I am so exhausted, between work, youth group, preparing to go back to school May 13th, I just can't catch break.  Next week the Federal Head Start Review Team will be at my work, so I've worked many extra hours cleaning and organizing my classroom, labeling shelves, and working on portfolios.  I'll be glad when all of that is over because then the office is going to have a chance to find me a new partner.  YAY for not working with Lisa anymore!!!!!!

In other news, Dave and I are going to Memphis May 23-25 for a friend of his' wedding.  I can't wait to get of out St. Louis and spend some quality time with Dave.  It's going to be fantastic to have no obligations to take care of Grandma Ferris (who has been diagnosed with lung cancer and is no longer in remission for breast cancer.  She underwent radiation treatment but the tumor is still growing.  If she chooses not to continue treatment she has been told 6-12 months.  She is so weak though so I don't know if she can handle any additional treatment.  I'm scared, but know that my family will make it through.

I'm not even sure I can coherently type all the things that have been bothering me, but let me begin by summarizing today and then trying to provide any back story necessary.

I am scheduled to work 8:30am-5:30pm (with a break from 2-3pm), I arrived at 8:15am today and IMMEDIATELY was asked to go to my classroom because my co-teacher Lisa was out of ratio.  When I arrived she had 12 children, which was better than yesterday when she had 16 upon my entering the classroom and legally the ratio is 10:1.  I was then informed that Shakira (who usually begins work at 8:45am) would be coming in late, but that was the ONLY teacher absence.  Yet all day we had extra children in our room because since December when the new classroom opened the Tigers room has only 1 teacher.

The day continued and we had 20 kids by 9:15am and stayed full all day, even having to call the office to find places for kids that were not Bluejays as more Bluejays arrived.  Then the kids were crazy today, by crazy I mean, fighting, throwing toys, back-talking, etc.  It was awful, and I had a sinus headache on top of it all, that still as I type this hasn't gone away.

So basically we are short-staffed at work when 1 person is not there.  Right now we have only 2 floaters, when I started there was 5.  Some have been fired, others have become permanent teachers in new classrooms and now everyday basically we are short-staffed because 1 preschool classroom doesn't have 2 teachers in it and it will only be worse this summer when we have kindergardeners return.

Then all of this was made worse by my partner, Lisa.  Lisa was on the phone for almost a half an hour talking, no make that arguing with her boyfriend.  First she was on her cell phone then when she hung up on him he called the classroom.  We had 20 kids in the room and I was working alone to get them to clean up, sit on the rug, go to the bathroom and get ready to go outside.  And this week isn't even my lesson plan week so I technically (by how Lisa divides responsibilities) shouldn't have been doing group time.

*We alternate weeks writing lesson plans, during your week you do group time everyday.  But when it isn't Lisa's week she does NOTHING to help you.  She doesn't supervise a table activity, clean-up, etc.

I don't know how to talk to the office about her without her knowing it was me and making things worse.

Finally, yesterday was supposed to be the Cardinals Home Opener at 3:15pm.  Dave received 2 free tickets from his boss and since I had to work took my roommate Anne.  Well the game was rained out yesterday and rescheduled for today (Tuesday) at 7:15pm.  I wasn't mad that Dave took Anne, I had to work, but then after the rainout he and I didn't get our usual Monday date night.  And then Tuesday night I barely got to see him at all.  Now I won't see him again until he gets off work on Friday night.

GAAAAAHHH!!!!!!!

So after all this stress I was sitting at home, alone and pissed.  In 45 minutes, I washed dishes, took out the trash, swept and mopped the kitchen floor, and scrubbed the bathtub.  Which didn't do much to help my mood, I felt productive for a little while.  And now my shoulders hurt more.

I have been getting so frustrated at work, let me see if I can explain why.  Since I started they had been renovating "Jack's House" to have an additional preschool classroom, a two-year-old classroom, Bob's workshop, Bob's office, and an additional staff bathroom complete with shower for messes at work.  This project was funded by a grant from Missouri Preschool Project and all the money from that grant was only allowed to be used in that building.  This past week they started having children in the preschool classroom which I had a chance to go look at one day during my break.  The children who are going to be using that classroom are our non-Headstart children.

This brings me to some of my frustration, our HeadStart children are our neediest and they are in the old building with less toys and resources.  The new classroom has a science center with magnifying glasses, plastic animals and bugs to investigate, science books, a light table, and much more.  The block area has little people, road signs and buildings to build a city.  The quiet reading area has bean bags and pillows along with a books on tape listening center.  They also got about 15 new children's music CDs and that's just some of what is available to the Explorers classroom.

Then there is Lisa, my partner that I have mixed feelings about.  She is a nice woman who works hard to take care of her 2 children, but she is lazy when it comes to her portfolios and lesson implementing.  We are a project construct center which means among other things that we set up play experiences for children to learn and guide their learning through questions, reading books, etc.  Otherwise they are just playing.   And because Lisa doesn't support the effort to have structure and a predictable schedule our room often turns into mass chaos.