Ok, here goes. I am a wife to a loving, caring, supportive man; mom to 5 EXTREMELY energetic little boys (8, 6, 4, 3, 3 years old). I am a teacher, and a student. My life is crazy busy, hectic, tiring, but I am "pressed down, shaken together, and running over" as my dad would say. In other words, I AM BLESSED!!!
A little about me to get started. I am 32 years old. My hubby and I have been married for almost 10 years. We met in college. I looked across a crowded cafeteria and saw this guy dancing on the table. That was it for me. I told my roommate and best friend that I was going to fall in love with that guy some day, and that' s just what I did. It took him a little longer to fall in love with me, but he fell! We married in 2003 and our first son was born 18 months later. Two years later another little blue bundle of joy came along. Then 2 years later, another. Then we got our twins. And here we are, almost 10 years and 5 boys later. The BIG question we get asked almost once a week-"Are you going to try for a girl?" I answer the same way every time (I'm sure my hubby is getting tired of hearing me say) "We were trying for a girl and got twin boys. I think that was God's way of telling us to stop" :) And we stopped :)
Now that I have my body back and am not concentrating on being pregnant or caring for a baby, I have been able to focus some of my attention on my career. I started my teaching career when I was pregnant with my first Bubby. My bachelor's degree is in English. Not a mistake, but not a very lucrative degree either. So I began my teaching degree in one day care center after another. I was miserable, underpaid, and felt insignificant (now that I am a mom who's kiddos are in daycare, I can tell you that day care teachers are NOT insignificant). It just wasn't what I needed to fulfill the teacher within me. After Maddux was born, the mom within me emerged and all I wanted to do was be a mommy. My inner teacher shriveled and almost died. We did not have the money for me to be a stay at home mommy, so I settled for daycare so that I could be near him everyday. Baby #2 came along. After Gavin was born I did not end up going back to work. I wanted to (needed to) but the center that I had been in had not openings for him. So I continued praying about what God wanted me to do, and started sending out resumes. Lo and behold, a private school (k3-12, that had a daycare) called me for an interview. It was a k5 position. I was on cloud nine. I got the job, and my 2 babies were right there in the daycare. I took over for a teacher who was moving to another state, so I came in in January. That inner teacher that I mentioned, well, she was being nourished! And started to grow. I sat at my desk the afternoon before my first day, scared out of my mind, over analyzing everything, and wrote a journal entry. I believe it went something like this "I love my desk, I love my chalk board, I love my grade book, I love my classroom" HEHEHE.
I taught k5 there for 4 years until the school unexpectedly closed. Very quickly after putting out resumes, I was offered a position at another small private school as the 4th grade teacher, and part time middle school Bible teacher. That was a very challenging year. In November I got pregnant with the twins, and dealt with the physical strain that put on me. But in the classroom I had several boys who wanted to try to bully me. As a fairly young, inexperienced teacher who only wanted these kids to accept me (mistake #1) I took this very hard. One of the boys had documented anger management issues (had an anger management counselor shadow him 3 days a week), and the other boy was following in the first's footsteps because the first was a cool kid. Admittedly, they were both trying to get me to quit. Eventually I had to start my maturity leave a week before school ended, and I did not return the following year. I took a year off to be mom. Unlike before, it was not my intention to find a way to become a stay at home mom. By this point, that teacher within me had become a huge part of who I was. But I knew that taking a year to be only a mommy was something that I would never regret. My kids were getting big and wouldn't need me to be home with them much longer. I knew that I would have the rest of my life to be a teacher, but my years of mommy were flying by. So I took a school year to be just that. I loved every minute of it, but by February I had already called my administrator to be sure that she would save a position for me. The following year I went back to the same school, this time as the middle and high school language, history, and Bible teacher. After all, I had gotten my degree in English because I wanted to be that middle school teacher who reached out to all the kids who just needed someone to listen to them :) I had some good kids, but they were all middle schoolers...and all that that entails.
During that year I also made the decision to continue my education, and enrolled in Walden University to earn my masters degree in Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment. I began to feel about private school as I did about daycare. It wasn't the final landing place for my career. I knew that God wanted more from me. Public school was the next logical step. The problem was, that my English degree did not earn me a teaching certificate. So I can not move on to public school until I finish my masters and earn my South Carolina teachers certificate. I have 3 classes left to complete. And plan to go straight into my doctorate.
Last year I moved back to a kindergarten teaching position. This is where I am most comfortable, feel most successful, and most in tune with that teacher within. Kindergarten is where I feel at home. And I am back there this year.
I feel that blogging may become my stress release. So hold on- here I come.
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