Reflection List #2 part one: Work Life Routines

So for List #2 I am supposed to outline all of my daily routines and then determine where to trim the fat of things that add stress and anxiety to my life.  As a teacher, it feels like I have two lives and sets of routines, one that occurs during the school year/school day, and one that is my out of school (afternoon or summer) routine.  Here are the breakdowns for both.

School Day Routine: So you want to know the crazy circus ride that is being a fourth grade public school teacher? Well buckle up because by the end of this ride you will either want a nap or an adult beverage or both.  PAG and I divided up drop off and pick up duties of the bubs to match our contractual time.  I drop off because I start later, and he picks up because he ends earlier.  I arrive at school around 7am-ish give or take the time it takes to stop and grab a breakfast sandwich and coffee at Sheetz (thank you Sheetz for keeping me un-hangry this year, I would have been much more of a monster without you).  I sit in my classroom and make a mental to-do list of things to take care of immediately and tasks that can be accomplished at a more relaxed pace as I read through emails, respond to emails, and eat my breakfast.

And here is some of the chaos I walk into (however this is mighty clean because we were getting ready for open house here!).

Until this year I would have stayed after school beyond my contractual time to clean up the holy-disaster that is a classroom after fourth graders have been learning all day.  Books, papers, pencils are tossed around willy-nilly and try asking them to maintain one square foot of space.  Seriously, try it and then tell me to get 25 of them to have the same standard of cleanliness that I expect.  Nope, it was just easier to stay after they were being bussed home and get all of the items back into their "should be" places (this is not just a school thing, I have "should be" places for lots of things in my car and in my home-it may drive my wonderful husband crazy that I want shoes on the shoe rack and keys in the key bowl).  This year, however, with two bouncing bubs at home to play with and feed and cuddle, I wasn't staying to do all of that, so I generally tackle it in the morning so my day ran smoother and I could find the materials we would need throughout the day.  This was not my favorite way to start the day, but I can't really get work done without a clean starting point.

The cleanest it ever is but that is because everything is packed away for the summer.  I love and hate this picture because it doesn't really show how vibrant and crazy our learning and activity is during the year.

I prepped the room with a new quote of the day, writing down homework assignments, and making sure I had all of the necessary paperwork organized and printed.  If we were using the smart board, I would look over programs and make sure I wouldn't be caught off guard with a strange math problem, or a smart slide that I didn't fully understand.  Sometimes if that was all I had in the morning and there were no meetings planned or papers to be graded, I would get some future planning done and make some materials for days or weeks ahead.  Day by day planning is the worst and I would rather have things ready in the case of an emergency than put the burden on my co-teacher or one of the other fourth grade teachers to figure out.

So that was three paragraphs and kids haven't even arrived yet? Yes, every minute of my day requires my time and often I could fill five times those minutes if I had the opportunity.

Kids arrive at our school at 9am.  The two hour working period is nice, because once the kids are there, I have had my introvert time to charge up for the day and am ready to expend that energy into working with them.  And I won't get crazy into detail about how each minute I can tell you what our class would be doing, but honestly, it is 9:19am now and I would be asking the student with the job of sending our lunch order to the kitchen to use the smart board and print the order to the cafeteria while interpreting silent body language from another student who was asking to go get a drink or fetch a pencil from their locker.  Any day off for appointment or sick day I could look at the clock and tell you where the kids should be and what they should be doing down to the minute.  I run on teacher time and this is how it works.  The first couple of days of the summer are sometimes rough getting out of that rigid routine and finding a more natural flow of doing things not at a bat-out-of-hell pace.

As I mentioned, kiddos are bussed home at 3:40, and I try to be out the door on my way home between 3:45 and 4:00.  As a twin parent, there is a lot of patience and work that goes into managing two nearly toddlers on your own.  So I try to be a good partner and parent and get my bottom home to help out with playing, feeding, and entertaining them.  Sometimes I am able to catch a nap as one of the bubs is sleeping, but more recently, the kiddos don't need that later afternoon nap and want to walk outside or play in the upstairs room or explore the other areas of the house.  This is great, but it is exhausting and leaves me looking forward to our evening bedtime routine with the boys.  Dinner is flexible and we take turns spooning out baby classics such as apple chicken or ban-blab-blub as the other has some food or takes care of chores.  More playing is done, sometimes we pull all of the books off of a shelf and read some of them.  When the kids are flinging themselves at us frequently, wanting to be held, but not too much because they might accidentally fall asleep, we move our parenting operation upstairs and often to baths, teeth brushing, jammies, Harry Potter, bottles and bed.  For most of this year, it took every ounce of energy to get to bedtime and I couldn't talk myself into writing or reading or even watching TV after we had gotten the fellas into their cribs.  I collapsed into my own bed and was trying to catch some minutes of sleep before someone woke up and came back into bed with us.  Again, every minute counted when there was the high likelihood that I'd be rocking, feeding, or soothing a restless baby.

So that was half of this reflection post without really looking at how to smooth out and de-stress-ify the routine.  But it is summer vacation, and I can come back to this and make this a part one of some series.
  
Bonus: Take action, circle all of the routines that bring you joy, and cross out all the routines you dislike.  What is it about the circled routines that bring you joy?