The teacher I work with informed me that another para was upset with me because I didn't answer the phone. Why are people so afraid to be upfront and discuss their feelings? I didn't know she was testing her reading group. Also, she asked me to have a detailed schedule and make sure that I was carrying a radio with me in case the student I am working with has a seizure. She has never said anything before. Another teacher asked all the para's to make a schedule out so that the office can call the right room. I don't know but I am feeling like they are trying to keep me on a short leash. I realize that I am new, and that I haven't worked for awhile and the office politics can be crazy. In fact my teacher is keeping a file on her computer about all the complaints about me. Normally I am so busy that I have no time to do anything but what is in front of me. In the afternoon I have intervention math and reading from 12:35-2:20.

sigh.................

I finally got nailed by something bacterial.... a really bad head cold that is still lingering. I had ear infections in both ears and the left is bulging so bad that my hearing is compromised. So I got augmentin for 10 days @ 1750mg a day ( can we say yeast infection)? ICK....

I missed a day and a half of work which is really good considering how awful i felt. But I really like is the rythmn of our household. I am trying my best not to have to do any grocery shopping during the week so i am not so over exhausted that I have no parenting skills left. I do have thigs i have to drive my daughters to... the best part is the am when I take 12yo to school and 5yo to daycare. It gives me some time with them. And the best news is that my 5yo lost her 1st tooth :)

Women, especially working moms, are masters at feeling guilty. You would think a 17yo could take care of themselves, but when they are sick, mom is a nice person to have around.
this guilt is 2 fold for me. as a mormon woman, the ideal would be for me to be home full time, therefore never having to worry about leaving from work or having to arrange someone to tkae a kid to the doctor. In a perfect world this would be nice. Especially if DH made the money for me to stay home. there are women who even relish being the martyr and stay home despite the overwhelming poverty. THere is a young family who is living with her parents, pregnant with #2 looking for a house to rent in the 600 range. There is no house in lewis county that rents for that ( its now btw 900-1200/month) and wages aren't meeting the rise in housing costs. But to her there is nobility in this impovishment because she is breeding and being the subordinate wife to her husband.
IS there sarcasm in my voice? Of course there is. I hate the fact the examples the general relief society makes about talking with the young moms who gave up their education and careers to take their children to the park and have a moms groups to talk to. 60% of LDS women work, these women are the majority, not the women who sit in the park with their kids, who have the 300o plus square foot house. The working women aren't the ones called to relief scoiety presidencies, only the soccer moms. we have so many young women droping out of the church. why? because there are no realistic role models for them. These young women are not going to just be full time moms. most of them are going to get education and have a career.
THis whole attitude of mine is hurting my husband. He will never be called to a leadership position because of me and that hurts alot.

After three c sections and two hernia surgeries, the dentist sounds like a cakewalk... NO! I have seen this dentist since I was 11, 31 years ago. the last dentist i had as a kid used NO NOVACAIN while drilling my teeth... so the mere being in the chaire used to freak me out.
Now that I have my mood medicine (prozac and lithium) my anxiety is alot less but its still present, but I have kids who watch mom and there is now way I am going to transfer that anxiety, especially to the 12 yo who is going to need braces and a 17yo who is going to have to have her wisdom teeth extracted ( she has one that is shifitng lateral instead of vertical). Isabel, has 5 loose teeth, the two on top and three on the bottom. she is going to start kindergarten as 'Fang'.

Its been a weekend of cleaning and getting ready for the week to come. My school is starting a new reading program and I am trying to find a few minutes to figure out what I am supposed to do.
Of course my monthly friend is here and the cramps make life soooo fun. 17 and 12yo went to white pass and sledding with the youth of our church. they came home wet and cold but in a good mood :)
Our 5yo is in pre-k and is reading short words. I have also started teaching her touchpoint math, a program where each number 1-9 has a sequence of dots: the child counts the dots starting with the largest number and adds the total up. YOu can touchpoint add, subtract, multiply and divide. She has picked it up fairly fast... perhaps she will be doing 9th grade algebra in 7th grade like her 12yo sister.

I am finally a working mom. Life begins at 6:20, where its rush to get myself dressed, while husband is getting himself ready for work too. After we are all dressed we part ways at 7 and 7:20 where I drop my 5yo at daycare and 12yo at middle school. I then drive 15 miles to work, where I am a LPN and a paraeducator. I teach 2 remedial reading and 1 remedial math. I guess its a good thing I have everything but my student teaching done.