Sunday Nights

Sunday nights my mind races. My body is rested - briefly - and my energy is high having slept in and laid low all day. Enjoying sunshine, music, the company of my loving best friend, and coffee...I am able to escape the overwhelming, swirling, all-consuming thoughts of school. And then 11pm rolls around. Tomorrow at this time I will be passed out, sore, exhausted, possibly crying, and terrified of another day. But tonight, I am wide awake. The week is only my 2nd full week with the kids and it holds promise of growth - the ability to make it through a day without tantrums, for the kids to enter the room, hang up their backpack, and pull out their red folder, find their name on the check in board, and take a breakfast, without reminders...The possibility of a quiet line, the potential for group activities, for pulling individuals for testing while the rest of the class works independently ... possibility is a big word.

But there is also the potential for melt downs, dangerous fits that cause chairs to fly, scissors to be hurled across the room, and papers to be torn. The potential for urine covered floors which are splashed intentionally by spiteful children, and the potential for eye rolling, half obedient half stubborn behaviors which threaten to pull the whole class off task and destroy hours of learning and practice.... these things have already occurred and will probably occur again.

but then there is the certainty of the faces - the bright, smiling, colorfully beaded, and crisply uniformed figures of 4 year olds eager to see me. Flying into the room with a "HI I AM HERE!" and a tight hug before they take off to terrorize their classmates. The certainty that someone will say "I love you Miss Stowe" before dismissal, and the certainty that someone will either ask me why I am eating (during lunch...) and whether I go home after school...The certainty that when I am most fed up with the difficult aspects of being a 1st year teacher, I can take 30 secs to look at the faces sitting criss-cross applesauce around me (or trying) and think, "I really do love this...most of the time!"