Skip to main content

One Beat at a Time

Image
By
The end of the school year is coming fast; I still have a million things to grade and do, and I feel like there is not enough time no matter what this summer for me to prepare for next year, the baby, and relax some as well. It feels overwhelming, and just thinking about it leaves me exhausted at times. We have appointments and family trips and conferences and planning and painting and so on and so forth.

Get the picture?

I feel like this is how most parents probably feel day in and day out, but with the change in hours next year with going to full-time teaching and the drastic change in schedule I'm to have, things seem uncertain and a bit scary. I know change can be great, but it also is a lot of hard work, and so I'm going to have to work even harder than I do now.

7th grade will be a monumental challenge next year since I'm going to have a 75-minute class instead of 45 minutes. What a drastic change! I think it will be for the best, but that can be a long time with students, especially if it's one of those days that just drags on and on. However, it will also provide more time to dive into things and practice more skills. I'm just worried that my lessons won't be structured enough or long enough. I don't claim to be perfect at anything, and my constant worry, as it always has been, is to fail, especially failing my students.

Yet, in the midst of these busy days, I had a beautiful moment yesterday where I heard for the first time ever the beat of my baby's heart. It was strong at 154 bpm, and I could see how much our little bean had changed his or her once alien-like features into cute baby ones. It's round cheeks and little nose was clear on the screen, and all I wanted to see was the heart. Is my little one still alive?

Sometimes, I feel like this is all a dream, especially as my pregnancy symptoms have lessened lately due to entering the second trimester, at times I wonder if I'm actually pregnant. I know I've taken the blood tests and had an ultrasound done, but this miracle sometimes still doesn't feel real to me. How can there be a little baby growing inside me? I was so sure this would never happen that I think I still feel like it's surreal. I wonder if other people have felt this way. Does it go away once I can feel the baby moving?

Time keeps moving forward, and I feel almost back to my pre-pregnancy self at the moment. I can eat Mexican food again, and no longer does the sight of vegetables make me nauseous. I'm sure things will change again soon, but as a plus size woman, the changes aren't as noticeable yet physically.

As with all things, life and work, I will need to take things one beat at a time.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Old Hurts, Old Scars, Still Healing

By
My therapist has said it a couple times now, but I'm pretty sure I didn't want to hear it. A possibility? Sure. Confirmed diagnosis? I don't think so. Slow down there for a second. Yet, as this time of year rolls around again - the family holidays and what not - I know deep down she is right.  I have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  It's odd and yet liberating to say those words to myself let alone others. I have PTSD, and the traumatic events/time period is from almost exactly ten years ago.  How can something from ten years ago still be messing with my brain?  Perhaps, that may not seem odd to others, having their trauma affect their day-to-day life and demeanor, but I also thought my struggles were mostly, if not entirely, from my already established mental illnesses, depression and anxiety. Yet, it makes sense that all of these intertwine themselves together. I had depression and anxiety before that time period, but the increased symptoms and struggle around this...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Painful Relief of Saying Goodbye

By
 Well, it’s over and done with. I know losing a pet or having to put one down is a common occurrence, yet the pain is still sharp; the grief biting into me at different moments. One such moment was upon the return home from the vet. Coming into the house to see his paw prints in the snow, his other bed (because of course he had more than one), his food dish, and the eerie quiet without the jingle of his collar caused me to lose myself in uncontrollable sobs. Both Brett and I passed out from exhaustion at Jamie’s bedtime, which is why I’m awake in the middle of the night. I keep expecting to hear Baxter shake his collar and need to go outside. These past three or four months he needed to be carried and helped outside and back in. He would try to maintain his balance and usually fail, peeing on himself, and/or falling backwards on his back and scrambling, trying to recover his balance. Our linoleum kitchen floor became too slippery of a surface for his back legs that had lost their s...
Post a Comment
Read more

Teacher frustrations, struggles, and the need for kindness

By
 How is it still the year 2020?  As a teacher, I feel like this year has had a lot of lows. We went from in the spring caring about teachers and celebrating them for taking care of our kids and getting them lunches and doing the impossible overnight to now, we criticize everything that they aren’t doing well or enough of. Why haven’t they called the parents multiple times? Why is my kid failing? Why can’t we be in the building? Why do we have to wear masks? Why? Why? Whyyyyyyyyyyyy?  I get it. I really do. This isn’t the way we wanted this year to go. Parents are at their wits end, (teachers are parents too!), and teachers are starting to really question their choice of career or whether they should retire. I know I have at least thought about it, and I think others would be lying if they said otherwise. I’ve seen a few good teachers jump ship, and it makes me sad. Schools would be better with those teachers still in them. Yet,  I feel like teachers have become danci...
Post a Comment
Read more