ugh

Stress. I'm not a fan, but all too familiar with it. For the most part, my job is still going great. One hitch that I can't really talk about on here, but my kids are awesome even though I have to bribe one of them to come with me. The past couple weeks have been filled with meetings and training, which has cut down on instructional time, but that will calm down soon. Just a little worried about the quickly approaching end of the quarter, which means report cards, IEP progress reports, and parent conferences. Considering it took a little bit to get to know my kids and what works with them, I've only been really getting into the nitty gritty for the past 3 weeks or so it seems. Last week was a bit of a wash since I had so many meetings and had to push in instead of pull out so I didn't get as much done with one of my kids as I would have liked. But it was important that he was in class for what we were doing, so it was okay.

It's getting easier to plan for the week, and I don't feel like I'm constantly racking my brain to think of what to do with the kids. I feel like I have a pretty good schedule of rotating activities to work on goals along with plenty of resources if I need a fresh idea.

I'm feeling a lot more confident lately professionally and in my signing. I still have trouble with the signing but I can at least act my way through a small conversation if the interpreter is not there. And even in my stressful state, I've kept my tears at bay except for once today, when I was in the privacy of my office without anyone around. That was one of my fears when I started on my own. In past jobs, if I had to talk to a supervisor about something or if there was any conflict, no matter how hard I tried, I would cry. I'm getting much better at controlling that now.

I did have some fun this past weekend though. Saturday morning Chris's mom and grandma came over for breakfast and we made pancakes and sausage on the wonderful griddle that Chris' mom gave us for a housewarming gift. After they left, Chris and I went down to the City Market to walk around and check out the produce. One of the farmers there sells golden watermelon and it's sooo good. So we got one of those and a regular watermelon. We got some corn and some apples too. I'm going to make caramel apples with some of my kids on Friday so I thought I'd just pick them up while I was there. In the evening, Chris, Emily (one of the HI Specialist that I've become friends with) and I went to Oktoberfest in downtown Lee's Summit. It was so much fun to hang out and walk around the festival. Sunday was mostly a lazy day, doing some grocery shopping and getting homework out of the way. Tomorrow morning will be a little more lax because my morning student will be on a field trip so that's one less school to go to and an extra hour of planning for the week, which is always welcome, especially since I won't get my usual Wednesday plan time since I have to make up time that I'll miss on Thursday due to training.