I came across a sticky note that was placed in my planner for this week. On it I remind myself to allow a week of rest after the school year ends.
See, the first thing I want to do for summer is get started on the to-do list of things I couldn't accomplish during the school year, and get to making amazing memories with the kids, as I always feel like a "less than" mom during the school year. And in true Amanda fashion I want to get started right away. The last couple of years I noticed a trend at the end of the school year. I have this unrealistic plan of all the amazing things I will do (think of how you thought your new life of working from home would be like during the first few weeks of COVID 😆), and I am very hard on myself if I do not live up to my self imposed expectations. Every year I would degrade myself for not waking up early enough, not working out enough, not getting enough done throughout the day, and pretty much anything else I could find fault with for the first week of summer.
So a few years ago I wrote this sticky note. Every new planner I get I place it in the first week of summer break, and then just like what happened this week, I stumble upon it, smile, and remind myself I have 7 weeks of summer. I can leave the to-do list for a week. I need to be kind to myself.
Now the whole reason I feel like I need this sticky note is because of what I call "teacher tired". I feel like many reading this today might have a better understanding of what this is since many had to put on a teacher hat the last couple of weeks. Teacher tired is making a thousand on the spot decisions daily. Keeping my mind busy with lesson plans. lesson materials, who is buying lunch today, what time is it, how much longer do I have to teach this standard, why isn't _____ getting this lesson, oh ______ is riding the bus today, did I take attendance today, _____ said that strange thing in the hallway I better follow up and figure out what they mean, and the list goes on and on. So once I finalize all the paperwork, submit all my grades, write my last thank you note, clean/organize/pack my classroom up, and close my work computer, my mind kind of goes blank for a while. My mind needs a little time to figure out what life is like when it isn't going a million miles a minute. My mind literally needs to adjust to the mental relaxation of what is summer. And so for about a week after school ends my mind refuses to make decisions. Even small decisions. It just shuts down. Hence, my little note as a reminder to be kind to myself for a week.
So when I found this note last week, I laughed a little. I thought, well I won't need that. I've been teaching from my basement for the last 10 weeks (9 weeks of instruction). I can't imagine my mind is acting like it would be if I were in the physical classroom. I don't need to recover from teacher tired this year.
And boy was I wrong. I said goodbye to my class, in a Google Meet, on Thursday. It was the strangest end of the year I have ever had. Nothing felt finished. Nothing felt different than what we had been doing for weeks prior. And yet it was the end. No more lesson plans, no more 7am parent emails with a daily outline. No more typing up explicit directions on how to complete every assignment. Although I only have Jacob's desk to clean this year, the thought of my physical classroom stuck with March 13 still written on the board, frozen in time, and needing to be packed up and moved (yup, I get to move again 😀) brings much anxiety barreling down. And then it is all the end of the year items I have to get checked off, but everything is digitized, so it is the same yet different.
We have one more teacher workday, today, and as I check things off my end of the school year list I can feel myself relaxing a little bit. Although I wasn't physically in the class with my students my mind was still in teacher mode. Constant thoughts about ____ didn't turn in that assignment I better check in with them, _____ said they couldn't log in I better see if they got in, how in the world do I explain how to do this part of the assignment, do I have that worksheet in a way I can do it though Google Meet, I guess I could take that lesson and recreate it to be digital, oh how does this program work and can I make it work for my class, ______ parents lost their jobs I better check in and see how we can help, oh ___ wanted a one-on-one lesson I better set that up, I better check with my co-teacher on that, and all the like. We have to submit our grades, fill out check lists, work on next years teacher assignments, and it wouldn't be the end of the year without a few teacher meetings.
This school year was so different. But not so different than I can ignore that sticky note. Maybe the note is more important this year than any other year. So after today I will give myself a week of positive vibes. Even if the to-do doesn't get done. Even when I sleep in, and then take an afternoon nap. Teacher tired is real to me, and I just finished being a teacher for this school year. Even if this year didn't feel like a normal one.
Tuesday, May 26, 2020
Sunday, May 17, 2020
Not the Run I Want
It all started with a very selfish desire. I just wanted to run outside. Like a 10min mile pace, out in the sunshine, no stopping. Just a run outside.
I put together a plan. Cade is pretty good at riding his bike on his own. I've even got to the point where I trust him crossing some of the roads around the neighborhood. When we started this shelter in place/ safer at home/ quarantine I was still pushing Ellee in the single stroller. I can walk pretty quickly with the single, and Cade is fast on his bike so we are doing the neighborhood routes at a decent pace. But walking isn't running to me. I just wanted to run outside.
While texting with my mom and sister about our nightly walk, my mom said "Well you could run if they both were riding their bike". And that is when the plan set in my mind. Yes, if they were both biking I could run behind. I could run outside.
So I convinced Ellee to go out on our walks with her balance bike after trying to convince her to get on the two wheeler came to a complete stand still. And I mean literally. She had dropped the bike on the side of the road, and refused to move. For 15 minutes. Then she walked it home the entire way.
Well the balance bike was going okay except for our hills. And we have a lot of them. In every direction out of our neighborhood. She would fly down them, but she can only stop by dragging her feet, which she put holes in the toes of her shoes 2 weeks into my plan. And then the uphills, which she couldn't pedal up, as she had no pedals, she would stop, mope for a while, then walk very slowly up the hills. I tried running past her one day in hopes it would motivate her but it did the opposite and she started crying about how "mommy always has to be the slowest" and then wouldn't move for another 10 minutes. Mind you when she throws the bike down we are always at least a mile away from home.
Then came the water requests. The heat has been turned up down here, so I felt a little mean saying no to a request for water, so I started carrying a water bottle in my waist pack. Yes, I literally became a walking camel just so we could get through a 2-3 mile after dinner walk/bike ride.
The holes in the shoes were the final push for Ellee to feel like she was ready for the pedal bike. We took many of our evening walks helping her self start, self brake, and training her when to brake so she wouldn't go across any roads without me close to her. I thought we were finally there.
I dressed as if I would have for an after school run. I was ready, and felt confident that the previous 9 weeks had prepared us for this. I would be able to run outside!
And then it happened! We went out on our walk. They both did so wonderfully! They went up ahead of me, allowing me to run at a consistent pace, Ellee waited for me at every road crossing, and she was able to get up and down all of the hills. It was glorious.
STOP.
Just kidding.
That isn't what happened at all.
I dressed as if I would have for an after school run. To get out of our neighborhood you have to go down a decent sized hill, and then up a pretty steep one. Three houses away from our house Ellee refused to go down the same hill she had gone down many times before. So I hunched over and held on to the back of her bike to keep her slow down the hill. She walked her bike, very slowly, up the hill. Then we started out on a route that she knows well, and I felt confident I would be able to get a little distance in before she would need me. I started to jog. Ellee was less than 1/10th of a mile ahead of me and she came to a complete stop. She wanted water (which I was carrying). I should have just known that this wasn't going to work. But I continued to be optimistic. But this run was not at all what I wanted. It was full of fast, complete stops for no apparent reason. Me hunched over behind her bike helping her up a hill, or slowing her down. Many, many stops for water. I felt my patience leaving me quickly when I looked down at my watch and not even at the 1 mile mark and it had taken us 30 minutes. I could feel my frustration bubbling up in my throat. As I saw Ellee stopped in the middle of the sidewalk giving me the "thirsty" signal. Again. All I wanted to do was run outside. I was clenching my jaw so hard when I met up with her. I felt so defeated inside.
And she just smiled at me this big smile and asked "mommy aren't you so proud of me riding my bike?!"
I won't say all my anger went away in that moment, but it lessened the blow. I let the disappointment wash over me. I wasn't going to get a run outside. But I would get a walk outside with my kids who loved the normalcy of it this one act. A run outside just isn't in the cards right now.
When I type that out it is still very hard to swallow. It is just another reminder that this isn't normal. This isn't easy. This isn't where I want to be right now. But it is where we are. This is our reach for normal. And although it isn't easy it could be a heck of a lot harder.
So right now, I am not in the run I want.
I put together a plan. Cade is pretty good at riding his bike on his own. I've even got to the point where I trust him crossing some of the roads around the neighborhood. When we started this shelter in place/ safer at home/ quarantine I was still pushing Ellee in the single stroller. I can walk pretty quickly with the single, and Cade is fast on his bike so we are doing the neighborhood routes at a decent pace. But walking isn't running to me. I just wanted to run outside.
While texting with my mom and sister about our nightly walk, my mom said "Well you could run if they both were riding their bike". And that is when the plan set in my mind. Yes, if they were both biking I could run behind. I could run outside.
So I convinced Ellee to go out on our walks with her balance bike after trying to convince her to get on the two wheeler came to a complete stand still. And I mean literally. She had dropped the bike on the side of the road, and refused to move. For 15 minutes. Then she walked it home the entire way.
Well the balance bike was going okay except for our hills. And we have a lot of them. In every direction out of our neighborhood. She would fly down them, but she can only stop by dragging her feet, which she put holes in the toes of her shoes 2 weeks into my plan. And then the uphills, which she couldn't pedal up, as she had no pedals, she would stop, mope for a while, then walk very slowly up the hills. I tried running past her one day in hopes it would motivate her but it did the opposite and she started crying about how "mommy always has to be the slowest" and then wouldn't move for another 10 minutes. Mind you when she throws the bike down we are always at least a mile away from home.
Then came the water requests. The heat has been turned up down here, so I felt a little mean saying no to a request for water, so I started carrying a water bottle in my waist pack. Yes, I literally became a walking camel just so we could get through a 2-3 mile after dinner walk/bike ride.
The holes in the shoes were the final push for Ellee to feel like she was ready for the pedal bike. We took many of our evening walks helping her self start, self brake, and training her when to brake so she wouldn't go across any roads without me close to her. I thought we were finally there.
I dressed as if I would have for an after school run. I was ready, and felt confident that the previous 9 weeks had prepared us for this. I would be able to run outside!
And then it happened! We went out on our walk. They both did so wonderfully! They went up ahead of me, allowing me to run at a consistent pace, Ellee waited for me at every road crossing, and she was able to get up and down all of the hills. It was glorious.
STOP.
Just kidding.
That isn't what happened at all.
I dressed as if I would have for an after school run. To get out of our neighborhood you have to go down a decent sized hill, and then up a pretty steep one. Three houses away from our house Ellee refused to go down the same hill she had gone down many times before. So I hunched over and held on to the back of her bike to keep her slow down the hill. She walked her bike, very slowly, up the hill. Then we started out on a route that she knows well, and I felt confident I would be able to get a little distance in before she would need me. I started to jog. Ellee was less than 1/10th of a mile ahead of me and she came to a complete stop. She wanted water (which I was carrying). I should have just known that this wasn't going to work. But I continued to be optimistic. But this run was not at all what I wanted. It was full of fast, complete stops for no apparent reason. Me hunched over behind her bike helping her up a hill, or slowing her down. Many, many stops for water. I felt my patience leaving me quickly when I looked down at my watch and not even at the 1 mile mark and it had taken us 30 minutes. I could feel my frustration bubbling up in my throat. As I saw Ellee stopped in the middle of the sidewalk giving me the "thirsty" signal. Again. All I wanted to do was run outside. I was clenching my jaw so hard when I met up with her. I felt so defeated inside.
And she just smiled at me this big smile and asked "mommy aren't you so proud of me riding my bike?!"
I won't say all my anger went away in that moment, but it lessened the blow. I let the disappointment wash over me. I wasn't going to get a run outside. But I would get a walk outside with my kids who loved the normalcy of it this one act. A run outside just isn't in the cards right now.
When I type that out it is still very hard to swallow. It is just another reminder that this isn't normal. This isn't easy. This isn't where I want to be right now. But it is where we are. This is our reach for normal. And although it isn't easy it could be a heck of a lot harder.
So right now, I am not in the run I want.
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