Fitting it all in

I think as teachers it's hard to fit it all in. This post is bit more personal, but I have just been reflecting since the beginning of school eleven days ago about life. We as teachers take on a lot. We take on students we love, students we learn to love, hard standards given to us by the state, common core, assessments, standardized testing, scheduling conflicts, etc. There is so much we face at school every day it's exhausting. I know we chose this path, and I know it's hard. I hope I'm not the only one that barely keeps it together the first six weeks of school! I have a list a mile long of errands I need to run, but after school gets out we have soccer, football, piano, and the list goes on! By the time we actually pull it together and are together as a family again, it's 9:00 and we are exhausted. I try my best to read to my kids before bed, but we don't always make it!

I think we need to give ourselves a little break and celebrate the small successes we have from day to day. Last night my husband was at a meeting, my daughter was at Young Women's (for our church) and I actually had a night with my boys. We got to turn off the tv, read some books (they wanted to read their own, which isn't always the case) and I got to do some laundry, and clean up their closet (something I never got to over the summer! We needed to get out the too small clothes!) It's amazing how much more relaxed I can be when I can meet the needs of my family while feeling like I can breath a bit.

Here's to the working moms out there, the teachers that sacrifice so much in their own lives to meet the needs of their students, who actually feel more like their own children. Cheers to you! Celebrate the small things in life to keep you going from day to day. As for me, I will take my own advice and know that I can do hard things!