Monday, April 20, 2020

Kudos to All Teachers


“I was just wondering... I already have multitasking on my CV but can I add teaching as an experience on my CV?” I am asking for a friend.

My mother was a fifth grade teacher and I didn’t inherit it.  I have a third grader, a first grader and a toddler 😬 and I want to mention that they are still in good mental health and happy but I believe that they are deliberating if it were possible to fire “Mama” as their teacher.  One of them went as far as explaining (with full-effect stuttering); “Mama, well ...well... see, I will always love school, but... but... BUT... if you ever teach kids, you know ... like... like you know my friends, umm yah ... no one will want to come back. “ 🙄 
—-guess which of my children?  —-
Let’s just say I’m glad I love my career because I’m pretty sure I was told (politely) to NEVER pursue a career “teaching kids.”

No this post isn’t about undermining teachers or about showing that my few days of “home schooling” measure up to our teachers. In fact, the few days spent, have shed more light to how much more love our teachers deserve, and how much attention is needed to their compensation.  Underpaid! 😳 How in the world do they do this with a warm look on their faces? Because, I’m already asking for extra compensation and I’ve only been on it for a few days and I’m pretty sure I’m not meeting full time hours 🧐

I organize our weekly plan (thanks to the hard work 😓 of their wonderful teachers).  I even plan out activities for my toddler to keep her busy, while the older ones are working, but I feel that I’m never quite organized😩. At the end of each day, I always feel like I could have done more. And to be honest, I thought I was doing a great job hiding it but apparently not. Especially judging from my poor evaluation and counsel to stay clear of schools 🤣 
So if you are a teacher and you often feel this way at the end of some school days - on behalf of my household, thank you for coming back and doing it with my children all over again.

Anyways, I also created our daily schedule and pre plan our PE breaks and morning meditations. Then we do our best to keep to the tasks and assignments of the day.  I bounce off trying to keep the toddler away from getting in between her older siblings and my teaching skills. This includes my subpar puppet show performance, making silly faces, singing kids songs, practicing our colors, shapes, dancing, reading, storytelling, more singing, lots of jumping and yay! ... Most of the times this is distracting to the older ones and so sometimes I catch myself yelling at them to get back on task😬 so again on behalf on my household- thank you for your patience with my children especially one of them in particular. Yes, the same one who gives unsolicited advice. 

So today I included an extra break in the day where I get to run and hide on my mat to meditate and practice yoga. We got to do it together and it worked but Oh boy! the time in the day feels like it is no longer enough, because today the children were lost a lot in their imagination and, it was interrupted a lot with essential necessities such as lunch or snack breaks... 🤷🏽‍♀️🤷🏽‍♀️ so thank you again as I only have three children and you have twenty-two.  🤔

So dear teachers all over the world; I want to give credit to all of you wonderful humans; who work tirelessly to provide education (outside the home) to our children; thank you for everything; thank you for the hard labor you put in a short time frame to get virtual learning plans available to us. I will do my best to keep my children afloat during these time but I want to let you know that I see you, and truly value your efforts.

Thank you again🙏🏽 for all of your support and love.

I admire the parents who already home school but to the ones like me who are new to it; to those of us who are having to balance it with work and life responsibilities ... how are you all doing? hope we are all finding a balance as although, it is very important for us to assist them in completing their tasks. But it is even more important to not undo what our teachers have done and that is -maintaining some fun in learning.

Friday, April 17, 2020

Happy Birthday To Me


Today is my birthday and I've had a great day thus far! 😂  I want to tell you all about it but first I have a confession to make; "great" for me today is not the same as "great" ten years ago. Now that we are clear I will tell you about my great day.

So I slept in today! I woke up at 0730 by my family (singing to me); it was wonderful and they were even extra cautious about waking up the baby so as not to ruin my day. Then I read all of their wonderful self-made cards (thanks to #coronavirus). I was surprised by the note from my son as it read "You are the best mama I have ever had!" You can imagine my confusion as I read it aloud again just to be sure especially since I just woke up.  Then I asked him if he recalled a different life with another mama as I was sure I pushed the whole of his 10 + pounds body out by myself 😕. The children just chuckled.

Then my first daughter (a bit of a show off at times) told me that her birthday gift to me was that I don't have to deal with her school work today as she completed all of today's assignments yesterday; I was so excited and so naturally I turned to look at my son and... well let's just say he had other gift options in mind and I had to deal with his assignments today. Although, I'm not sure that her gift was just for me as she has stayed mostly in her room all day. It could be that she also wanted a day off and new that the only way to get it was to get ahead of her assignments.

Then my toddler woke up at her usual time and she has no clue that it is my special day and so she says "change diaper and then eat! eat!" then utters "good morning mama!" so I naturally greeted her back, got her changed and dressed and we went downstairs while I multi-tasked between making breakfast, sorting out home work assignments, phone calls, social media birthday greetings, text messages etc I got to sing and dance to baby shark with baby girl, and practiced her numbers and then allowed them to run around screaming without a care in the world. I dared my neighbors to knock on my door as I already had my rehearsed answer, "Hi! It is my birthday today and I would like to be unbothered for once." Shhh now the baby is taking a nap and I have some space to share with you about my day. I will spend some time on my mat and when she wakes up, we will likely all take a walk, obviously with maintaining social distance. And face time my brother whom I share a birthday with (he is not a twin, but we are of the same parents.)

The humor in this is that even if there aren't the safety precautions in regards to coronavirus, my special day would have likely been the same and plus or minus an evening date at a family friendly restaurant. I would have expected a lot more attention from my husband lol but I'm content as everything I expected from myself ten years ago I have accomplished it and more.  For example, I had not asked for the third child and I was blessed with one 😆😆😆