Today was a beautiful summer day. I spent a lot of time outdoors, and created a new raised flower bed, where I planted purple shamrocks and white impatiens.

I know there’s a lot of work to be done, but I’m feeling so much better thanks to summer being here. There’s still some big challenges ahead but I feel like I can face them.

I seriously have to wonder if I should continue my teaching job. On the one hand, I do enjoy it. On the other, it sure did give me a lot of stress this year. Annoyingly, even though my performance was evaluated by the community, I STILL have not received an evaluation from Personnel. I did hear from them verbally (”You have nothing to worry about…”); nevertheless, I feel really annoyed that I haven’t been given my evaluation letter or any official feedback.

If they weren’t going to take my evaluation seriously, what did I need to have so much stress and anxiety about?

And sadly, it really all boils down to one family. One cuckoo family can have such a horribly big negative impact on my psyche? That seems really unfair. If not for this one family, this one child’s problematic behavior, would I have spent the last month of school feeling like a mental patient?

The relief I feel is truly tangible. But what about next year? I can’t help but ask myself… is that kid coming back next year? Rumor has it that he might not. Of course, there’s always conflict, in any job. Could be anyone, any kid– and I have to be strong enough to handle it.

If this was trial by fire, then the question is whether I am now forged by fire, or just burnt out? I will think about this, more.

Annie (6) has a squishy hot pink pillow. It is a kid-sized pillow, meant to be put in a pillow case and used as one would a typical pillow on a bed. That’s not how she uses it, though. Pillow cases be damned, this cute hot pink pillow cannot be covered. And it’s not for putting your head on, silly. It’s for clinging to.

She lays down in bed, and takes the squishy thing into her arms and pulls it close to her. She squeezes it, and hugs it in a cozy and loving manner. This is what she calls “clinging” to the pillow. Sure, sometimes she takes the stuffed animal of her choice to bed with her, bestowing upon “Calico” (a cat), or “Cloe” (a bear), or
“Sammy” (penguin), or even sometimes “Steel” (a labrador puppy), her good graces and unmitigated kid love. But the hot pink pillow remains a constant in her bedtime clinging routine.

The other constant is wanting snuggles. From me, or if that’s not an option, Drob is another acceptable snuggler. Tonight she waited up for me to come give her snuggles. It was late; with my work schedule and such this week, we didn’t eat dinner until well after 8 PM, perhaps even after 9. We gorged ourselves on this fantastic rhubarb cobbler and Drob read from the chapter book we are currently engrossed in (Peter and the Star Catchers).

So it was quite late when bedtime came, about 10:15PM. I was bustling around (I’m in a really really good mood, though I can’t really say why) and I didn’t want to go snuggle right away. I figured that with how late it was, and what a long busy day, that her eyes would shut and she’d be out cold before her head even hit the pillow. Or at least as soon as she started to cling to her pink pillow.

She called out to me, from her room, however, asking for snuggles. I bustled five more minutes, wanting to get the most out of my unusually high energy level. Walking down the hall to put away some stuff in the linen closet, she heard my footsteps and called out to me again.

“I’m WAITing here, you know!”

I was very surprised that she was still awake. I finished putting away the sheets and towels and walked over to her room.

I laid down on her bed, and drew her into my arms. She was clinging her pillow, and I was enveloping her into my arms. She told me, “Ah! You’re clinging me!” I was, too, I was holding her in a tight kind of snuggle, all wrapped up safe and close in my arms. She had her pink pillow in her arms, cozy and secure. I realized that for her, the clinging she does to her pillow is a kind of replica of the kind of snuggles she wants from me.

“Mommies are better for clinging than pillows, I guess,” I told her. She answered, “yeah and they smell better than pillows, too.” This is not surprising, especially since her cling-pillow is one which doesn’t have a pillow case to keep it fresh!

I laid there, and held her as she fell asleep. In the dim light coming from the hallway, I could see her sweet features up close. Her eyes, closed, I could see her black eye lashes resting on her soft pink cheeks. I could see the tenderness of her clinging to her pillow, and watched as she slipped deeper into sleep. Her grip on the pillow relaxed– she was clearly getting some good rest.

How much longer will I be able to hold her and watch her fall asleep, content and safe in my arms? I am a little sad that I don’t still do this with Carla, her older sister. I think I still would snuggle Carla to sleep if only a) she didn’t have a loft bed or b) if she didn’t wet the bed. Carla is a kid who seems to want extra physical affection. She still loves to sit on my lap and get lots of hugs, and piggy back rides. I make a point of giving her the opportunity for physical closeness, because I know that eventually she’ll want more distance as she becomes more of a tween.

The tenderness of holding your child as she falls asleep is wonderful. I adore both of my girls tremendously, and I swell with pride at their many acheivements. It’s no wonder that the simple joy of watching them sleep still fills me with happiness.

I’m half way through the busiest two weeks of my year. This is when I am directing and teaching a summer camp. It is only for two weeks, but it is intense.

Last week’s camp theme was essentially Science & Art and the huge fun messes you can make in both. I had 14 kids in the group, ages 5 to 8. We explored flubber (a gooey mixture of Borax and Elmer’s Glue), baking soda and vinegar explosions, splatter painting, diet soda + mentos candy explosions, and more. It was fun. We also spent a good amount of time playing with the hose in the school yard. Reports back from parents indicated that the kids had a blast.

I was thinking about this whole experience, the intensity of it, the corresponding emotions that go with it. Last year was my first time ever doing a job of this level of intensity and responsibility with kids. Wait, no, that’s not true. I used to work in a daycare center where I was the Lead Teacher. I did that for about 10 months during graduate school. But the fact is, those were essentially BABIES, I mean, large toddlers are still babies really. My classroom back then was filled with little children, all between 18 months and two years old. The needs for activities for essentially pre-verbal children are quite different from working with a largely literate group of school aged children.

I put a tremendous amount of research and effort into last year’s camp. I was insanely anxious– filled with worry that kids wouldn’t like the camp, that I’d lose my patience, that there would be insanity and chaos, and that kids would be unhappy, bored, whiny, and above all complain to their parents and other teachers about my obvious lack of competence. And, in addition, my anxiety said in a whispered frantic tone to my pounding heart, more than likely I’d be fired when the kids under my care ended up being rushed to the ER due to my frank incompetence at even keeping them safe, let alone happy.

Wow. I think I suffered a similar bout of anxiety prior to this year’s camp, although I’d like to think that it was somewhat less intense. It’s important to note that last year’s camp was quite successful. None of the bad things I worried about actually happened. Kids came back to school in the fall and actually told me that the two weeks they spent with me were the best day camp weeks of their entire summer. Sure, they loved the swimming and field trips, and special programming featured at other camps, but it was the FUN and the comfort and the sheer joyfulness of camp with me that came back to them when they thought about what was good about camp.

So you’d think that I have nothing to worry about. Why so much anxiety? I don’t know, to be perfectly honest. I am now halfway through my camp experience for the year. The first week went very well. I love the group of kids I have– and I have a homogenous age group unlike last year’s wide age range. It is nice to be able to talk to them about what we’re going to do, they listen well (mostly!) and they seem to be cooperative (mostly!).

Next week our theme will be world travel. I haven’t picked all our activities yet, so this weekend I have to do a little shopping, and some planning. I love the idea of doing multicultural crafts, cooking, and activities. I got the idea to have each child make a passport for themselves, and then we’ll stamp them each time we “visit” another country.

I think it’s going to be a good week, fun and exhausting in many ways. Then… onto the summer. Hoorah!

It is raining and chilly today. I wish I had a full day to just snuggle under the blankets. That’s not what my day will look like, though I could sneak about an hour of that in, if I really wanted to.

It is the last day of school today, and dismissal is at noon. Unfortunately, I have to start After School at noon, and will have some kids for a while. Maybe even some until close to 6 PM. Tonight there is an end-of-year celebration at a classmate of Annie’s house. It starts 5:30 PM. I hope I am able to leave school before 6 PM tonight. Next year’s academic calendar indicates that there will not be after school provided on the last day of school. This is good for me, but of course, not so good for working parents whose jobs don’t give a hoot that it’s the last day of school!

We don’t live in a very family friendly country. I think it may be getting a little bit better, though. Some things seem to be shifting, and certainly some companies are trying to do right by the parents they employ. It always seems to me that the people who need each dollar the most are the ones who are most penalized by the system. Poor folk. People working by the hour, and not much per hour at that, really get screwed when they have to get their kids from school earlier than usual. I wish it weren’t so.

So, I have about a bit more than one hour before I head back to the school. This weather sucks, because we’ll be all couped up indoors. I should think of something fabulous to do with the kids, but right now I’m thinking we’ll watch a movie. Some kids will be fine with that, others will complain — and rightly so– because we did that yesterday.

I am looking back on my first full year of being an after school teacher. I think I did pretty well, considering the various challenges I had. I would like to do better next year. Specifically, I would like to increase and improve my communication to parents. I never started the email list that I meant to, and that’s just dumb. It would have been really helpful, so why didn’t I make one? I don’t know. I think I just got swept up in all the other things I do.

Next year, I’d also like to find additional ways of getting my own kids to be elsewhere during after school. I think they are too exhausted by the current system, even if they mostly like after school very much. Drob has been very dedicated, and he is a wonderful father. He has been making himself available to pick up the girls, or sometimes just Carla, early from after school once a week. I hope we can do that again. Their grandpa also has picked up the kids sometimes, so hopefully that can happen again next year. I wonder if Cammy can get them sometimes next year? I don’t know what she’ll be doing.

Yes, gentle readers (all, what, four of you?), Cammy still lives with us. Things are quite different now, though. She kind of quit being our nanny last summer, and got a full time job doing something else. This left me without back up during the school year. Unfortunately, her job ended, and she’s looking for work again. I wish I could offer her the kind of work she wants, but there is no way I can get her health insurance, or anything like full time pay. Not sure if she’s ever going to go back to school. Even though she does technically live here, I see her only about once a week, maybe twice. And briefly. She comes, changes her clothes, and leaves. Obviously, this is not the peachy situation it once was, back when she was helping with the kids on a regular basis. She does still babysit from time to time, but that doesn’t really constitute the type of support I was looking for when I invited her to live with us.

My depression being what it currently is, I haven’t really made any efforts to discuss this situation with her. One problem I’m having is that I seem to be withdrawing from people around me, though not the children. I feel like it’s hard to communicate. I hope that after I finish my teaching work (in two weeks), that I can work on my emotional health. I am just not feeling like myself, and it’s a problem. I believe this will pass, but may be a bit rocky for a while.

One good thing, though… the rain is good for my garden. So that’s looking on the bright side!

Yesterday Drob told me he was concerned that I seemed “out of control.”

Oh, I thought, you noticed?

Only, I don’t know if “control” is the right word. I think maybe slightly out of order might be accurate. I don’t really feel right. I am not getting enough done, perhaps. Or I’m finding myself in these brain loops, my thoughts disorganized and swirl from one topic to another.

Last weekend I also stayed up all night and didn’t even feel tired. I felt perfectly alert and just kept doing housecleaning. I was doing very thorough cleaning. I cleaned WALLS and FLOORS. I scrubbed down places that hadn’t been cleaned, well, ever. I took down a dirty curtain from a window, washed it, was dissatisfied with the result, and then I attempted to dye it red. It came out pink, but I like it anyway.

Was that a manic night? I wonder? I did it because my mom was coming to visit. I did it because my house seemed to be so dingy and dirty. I did it because I was worried about Lucky, and rightly so, since he died a couple days later. I wanted to get my house to a comfortable state.

Now, we’re a few days later. The house is falling apart again. I guess this house really requires a daily vigilance, and for that, I don’t seem to have the where-with-all.

Daily laundry, daily dishes. What I’m doing instead? I’m thinking. I’m reading email. I’m relating to people. I’m thinking and planning for my job working with children. I’m researching projects for the summer camp I’m going to run. I’m wondering how to get more kids to sign up for camp. There’s much to think about– and my internal dialogue sometimes prevents me from getting things done in the real world.

This morning I didn’t feel like taking a shower. I’d taken one yesterday, and still felt perfectly clean. But D wanted me to shower– we used to always shower together. (Most couples do this, right?) I just wanted more sleep. Am I slacking in my hygeine? Is this a depression thing?

My real test for whether I am having bad depression problems is when thoughts of death go through my head. This hasn’t been happening, at least not like it did in the past. I have had fleeting death thoughts, like WHAT IF kind of thoughts, which are not the same as COME HITHER, OH GRIM REAPER or the sad, self-hating kind of I DESERVE TO DIE, I AM A VILE PIECE OF TRASH…. these thoughts have been unwelcome visitors to my mind in the past.

I am glad that I’m not thinking these kinds of thoughts, as they are very upsetting. I am mostly doing pretty well. A few times recently, however, I’ve found the kind of death thought showing up that run along the lines of “Oh, dear, it would be such a SHAME if I couldn’t go to work today, like, if I got run over by a bus because my shoelace was undone and I tripped and the bus driver happened to not notice me…..”

Or, “Gee, I sure hope my kitten wasn’t actually rabid and we didn’t know it…. he did bite me three times. I sure hope I don’t die from rabies. Who would teach in my place?”

These implausible, unlikely, and uncomfortable thoughts of death are quite fleeting. But are they a symptom of my depression worsening? I guess I could ask my doctor. Wouldn’t that be a revolutionary thought?

We’ve decided Enough is Enough!

We’re moving to a small farming community in a rural area. Our new community is cooperatively raising chickens and ostriches for meat. We’ll be helping to grow an all-organic garden for the family’s consumption. I’ll be home schooling the kids, but mainly they’ll be schooling themselves along with the other children who live on the communal property. There are about 5 families already doing this who have kids close in age to Carla and Annie.

Reading books and doing hands-on projects around the farm will be their education. We’ve simply had it with the complexities of life in the city, and dealing with education in a school environment. We’re tired of the daily grind, running around, with meetings at work and school.

Done! We are done with all, and we look forward to our future life of simple, hard work.

UGH! So much anxiety lately, so little posting to the blog.

Yesterday I actually spent about three hours working on a self-evaluation document for work. I hate how much anxiety I feel about my job. I love the job itself, especially when things go well. I’ve been doing this job for over a year now, and yet I still don’t feel relaxed at work.

Part of the problem is the work environment. I feel like I am being covertly judged by the other staff members at all times. I feel as if they don’t like what I am doing but won’t say what it is that they want me to do differently. I feel like every staff member has a different opinion, a different set of rules. Each teacher’s rules are fine for them to use, but not mine. It’s very uncomfortable, this sense that all is not right with the job.

And yet, when I sat down and wrote up my own self evaluation, I think I have been doing a very good job. If you look at the facts: kids are happy and safe. Parents — with perhaps one or two exceptions — are happy on the whole.

So what I suspect is that I am just insecure, and that other teachers are by and large NOT unhappy with my work. Again, with a notable exception. It’s crazy, but true — having one vocal critic can really undermine my sense of confidence.

I am not about to say to them that they can’t do things their way. Although I am sometimes tempted to do so. What pisses me off is that they seem to be saying that every teacher gets to have their own way of doing things, except that MY way happens to be wrong.

It’s hard to develop confidence when there is nobody helping you reinforce your decisions. When I try to find out what the rules are, I’m told that you have to make up your own. That seems really, really stupid to me, but I am game to make up my own rules if that’s what is wanted.

Except that I HAVE my own rules and certain people come along and give me a hard time because my way of doing things, my style, and my rules aren’t apparent to them.

One of these people told me recently that she doesn’t care about her evaluations because she doesn’t care what anyone thinks of her. She says she knows she’s bitchy and so what? If she’s bitchy to someone, it’s because they deserved it. Nice attitude, huh?

If I could try to cop that kind of attitude, what would it sound like? Here’s a fantasy conversation:

Bitchy Staff Member: Pann, OMG, you CAN’T let the kids DO that!
Me: Says who? I’m the teacher here. BUTT OUT!
Bitchy Staff Member: I would never allow that! This is ridiculous!
Me: Get out of my classroom, I don’t give a shit what you would allow or not allow. This is my group. Bugger off, bitch!

Hmmmm…… maybe I should try that!

… I’ll manage a mixed age group of kids for nine and a half hours straight. This is tomorrow, after such a long day today.

Today I drove a total of 270 miles to visit my mom and return home again the same day. Actually my brother & his family were visiting my mom, too. Because my brother lives about 10 hours away, I don’t see them all that often. It was only logical that we make the drive up to visit with them.

I got to finally meet my nephew. Oh sure, I’ve met him before, but never as a Talking Person. He was always a baby or toddler on previous visits, but now he’s just the cutest little boy I have ever met. He has big blue eyes and blond hair. I complimented his parents on how adorable he is, and how much I liked his haircut. My brother thanked me, as is polite in our culture, but my sister in law mumbled something about how he needs a haircut.

My sister-in-law is a really poorly socially-adjusted misfit who is intentionally rude and dislikes me and my mom intensely. She won’t make eye contact, she won’t talk at all directly to either me or my mother. (Or my dad, when she’s visiting him, by the way.) She either says nothing, or else talks obsessively and endlessly (to my brother, not me or my mom, but in front of us) about things that are not really good conversation with anyone else. (Examples: the technical aspects of what makes a saint a saint; minor differences in various branches of Catholicism; what her brother said about some pizza he once ate; etc.)

For a long time, I just thought she was weird. Later on, I thought she just disliked me. Then I came to think she was a rude bitch. Then I thought maybe she has some kind of psychological disorder. I thought and searched and tried to figure this out. I kind of decided on Asperger’s. Now I’m thinking that really makes it sound like I think people’s with Apsbie’s are unbearable. That’s probably unfair to the people who have Asperger’s.

So here’s my internet bloggie friends question: Anyone know what untreated, unmanaged Asperger’s in adults looks like? Does this sound familiar to you? I really don’t know anyone like my sister-in-law. Frankly, that’s a good thing.

But the real question is WHY does my brother put up with her.

They’re having another baby, which we found out through Facebook (SIL is friends with my mother, apparently because my brother “made” her accept the friend request). This whole visit I could totally tell that SIL is pregnant– she is fat in that round kind of way. But NOT ONCE was this information shared directly with me, so I didn’t say anything. I’m not friends with SIL on Fb, and believe me, I am actually NOT interested in changing that fact. I can’t stand the woman. She can’t stand me either.

She still maintains that Obama was actually born in Kenya. (me: “Oh, I didn’t know Hawai’i was part of Kenya.”) She is a bitter defeated Catholic Republican Palin supporter! She makes my skin crawl for this and many, many other reasons. WHY oh WHY did my brother get involved with this whack job?

Fortunately, they do have some cool kids. I really adore my nephew. AND his adorable hair. My nieces are getting really big. Both of them have been struck by puberty– they are kind of chunky and that is probably driving them more quickly through the maturation process. We had a nice enough visit today; none of the wailing, screaming, biting or scratching kind of fighting was to be seen.

Did I mention how taken I am with my nephew!!!??? OMG what a cute kid. He’s by far the cutest of their kids. I wonder whether they are having a girl or a boy this time. Not like I could ask, since I don’t even know she’s pregnant, since THEY HAVEN’T TOLD ME YET.

Sigh. Well tonight it’s getting late and I’m tired. I have much to do tomorrow. My kids don’t know it but they are staying home in the morning. Cammy will be home, as she was let go from her job not long ago. If they want to join me at school, Cammy will bring them over. I was going to have them come with me for this marathon childcare day, but if they don’t have to, then I think that’s better. I think they deserve a day off, don’t you?

I hate it when things just sit, unresolved. Could be something minor, major, doesn’t matter, but if it just sits on the back burner, and I have to keep track of it, it just really bugs me.

Right now, there are a bunch of unresolved issues. The one that weighs on me worst is this work situation, and I’m not even comfortable writing about it here, in the moderately anonymous forum of my personal blog. It is unsettling at best. I feel like I’m carrying a weight around, and it just goes on and on.

Another weight: we’re being sued by the city for failing to file taxes. The same ones that we’d paid an accountant $600 to file. Um. It’s not clear if they were filed, it’s confusing as hell. To make things worse, D had to re-do the taxes because they were done wrong. D fixed them, and I am going to deliver them in person tomorrow, trying to find my way through the city’s offices to see where to get the revised forms submitted. So that they can allow us to not have to appear in court. And drop the $5000 punitive fee. Sigh. I am nervous about this, as I don’t know what I am doing exactly. It’s an adventure, I suppose.

Another one: My dad apparently lost a lot of money from his investments, money that he was counting on for living expenses. He still gets social security, and a pension, but it’s hard living on those fixed incomes. He is re-doing his will (this is a good thing) and wants to know whether he should leave me his house, or leave it to both my brother and myself, and have us just sell it and split the proceeds. I think that given the economy now, having the house stay in the family longer would be better: why sell it when the market is so awful anyway? Of course we don’t know WHEN the Time will Come, so who knows on that anyway.

But yeah, we want the house, say D and I, and my dad is going to get his papers in order. Hope he does it.

Things get so ugly and awful when people die without putting their estate into order first.

Speaking of such things, I don’t have a will. That is bad, too. Anyone with kids should have a will, with contingencies and information, and what would happen IF Something Bad Occurs. Another unresolved thing.

All of this makes me want to hide under the blankets with a few cats and just escape.

Last night I played a card game here at home with D and Cammy, got a little silly. There was wine. It was fun, and relaxing. A brief escape from feeling so overwhelmed, tired, defeated by the world. Of course, today, it’s back to reality and I keep thinking how nice it would be to escape again.

I’m in a weird place right now. I have this crisis going on with work but I feel like I can’t really write about it here. I am only thinly veiled in anonymity and I wouldn’t want this blog to end up on the wrong people’s monitors.

My mood is so-so, and I have a bad cold. My drippy nose and low energy levels are not helping with the crisis.

My sense of support around the crisis is somewhat minimal.

UGH. Sniff.