All are tales of love at heart

So around 1:30 in the afternoon, I have four kids who fall asleep in my class.

I mean, it's preschool. We help them fall asleep otherwise it's like a madhouse in the afternoon.

Anywho, our newest kid has been having a hard time falling asleep, understandably cause it's a new place and new things, oh so many new things, especially for an autistic brain.

We had gotten everyone else to sleep and this kid was still just laying there, quiet and pretty still, but eyes wide open as he stared at the ceiling.

My IA reached over and started rubbing his arm to kind sooth him into sleep and she whispered, "It's okay, you can sleep. We love you. You're safe."

She got up and went over to the other classroom to help, leaving me there with him. I looked down and he just had the most beautiful smile and was looking straight at me and I was just kinda smacked in the face with how much I loved this kid.

I mean, I've only had him in my class for a few days and I honestly have no idea if he knows who I am or even cares.

But I love him.

I looked over at the other sleeping kids and my heart just swelled with love for all of them in the midst of this long, tiring, crazy day that we had just gone through together.

It was like Heavenly Father was patting me on the shoulder and saying "Don't worry. I'll help you remember why you're doing this job."

Oh, how they drive me crazy.

But oh how I love them.

Attend me now...

Today is the first time in a loooong time that I really wish I was on tumblr again.

Not really cause I miss it, but I need an outlet other than facebook.

Cause, you know, people.

Let's just start with how crazy our school system is.

I am getting a new student.

Nothing weird about that. I like new students.

But this kid is three years old. This kid is autistic. And this kid already started going to another classroom last Thrusday.

Apparently there was a mix-up in the paperwork and it was sent to the wrong school and noone figured it out until the poor kid had already been in school several days and was just starting to adjust and now we're moving him???

WAT.

And moving him to a school that is 30 minutes away instead of letting him go to his school that is 5 minutes away because, and I quote "The bus driver doesn't want to take SpEd kids across Route 50."

ARE YOU JOKING?
WHAT. ARE YOU WALKING THEM ACROSS ONE BY ONE? CARRYING THEM ON YOUR SHOULDERS? YOU ARE A BUS. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND.

So since this kid literally lives on the wrong side of the street, he is being shoved into a new school with a staff that did not work on his caseload and his poor parents have no idea how to react. His mother doesn't speak English so she asked the interpreter to talk to Transportation about the change and how they don't want the change and transportation literally was like "Yeah, that's a bummer but no, we're moving him to another school" and of course if she fights him on it she'll just lose services for her son because she doesn't have the right connections to make the case and UGH PEOPLE ARE SO ANNOYING I DO NOT UNDERSTAND THE WORLD.

I am so upset about the whole situation, I really do not think I've been this upset about anything in a long, long time.

In an effort to calm down, I've been eating since I got home and watching Supernatural, which I haven't done in a long time.

Of course now I have Supernatural feels, so that kind backfired on me.

The pets are dead. The butler's been discharged.

My last post was really depressing. Here's some laughs:

I'm terribly sorry, I didn't know. If I see one, I shall inform you immediately.

Rambling post....sorry.
edit: wow this came out a lot longer than I thought it was going to be.

I spent the majority of my weekend ignoring every responsibility I have.

Let me just put it out there: This is not a wise thing to do.

Saturday was not all bad. I went to our school "Color Fun Run 5K" where I did not run, but threw colored chalk on the kids that did run. Yay look at me being involved. I went over to my parents house to yet again help them pick out carpet. 12 hours later they, of course, had changed their minds, so we could call that useless. The rest of the day definitely was. I spent money I didn't have, watched movies I'd already seen, and ate too much food.

Then came Sunday. Sunday is never a great day for me. It's supposed to be the best day. It used to be the best day. Now it's just gives me too much time to think and dwell on all the bad decisions I've ever made.

Sunday is never a great day.

In an effort to stop thinking and dwelling, I random chose a book from my "shelf-of-books-I-haven't-read-yet". It was "The Selection".

Let me tell you right now that that book is exactly, and I mean EXACTLY what you think it's going to be.

To be fair, it was been a while since I've read a book that wasn't my textbook. Like, months. So I ate, it, up. I read the whole thing in a matter of hours and despite how predictable it was and how annoyed I was at almost every character, I went on my kindle and bought the sequel.

Stupid kindle.

Today at work I thought I could snap myself out of this stupor, and whoa did I.

I had my evaluation interview with my principal which consisted of me crying in front of her for about 45 minutes about how horribly I was handling my Instructional Assistants, She was very sweet, very kind. I know she believes in me far more than I believe in myself. She gave me some great things to work on and I went back to my classroom still feeling down on myself, but with more confidence that I could do better. I had to duck into the bathroom on the way back and splash water all over my face, but that still did nothing to hide the genetically-induced-blotchy-face that showed I had been crying. (seriously, I even think about crying and BAM! it's all over) Then I spent the rest of the afternoon working on paperwork (endless paperwork, ohmygoodness I am killing so many trees, why) and when I came home I should have worked on my project that is due on Thursday. Did I do that? Pft no.

I ate a big dinner, played games on my phone, put in a load of laundry and went right back to ignoring my life by reading the next book in the Selection series called "The Elite".

After I finished this second book (yes, I finished it), I kinda sat in my bed staring at the wall, listening to my bunny hop around under my bed and trying to find the incentive to go work on my homework or at least, you know, do something.

Already twice while I've been sitting here typing up this post, I've gone on youtube and watched videos.

My leg won't stop tapping and there is a pile of unfolded laundry on my bed and an elliptical machine sitting literally one foot away from me and yet I still am unmotivated to accomplish anything.

I mean, this side of last week I was bringing paperwork home with me and studying for my test and answering parent emails and now...nothing

It's like, I'm good at accomplishing things up to a certain level, But if suddenly there is just one thing too many I shut down and my brain is like NOPE. But that can't happen any more. I have responsibilities. I have people depending on me. I have a career and a path for my life and stopping in the middle of everything doesn't work anymore. Maybe I could pull it off at Interstate when literally nothing mattered to me, or maybe even while I was an IA where I had so few real responsibilities...but not now. It can't happen now.

After my meeting with my principal, I went out to the preschool trailer to ask another preschool teacher something, and we ended up commiserating about working with hard IA's. One of them said "You know, it's never going to be perfect. You'll probably always be working with at least one person who is just hard to get along with." I almost started crying again.

I remember the first teacher I worked with, and how when I told her I was going into the Early Childhood Special Ed program, she was excited for me, but she also said "Make sure it's what you really want...you have to get a whole other degree to teach any grade levels." At the time it wasn't really about what I wanted, it was about what was available to me, and on some level I did want it. I do want it. I want to teach kids. I want to work with kids. Work with other adults....it's really hard. It's not something I really thought about when I "signed up". I really want to work with my little autistic preschoolers...but I really want to work with older kids. and I really want to work with typically developing kids. And I really want a lot things I don't have.

Many times over the past few months I've found myself very content with my life, with who I am and where I'm at. But I still get pulled down into this depression every once in a while and it's like my mission all over again and bleck, I want to wipe that out of my mind but every Sunday I think about it again and again, and how is that every going to stop?

Those who do not complain are never pitied

I could probably spend the next several hours typing up all the complaints I have about my life this past week cause I basically have spent most of this week in this perpetual state of "UGH".

Is that a thing? "Perpetual state of UGH"

You don't want to hear about my problems. No one really wants to hear about other people's problems. The only reason we listen to other people's problems is so we have an excuse to tell them about our problems. But it's a stupid cycle because nothing gets solved by gossiping or complaining about it. In fact, most of the time I feel worse because I have this crazy genetic guilt-thing where I immediatly regret complaining or gossiping and I'm just like "UGH LIISA BE A BETTER PERSON."

See I just wrote that paragraph and now I feel like a horrible person. Why don't I delete it? To punish myself by constantly remembering that I am a horrible person.

Soooo, I'm not going to complain about anything. Well, nothing more than I've already complained about.

I'm going to tell you a happy story from this week.

Wait here while I figure out a happy story.

...

So we took all our preschool kids on a fieldtrip to Ticonderoga Farms this week. w00t! Field Trip! 

There was this incredible, giant pillow-thing in the ground that you could bounce on.

I don't know if you can tell from that picture, but it is HUGE and after a minute of watching one of my kids jump I was like "Um, I need to jump on that."

So I did. For like an hour with one of my students. 

It was SO. MUCH. FUN.

It's like a trampoline but there's really no edge and kids were falling down all the time but I don't know for some reason they never really got hurt and I could jump SO high, it was awesome.

Also, I'm loving my new phone with it's panoramic picture settings.

Also, 159 days till DISNEY. 

But I was going to the Toshie Station to pick up some power converters

I got an iphone 6!

Turns out I could get it for free, just turning in my old iphone for a new one. Pretty slick. And I'm on a cheaper plan now, so that's awesome

I was pretty busy this weekend being sick, and then spending hours with my parents as they argue about carpet swatches. I'm not that excited about going back to work tomorrow, but I got all the testing done last week for my kids and my teacher evaluation stuff is all done, so this week should be pretty painless. Of course we are taking 40+ preschoolers to a pumpkin patch on Thursday, so there is that.

Um, no actually that's going to be awesome. I LOVE MY JOB.

In other news, there now exists Starburst flavored Candy Corn. It...confuses my mouth.

ps. Still haven't watched Supernatural. Though I did see a few pictures on FB and wow Dean is not allowed to be that attractive.

I don't feel right, I feel like I'm leaking.

I actually reached that point today where you feel like death warmed over, but you still have to keep doing your job. Around one-o'clock I just suddenly hit this wall where I was so tired and achey and the rest of the day was like this blur of "clean up the room" and "remember to put jackets on the kids" and "you just have to keep them alive until the bus comes".

Ugh, why did I have to become an adult.

Excuse me while I eat chicken noodle soup and hibernate for the weekend.

my wall calendar is still on September

Today I had an all-day training which means I was not in my classroom and I missed my little guys. I'm a teacher in a Preschool Autism Classroom so I spend about half of my life and the vast majority of my waking hours either with my students or thinking about my students.

One of my IAs called me after school and told me that one student in particular was really throwing a fit when he came in - wouldn't stop screaming and just seemed all around really "off". Finally, she took him outside the classroom and said:

"Do you miss Liisa?"

She said he immediatley dropped his head and said "Yeah..."

So she said, "I miss Liisa too. You can say that. You can say 'I miss Liisa'."

And then he said "Miss Liisa...."

And apparently he was fine for the rest of the day.

DON'T I HAVE THE BEST JOB EVER?

Wow I love those kids.

No I have not seen the new Supernatural episode, thanks for rubbing it in.

Hoo-Hoo

My goal for this blog is a post every Sunday, Tuesday/Wednesday, and Friday. So three posts a week. No topic required.

This is not going to be a profound or earth shattering blog. In fact, I will probably post rather pointless things that only I care about, but it'll be something. And while I know this blog isn't going to be the same as tumblr, at least it will give me some kind of outlet, a way to shout into the void, if you will.

Feel free to shout back.