kaiser result to be back by early Monday morning, but I wasn’t sure if getting the test on a Saturday would push out the results. My kids usually end up going before noon on a weekday, and then I’ll get their results much later the next day, in the evening, so in the 24-36 hour range. I wasn’t sure if a Saturday afternoon (3:30pm) would push things back a little, which I guess they technically did. Moving forward I will know I can expect a Saturday test to be back relatively early on Monday (but it’s always stressful because they say to expect the results in 24-72 hours and I know people who have had to wait the 72 hours).

But honestly, it’s hard to plan for a sub when you aren’t in your classroom. Especially if they can’t just put on a movie, which is impossible in my room because I still don’t have a TV and getting my old school projector set up to show a movie is a little complicated. If my %$^&#@ TV were here (like it was supposed to be a month ago) I wouldn’t have had to come down. So yeah, I’m frustrated, but I’m glad it ended up like it did.

I do wish there were an expedited testing service for health care workers, teachers and others who need a negative test to return to work. Feeling confident that a test result would come back in 24 hours would be a game changer.

I will say that as someone who lives in one county and works in another, I’m continually confused by what testing sites are available to me. Getting tested in the city seems to be the easiest because I’m a resident of San Francisco and it’s easy to show that with my ID. It’s hard to prove that I work in San Mateo County (I need a printed recent pay stub) and even then, I’m not sure what county-wide sites would take me. My own district offers some limited testing, but only during certain hours during the school week. Living in SF but working in SMC definitely caused some (in the long run minor) delays in getting vaccinated. I guess it’s not surprising that it’s complicated testing too.

So today I’m at school (only 10 minutes left!) I kept the low-key sub plans so that today was pretty easier for me. I still don’t feel 100%, but I’m glad I’m not stuck at home on a technicality, when I feel well enough to be at school. Hopefully my own kids don’t get sick too, which would cause a lot more problems moving forward.

On Friday night my throat felt scratchy. I wondered if I’d wake up with a sore throat, but I assumed it was just exhaustion. I frequently feel, at the end of the day, that I’m coming down with something, only to wake up feeling fine. I was pretty sure it was just that.

Except when I woke up in the morning I did have a sore throat. And there was no doubt in my mind that it was a cold, and not allergies or over use from school. I immediately texted my principal to ask if I needed a negative PCR test to return to work, and she confirmed that I did. By 9am I was at a city-sponsored testing site, waiting in line. But when the woman came up and took my information by hand, instead of offering me the QR code to register, I worried the results wouldn’t come back very fast (there signs posted that said results could take up to 5 days, but I had assumed that was to temper expectations).

When I expressed my concerns to my husband he sent me the info for another city-run site nearby that opened at 10am, but when I arrived there was no testing site, only a Bike Rodeo run by the California Highway Patrol. After confirming that the testing site was not operating today (despite very clear messaging online that it should have been), I got into my car and cried. I felt like shit, but instead of resting at home I was driving all over the city trying to find a spot to get tested, in hopes of getting the results back before Monday morning. I knew there was already a teacher out with no sub on Monday, and the last thing I wanted to do was contribute to the sub shortage problem.

So I got on my Kaiser app to see if there were any appointments there. I was able to make an appointment at 3pm at a location across the city. I still won’t get the results back in time for my first three classes on Monday morning, but maybe I can be down there for the afternoon, and I will definitely get them back before Tuesday. I did get some BinaxNOW rapid tests and took one at home. It came back negative, which provided some piece of mind, but honestly, the whole situation has been so stressful. If normal cold symptoms require a negative test to return to work, teachers are going to be out all the time. I was lucky that I woke up with symptoms on a Saturday, so I should only miss one day waiting for my results. If someone starts noticing symptoms on a Tuesday afternoon, they could be out for the rest of the week just waiting for results. Teachers are going to be out constantly, and we have fewer subs than ever before to cover for them.

I’m creating the most low key sub plans ever imaginable, because I know my colleagues will be covering my classes for me. I’m going down later today to set everything up. On Friday we were short FIVE subs. The principal of the other middle school AND the superintendent came over to cover classes at our school. It was incredibly stressful. I was happy to be able to help by combining a small 6th grade class with my own small 6th grade class, but I don’t want to do that stuff regularly. And if our regular subs are staying away because of possible Covid exposure, I don’t know how they will find enough people interested in applying.

I guess it’s just going to be a really hard year for teachers and parents, and exponentially so for people who are dealing with the volatility of missing school for possible exposures, symptoms, and quarantines as both a teacher and parent. I suppose there is nothing to do about it except take it as it comes. And have some super easy sub plans in my back pocket.

There has always been a sub shortage in our district, but this year it’s REALLY BAD. Every day we are asked to cover a colleague’s class because there is no sub to cover for them.

Covering a class really sucks. Not only do you lose your prep time, and your one break that is over 30 minutes long, but you also have to go into another classroom and teach a lesson you are not familiar with to kids you may not even know. It is no bueno.

I’ve haven’t been stepping up to take classes because my prep is the only thing making bedtime before midnight a possiblity. I especially hate taking an extra class on Fridays because I don’t get a prep on Thursdays (it’s the odd-period block day and my prep is on an even period), so I’m especially starved for some productive time in my classroom that day. I HATE Thursdays, and the idea of making Friday another Thursday is NOT appealing to me. Of course Friday is the day when coverage is most needed.

Tomorrow they are THREE subs short, so EVERY period requires three different people covering different classes. I still couldn’t bring myself to give up my prep, but I did offer to take one teacher’s 6th period class and combine it with my 6th period class and figure something out. Both are relatively small so I’ll only have 40 kids. I’ll be trying to get them outside if possible.

One of the hardest things about being a teacher is how difficult it is to be gone. I can’t think of another profession where coverage is as complicated. Sure, there are tons of jobs where you need to find another person to cover when someone cannot come in, but you don’t generally need to have a detailed breakdown of exactly what needs to happen during five 55 minutes period to give that person. In most professions that require a warm body take the place of someone who is out, that warm body can generally figure it out (because they know how to be a nurse or a bus driver or a retail worker, etc). But for in teaching it’s a lot harder. Even if you don’t care how they fill the 55 minutes, they still need to keep those kids occupied.

My fear of being out for an extended period of time is the main reason I’m taking so many covid precautions at this point in the pandemic. My friends are spending the weekend at a cabin in October and I would honestly go, except I’m so fearful of my daughter getting sick and all of us being stuck at home for weeks that I can’t bring myself to do it. A 6th grader (who cannot be vaccinated yet) in my class is stuck at home until 10/6 at the earliest because their sibling has covid. With two unvaccinated kids at home, the quarantining from a positive case could takes WEEKS to resolve. I absolutely cannot manage that. It’s one thing to negotiate who is staying home when one of our kids is identified as a close contact, it’s quite another to manage the long quarantine period a positive case would require. And so we continue to take precautions that others might deem unnecessary, because even a regular illness would be really hard to manage right now, and a positive covid test would be a massive disruption.

It’s really stressful. And I’m really tired. And it feels like there is no end in sight. I just need things to ease up a little. But they won’t, not for a while.

All I can say is TGIF! For real.

We’re four weeks into the school year and we’re starting to find a rhythm. Even though I still have way too much work to do in the time allotted, this week feels more manageable than past weeks, and we even enjoyed a busy weekend without me feeling like it screwed me for the rest of the week.

For some reason, this week things just feel better. This week is just a good week. And the reason might ultimately be… one I have absolutely no control over.

I mentioned a little while ago that I was spiraling at the beginning of the school year. I vague blogged about it then because I expected to write more about it soon after. Of course the school year revved into full gear, I quickly felt totally overwhelmed, and blogging was pushed to the (way, way, waaaay) back burner.

So here I am trying to circle back to a topic I barely alluded to almost a month ago. And doing a piss poor job of it. I guess there isn’t an eloquent way to say it so I’ll just type it out.

The reason I was spiraling in mid August was because I realized I am officially in perimenopause. Since late June I’ve been having my period every two weeks. The ablation kept any menstrual bleeding away for about a year, but then I started noticing my cycles again. It was always a very light affair – mostly just some sustained spotting – which was the point of the ablation. I can’t wear tampons because of prolapse, and I wanted to be able to swim even if I were having my period, and I can technically still do that, so I guess it’s fine. But when you’re having your period every two weeks, even three days of spotting starts to get old. When I got my period again in mid August, two weeks after I’d gotten it in early August (and in mid July and early July and mid June), I kind of lost my shit. I also started to recognize the nights when I woke up really warm, and needed to shed all the blankets for 15 minutes before I could get back under the sheets and fall asleep, was a new kind of night wake up. And the kicker… I realized that I felt very unwell, mentally and emotionally.

When I lined it all up, it was so obvious what was happening, but I’ve been so distracted by Covid and the start of school that I honestly did not realize until it was not just staring me in the face, but repeatedly poking my nose.

And then I kind of freaked out. Not because I’m only 41 and experiencing symptoms of perimenopause, but because I was so mentally unstable that I felt more like the me of my mid-20s than the me of the last five years. The me of my mid-20s was a mental health DISASTER. I NEVER want to be that woman EVER AGAIN. And the thought of falling back into that terrified me.

When I was trying to have a second child, my RE warned me that I would probably experience menopause in my early 40s. I’ve been waiting for it, but I have to admit, I didn’t expect it to start quite so soon. I only just turned 41 in July, so I am VERY MUCH in my early 40s. But I guess diminished ovarian reserve doesn’t play. If, at 32 I had the ovarian reserve of most women in their mid 40s, it’s not surprising my body is already readying itself for the next stage.

I’ve been worried about it because my mom had a rough time with her (difficult and protracted) experience of perimenopause. I remember it being pretty awful for her: my stoic mom who always seemed to float above the fray was suddenly at the mercy of internal forces she couldn’t control. We have very similar reproductive histories so I’ve always assumed I’d have a hard time of it as well.

Luckily, most of my friends are 5-10 years older than me and many of them have been able to share their experiences and offer their commiseration. Even more luckily, Captain Awkward recommended this book, which had just been published, and which I ordered literally immediately. (It’s amazing and I highly recommend it.)

On Monday I saw my OBGYN; I was due for a pap smear, and wanting to talk about my concerns finally spurred me to make the appointment. Unfortunately I had to add a endometrial biopsy to the order because any bleeding that occurs inside of a two week window is considered “abnormal” and checking for precancerous cells is the “standard of care.” So on Monday, after my pap smear, I had to undergo a truly painful procedure that left me curled up cramping for the rest of the night. It certainly doesn’t portend Western medicine’s help in the coming months and years.

And that’s fine. Western medicine has rarely provided solutions for my specific reproductive woes, and I didn’t expect it to be of much help here. I started taking a women’s multivitamin and a B-complex along with my daily Magnesium pill. Right now I’m alternating the days I take the multivitamin and the B-complex because they both have lots of Vitamin-B6 and B12. About four weeks in, I think it’s helping. My mood seems more stable. It might be the placebo effect – and I’m fine if it is – but some weeks are definitely better than others so we’ll see.

It’s crazy to me how much more manageable this week feels when really nothing has changed. I guess I just need to really appreciate these weeks moving forward, and give myself more grace when I feel totally overwhelmed. My cycle has also stretched some since I started taking them, which isn’t surprising. B-vitamins helped me stretch my normal 20-21 day cycle to 26 days when I was trying to conceive. I don’t think I would have gotten pregnant without regular old vitamin supplements. Vitamin B supplements are known for helping mood anyway, and I’ve been meaning to take them again, but the good ones are expensive and it was always easier to put off buying a bottle. Now I have a renewed interest in laying down my credit card.

So yeah, that is one of the things I’ve been dealing with during the last month, along with all the normal insanity of starting school, and the increased anxiety of returning to in person learning, with unvaccinated kids at home, during a deadly wave of the pandemic. It’s been a lot, and I’m just taking it one day at a time, trying to prioritize sleep even when I need to get work done, trying to educate my husband about something I don’t know nearly enough about.

I want to write more, but this is all the time I’ve got, and I’m going to set this to publish because otherwise it will never go up. If you have any advice on weathering this massive change please send it my way!

This past weekend was just what we needed to reset after the insanity of last week. We got some QT with our kids, some QT without our kids (so very needed) and some general down time. I definitely feel better going into this week than I have any since we started school (it being a four day week certainly helps).

As things settle down, I’m trying to figure out how to return to certain aspects of our lives. Martial arts has been sorely neglected, especially by me, and I’m trying to figure out which classes work best with my schedule. I’m also trying to figure out when to get my son to the dojo, which is especially complicated now that he plays soccer. He’s never had a second activity vying for his time, and I have to admit, I’m struggling with it.

I’m also struggling to show up here. I have an hour – 9 to 10pm – to myself between the kids’ bedtime and my own. So far I have been loathe to spend that time in this space. Usually I need to get some work done. Or at least I should. But even when I don’t have to do something, I don’t generally want to do this. Mostly I don’t want to do anything at all. I feel perpetually behind at work, but I’m hoping I’ll fall into a rhythm and I’ll feel more on top of it all soon. Maybe if everything else feels more manageable, this space will feel more manageable too.

The news cycle is dire these days. I mean, it has been for what feels like forever. I guess I hoped things would calm down, but they don’t. But maybe new cycles are built that way, to always make everything seem catastrophic. Things these days really do seem to be catastrophic though… I don’t know. It’s hard to just keep reading about it and then going through life as if it’s not happening.

I’m feeling really adrift lately. My friend group is socializing in ways we don’t feel comfortable with and I feel like I’m being left behind. I know I’m mostly “telling myself stories” about what is happening, but I also know some of the stories are true. I’m so bad at being the one to drive meaningful interactions forward… if they are doing that with each other in other spaces, I’m bound to get left behind. For the first time in a really long time I had something I’ve wanted forever. It was so amazing while it lasted, and it’s really sad to watch it change into something else. Maybe it will go back to how it was some day, or maybe I can keep a small piece of it going.

I’m not sure what the end game is anymore. I mean yes, my kids getting vaccinated will take a huge weight off, but will it really change much in our day to day lives? We’ll still all be wearing masks all day. We’ll still be quarantining when there is a close contact. How long do those measures stay in place? When will it finally feel like we’re coming out of this? Will we let our kids see their friends inside after they are vaccinated? That would be something to look forward to at least.

I just need to keep taking things one day at a time, but planning at least a week out. That is the current game plan.

Back to School Night went fine. honestly I’m not sure how it went (I can never tell how it goes), but it’s over and that is all that matters.

I was at school for 13 hours today. When I finally got home it was to a house that had been without power for over 6 hours. My poor husband. He has had quite a week.

The power is still out. It was projected to come back on at 10pm, but that was back at 2pm when it went out and there haven’t been any updates since then. We’re worried it won’t come back until much later.

We have a set of lanterns and plenty of batteries. Our little travel battery happened to be charged. I picked up Chinese food on the way home.

I know people go without power for a days at a time. I know we’re lucky that an outage like this is rare for us. But it still sucks. We don’t even know why our power is out. We probably never will know.

I still need to finish my sub plans and send them to my school. Thank goodness for hot spots.

Tomorrow I’m taking the day so my husband can get some work done. I’m taking my son to get tested in the morning, but otherwise we have nothing planned. He has a giant packet of work slog through. I want to get him outside at some point. I hate Thursdays, and after such a long day today, I’m not sad to miss work tomorrow. And I’m very relieved I can give my husband a break. Luck sure isn’t offering him any.

My kids can’t fall asleep so I’m being called. I hope tomorrow is better.

UPDATE: The power came on at 9:56pm! Woot!

UPDATED #2: I got my sub plans done at 11:03pm! Double woot! (The staggering amount of work required to miss just one day of school is mind boggling.)

I did not mean to be gone for so long. I kept insisting to myself that I’d get a post out, but it just doesn’t happen. I’m so tired at the end of the day – my brain is like oatmeal – and I just can’t bring myself to open the tab to type.

Last week was a rough one. I spiraled WAY DOWN. WAY DOWN. I felt like a crazy person and frankly, I was afraid. There was a reason for the spiraling (it’s nothing awful and I’ll write more about it later) and by the end of the week I was able to pull myself out of the depths, but it sucked and I was exhausted by Friday.

I knew this week was going to be rough – my son’s virtual Back to School Night is tonight and mine is tomorrow night IN PERSON (WHY?!) – but I wasn’t expecting my son to be stuck at home for most of it because someone in his class tested positive for Covid. That really throws a wrench in things.

This morning, an hour into my husband FIRST DAY AT THE OFFICE (he has literally not stepped foot in his office since the pandemic began), we got an email, voicemail, and text saying that our son was a close contact and had to be picked up as soon as possible. Luckily my husband was able to leave work and get him because it would have been REALLY HARD for me to step away from school in the middle of the day, let alone get there quickly. So now our son’s whole class is out until next Tuesday and there will be no distance learning even though everyone is home and it could easily happen. (In my opinion this is some bull**** and I will be asking why this is the case. What is the teacher even doing all week?!)

I can’t really take off tomorrow because it’s Back to School Night so my husband is taking the day (but trying to make some meetings), and I’m taking off Thursday (which is a day I hate and a day I was REALLY dreading this week after the late BTSN presentations I have to give in person tomorrow) so my husband can work. We’re still not sure about Friday – I have a minimum day so I think I’ll just go and take the afternoon after I get home.

As stressed as I am about the disruption, I recognize that we kind of lucked out because the exposure was last Friday, and they only got the positive result today (the student has been out with symptoms since the weekend) and since this coming Monday is a holiday, he’s only missing 3.5 schools days out of the 10 days of quarantine. We can get him tested Thursday and feel confident that the test will be accurate because it will have been 7 days since his exposure. They may even be able to spend the night at my parents house on Sunday night like we had planned. So yes, it really could be worse. We are the first class at the school to be quarantined this year, and I’m hoping they will learn how to better manage it when it happens again. I will definitely be sharing my input. 😉

So that’s where I am at. Still here, still hanging in there, but just barely. It kind of feels like I’m hanging on by my fingernails. I’m hoping that next week I’ll feel better, and things will be back to normal. I have high hopes for this long weekend to reset.

How are you doing these days?

WHAT WORKED

Big prep each night. I’m trying to get out of the house by 7am, which means I need to get pretty much everything done the night before. I have a long list on the board in our kitchen so I make sure I don’t forget anything. Last week I did a lot myself, this week I’m going to make my kids start helping me.

Leaving before the kids get up. The one day I didn’t leave before the kids got up, I ended up leaving WAY later than I wanted. Now I know I NEED to be out the door before they are out of bed, otherwise a quick five minutes stretches into 15 minutes before I know it.

Sending them little videos to start their days. Since I don’t see them before I leave, I stop the car a couple blocks away and record a little 30 second video for each of them, and then I message them the videos so they can watch them when they get up. They really seem to like them, and if I forget a detail I can put it in the video. I also put little emoji stickie notes on their lunch boxes (which I finish packing before I go).

Double weekend workout. I try to work out four times a week, and usually I get three of those workouts done during the week, but last weekend I doubled up in case it was too hard to get my third workout in, and that ended up being a great strategy. On Thursday I was too zonked and on Friday my friends planned an impromptu “we got through the first week” get together, and I was so happy that I didn’t have to fit in a workout either day. I worked out both days again this weekend, so I have some leeway this week too.

Daughter taking bus home. The aftercare program at my daughter’s school is free, so she is going some days. Other days she just wants to get home after a long day, and she can do that on the bus! She’s still only taken the bus with her friend, which suits us all just fine.

Pseudo seating chart. I adopted a flexible seating arrangement this year, but I was nervous about starting the year with free seating. My friend gave me the great idea of labeling each seat with a letter, and then handing each student a letter as they walked in. This gave us three days for them to try different seats, and for us to really talk about our flexible seating arrangement – and the expectations – before they get free seating this coming week. It was a great idea and I’m so glad my friend shared it.

Huband’s new pillow. My husband’s new pillow came early last week. It’s the Easy Breather Memory Foam Pillow from Nest Bedding. He snores less, and his neck pain is gone. I’m thinking of getting myself one because it’s also Wirecutter’s #1 recommended pillow for side sleepers.

Surgical mask refusal workaround. And, my crowning achievement… finding a way to get my kids to wear surgical masks, despite their hating the feel of them on their faces! When I realized the cloth respirator masks I got my daughter wouldn’t arrive in time for the first week, I started brainstorming ways I could beef up their cloth masks. I had a bunch of kid sized paper surgical masks, and two kids who refused to wear them (they are itchy!). I also had a TON of Athleta cloth accordion masks, which are super breathable. I realized that some of them didn’t have nose strips, so I released the stitching on the bottoms, opened them up and put a surgical mask inside. The disposable mask fit perfectly inside the cloth mask, creating a 5 layer mask that provides the filter of a surgical mask but feels soft like cloth! I was SO THRILLED that this worked, and that I had exactly ten of the Athleta nose-stripless masks (they were $4 for a pack of five at one point and I literally bought every pack of 5 they have – evidently two of the four sets have nose strips and two do not!)

Natural latex respirator masks. My daughter’s masks did come on Friday, and they fit her great. They are kind of crazy – you need to hand wash them, dip them into boiling water for 10 seconds and let them drip dry (you can’t wring them out first). This is obviously not ideal, but I got five of them, so I can wash them all on Friday nights, and let them dry over the weekend. Here they are on Saturday morning, dripping into the downstairs kitchen sink. After seeing my daughter’s, I got five for my son as well, since they were having a sale, but they will take a while to get here.

WHAT DIDN’T WORK

Starting laundry at 9pm. There is a big push in California to avoid running major appliances from 4pm to 9pm, when household electricity use is at its highest, and clean energy generation is at its lowest. It wasn’t so hard to get laundry done outside of this window when I was working from home, but it’s a lot harder now. I tried to run a load starting at 9pm, but I wasn’t done folding it until after 11:30, even though I remembered to switch it right when the cycle was done. I’ll only be running loads that don’t need to be folded on week nights from now on. 11pm is too late to go to bed these days.

Attempting to skirt afternoon work traffic. How did I forget how AWFUL the traffic is around my school at dismissal? There are four schools within two blocks of each other, and they all get out around 3pm, which means there is NO WAY to get out of the area quickly. I tried to park off campus on Friday, but the parking spot was a 10 minute walk up the hill. I will not be able to leave work most days until 3:45, which is not what I was expecting. This is incredibly disappointing.

Quick pick ups. My only two years of a common kid pick up were lost to a global pandemic (it’s cool, I’m not still bitter) and unfortunately my kids’ new schools are in opposite directions, so pick up takes a really long time. Luckily, my daughter takes the bus home herself some days! I think soon that might be all days… It also takes FOREVER to pick up at my son’s school. The lines is always 15 parents long, no matter what time I show up. It takes forever and I’m always tired and hangry by that point. I am not a fan.

Running errands after work. Between the delayed departure time on my school’s end, and the lengthy pick ups on my kids’ schools end, running errands right after work just doesn’t work. This sucks because it means I have to run errands in the evenings or on the weekends, when stores are way more crowded. I am a sad panda about this – I REALLY hate shopping during peak times.

Staying organized for class. I have not created good systems to stay organized in my new classroom, and… it shows. I need to spend some time this week trying some new systems.

Down time. At this point I’m not getting any down time during the work week. My kids still go to bed at 9pm, and I have to start my lengthy “big prep” around then, after which I go to sleep. I hope I can find some time to unwind at the end of some nights.

Back-to-School Shopping. I’ve been trying to get my son some new black pants (part of his uniform), but he’s in between sizes (his current pants are too short, but he swims in the next size up). I hit up Target (their size 10 fits him best), but the kids’ clothing section was like the toilet paper aisle at the beginning of the pandemic; there was nothing left. It was crazy! I tried to get some stuff online but most of what I wanted couldn’t be shipped (and obviously wasn’t in stock anywhere). I hope I can find a couple pairs that will get us through to his next growth spurt.

The weekend. I committed to an event I didn’t really want to go to on Saturday, and it ended up being a super depleting three hour thing that I really regretted attending. I need to be careful with weekend commitments, I just don’t have the energy for stuff I don’t want to do. And yet, we need to do something, because Sunday felt interminable (in all the wrong ways) and we ended up letting the kids play way more video games than we wanted. They didn’t play them all week (it might have been the first four days my son hasn’t played video games since the pandemic started), so we were more inclined to let them play, but in the future we need to have a better plan for filling the days.

What has been working, and not working, for you lately?

We made it to the end of the week. It felt like two weeks, maybe even three. I’m bone tired, and it’s only just begun.

As I expected, it’s better, but it sure ain’t easier.

There is more to say, about how hard it is to wear a proper mask all day. About how wet my face gets from the sweat and my breath. About how hard it is to learn who the kids are when 2/3s of their faces are covered. About how all three of our schools have had notices of Covid exposure, but that none of us has been a close contact yet.

Every night it feels like I’m maybe getting sick. My ears ring and my throat is tickley. But I wake up the next morning feeling better and I know it’s just exhaustion. I wish I could get tested regularly but my work won’t pay for it and Kaiser has long waits for testing and longer waits for results. In either case I have to lie and say I have symptoms to be tested.

It’s going to be a really long fall, but seeing how happy my kids are at school, in the same room with their teachers and out on the playgrounds with their friends, gives me the strength to face it. I’m sure they will get sick before they are offered the vaccine, but hopefully their masks will keep their bouts mild. That’s my hope at this point.

I am so thankful we live in an area where masks are not a flash point. Our incredibly high vaccination rates might not have saved us, but hopefully our willingness to wear masks will.

Now we need to keep our fingers crossed that our air quality won’t plummet. That is when things will really get hard.

I know there are more important things happening in the world. More tragic devastation coming to pass. It puts things in perspective.

I’m really grateful it’s the weekend. I need these two days to rest and unwind.

The kids started on Monday. I start today. This has almost always been the case (that they start two days before me) and I appreciate those extra days to get used to their routine before I’m thrown into my own.

The first two days went well. I took each of them to school on Monday since I didn’t have anything pressing waiting for me at work. Both of them ended up in classes with their friends which REALLY helped calm their nerves and kept Monday morning drama free. They both tried out their new after care situations on Monday afternoon too.

My husband attempted his first solo morning yesterday and it went well. He takes our son to school on the bus around 8am, getting home by 8:45. Most of this time was spent just watching our son play on the blacktop (supervision starts at 8:10 and they line up at 8:30), so it will probably shorten as they both get used to it. Then he is back home to walk our daughter to the bus by 9am. Her friend met them there and they were off! Their school doesn’t start until 9:30am! I’m guessing that later in the year they can meet each other at the bus stop without my husband (they both have watch phones so they can coordinate themselves).

Yesterday I hung around until 7:45ish because I had an all-district welcome back event at another school at 8:30am. Today I’ll be leaving much earlier (especially since I woke up at 5am and finally gave up on trying to fall back asleep at 5:40, when I started writing this post). I lay out their clothes the night before and I’ll be packing their lunches before I leave. It helps me to participate in those little ways.

I think I’m ready for today. It’s a minimum day so each class is only 30 minutes long. My classroom is ready. I have an activity planned but am giving myself enough time to just take it slow and focus on expectations. I have a few little fillers to get us to the end of each period in case they blow through my activity super fast.

I have not taught a real class on campus since March 13, 2020. Its been way too long and I am so ready to be back. I was able to implement my flexible seating plan and I LOVE my new room. I have three smaller classes of Spanish 1A and one full class of Spanish 1B – my Spanish program has finally grown to meet my aspirations! There is a lot of positive to focus on and for this week at least, I’m going to focus on it.

Thanks for sticking with me while I managed my freak outs about the beginning of the year. I still feel a lot of anxiety about starting school during the Delta surge, but I’m also feeling a lot of gratitude that we get to go in person. Fingers crossed that today goes well!