Sick of being sick.

I want to know what it’s like to feel 100% every single day. To wake up and not have to worry about every little thing I do or eat, to not have to live such a strict schedule because anything will trigger a headache that will turn into a migraine. I want eyes that don’t water constantly so people stop asking if I am crying. I would love to wear eye make up sometime. I want to be able to sleep on whichever side I want to at night, without catering to the side that’s stuffed up and I can’t breath through. I want to be able to fight off common colds without them turning into sinus infections, bronchitis, and pneumonia (within 1 year I have had colds turn into all 3 of those more than once). I am sick of relying on medications my whole life and spending hundreds on my doctor’s visits. I am very thankful to have insurance, but it still is money gone that I don’t get to enjoy on other things. I just feel so helpless all the time and I know when I get sick that I will end up at the doctor every single time. The one time I was stubbon and decided to try to fight it all on my own is when I got pneumonia. I am just physically incapable of overcoming this.

I just feel like I am at 60% all the time and I can’t even imagine how much more I could enjoy my wonderful life if I could live it without headaches and with an immune system. I mean…it’s like a foreign concept to me. I can’t even grasp it.

Summer can not come fast enough. I am terrified to have a second sinus surgery but I know that is the cause of every single one of my problems. I think I am a lot sicker than I feel. I think there is something greater going on. I’ve had these problems my whole life, but it’s time to get the surgery because I can’t live like this anymore. I am beyond frustrated that while on a 2 week antibiotic for a sinus infection and a week long headache, I caught another cold that now feels like sinus infection #2. How does that even happen? Back to back sinus infections? I think my body has just given up.

"You Poor Thing"

up late because my devotional tonight has to be written out and I will forget (I tend to forget things if I don't do them when I remember).

Let me describe the setting to you: 77 kids, age 5-7, all on a stage to practice their songs for their Christmas program. 4 teachers losing their minds and 2 aides also losing their minds. My class is front and center but they are the worst ones. I have my autistic kid spinning in circles, saying "weeeee". I have kids sitting down, kids swinging their legs, kids turned completely around, kids telling me they are hot/tired/thirsty/need to go potty, kids jumping and yelling, and everyone looks like they don't want to be there. My job (especially since my aide has been gone) is to stand by my autistic student with his motivator board to try to get him to do what everyone else is supposed to be doing (while monitoring the other 19 of my kids). He is sucking on his fingers 24/7, but at least that keeps him quiet. When he is not spinning, he is trying to climb me to be picked up for a hug (you can tell he is used to doing that with his mom because he is always hanging on me) and I am trying to remove him and explain that he needs to practice right now. He usually tells me he doesn't want to and asks if he can take a nap in the chairs. I say no and PRAY he doesn't have a meltdown in front of everyone. So far so good.

So that is a pretty good idea of what it looks like, when an elderly teacher, who has come in to help my class during rehearsal since we are aideless and OUT OF CONTROL, leans over to me and says (while looking mostly at my autistic student, who is pretty much my favorite) "you poor thing...having to do this every day."

Let's review. She has been teaching for at least 30 years. She looked at me with such pity, as if she had just had to tell me someone died. I was blown away. I put the biggest smile on my face and said "Yes, well, God won't give you anything you can't handle. That's what I tell myself everyday, especially days like today." She didn't respond for a few seconds and then finally said "good for you!"

As I processed this the rest of the day, I kept thinking "I don't HAVE to do this everyday...I GET to do this everyday. Don't PITY me. Yes I may seem stressed at the moment but that doesn't mean I don't love every second of what I am doing. It is a different kind of stress and a different kind of work. What greater feeling than to be doing what God has literally MADE you to do. He has given me every single thing I need to teach and He will continue to test me, build me, shape me, teach me things through all of these situations. There is not ONE day that goes by where I don't wake up thankful for this job and the opportunity that I was given directly from God. So DON'T PITY ME."

Lately in Kindergarten..

everyone thinks they need to tell me when they don’t want to do something.

“Time to practice our songs for the program!”

“I don’t wanna be in the Christmas program.”

well, too bad. your mom wants you to be in it.

“Line up for library!”

“I don’t wanna go to library. I hate library.”

I’m sorry. But Miss Bechtel gets a 30 minute break during library so I feel a little differently.

“You are acting like a preschooler. You are going back to preschool tomorrow.”

“I don’t wanna go to preschool!" (starts crying)

Well you should have thought about that before you stabbed your eraser with your pencil and hammered on the table for the 3rd time while I was talking.

I have also learned that threatening to take them out of the Christmas program doesn’t work.

“Do you want to be in the show?!”

No….

“Well….too bad…you have to be.” (then me and the other teachers laugh with our backs to them because it is freaking funny when they are so honest with us)

Even though I have had it up to HERE with my class this week (my aide has been out sick and we have had rainy day schedule which means I literally get NO BREAKS ALL DAY. I have them from 8:30-3:00 and they act like they are on crack just because it’s raining.) they still kill me. I have one kid who is a super tough boy but has been so motherly to a few other boys…one was sleepy during our program rehearsals so this kid puts his arm around him and lets him lean on his shoulder while he rubs his head, saying “shhh, shhhh, it’s okay…” HAHAHAHAHA. Then I was watching some other kids in line and a boy goes “hi!” and sticks out his hand to shake, and the other kid looks at him and then finally sticks his hand out too and they shake. Hahahaha.

Other conversations I have every single day:

“my arm/stomach/leg/head/finger/foot hurts” x1000000

“Oh I’m sorry…I am not a doctor.”

“I miss my mom. I wanna go home.”

“Well I love having you here with me and good thing the day is almost over, huh?” (I still say this even if it’s 8:45am).

“Is it Friday?”

“I don’t know…is it? Were you listening during calendar time this morning?” (This doesn’t help…they still never know).

"What time is it?"

"If I tell you, is it going to mean anything at all to you?"

My return.

I have had a few complaints that I am missed on this blog. So I am back. But I am way too lazy to move what you may have missed on my Tumblr over here, so if you want to catch up on my life and see a lot of funny/random/Kelly Clarkson related things, head on over there and just keep clicking "next" or "older posts" or whatever it is. I swear there are real life updates in there somewhere, if not tons of funny stories from teaching Kindergarten so far.

What's going on right now? Well, I am on day 7 of a headache so that's super fun (not). I feel like I could die at any second because this is not normal, but the doctor says it's just a sinus infection (doctor's never know with me though because I have such a long history that they don't bother to read up on before diagnosing me. I always want to sing the line from Kelly's song that goes "you don't know a thing about meeee"). I always have this weird feeling that I will be one of those people that die from a freak situation...like having a brain aneurysm. But hopefully not, ya know? Hahaha. If this headache is still around Monday, I will be revisiting the doctor. If I don't have a stroke before then, obviously. This morning the pain was so sharp I gagged from nausea. I couldn't finish my breakfast and I crawled back to my room. I swear I would think I was pregnant if that were at all possible.

I just had an extremely stressful week with report cards being due and therefore I have to test every single one of those Kindergartners. This sounds easy, but it was near impossible to keep all of them working on something for ONE SOLID MINUTE while I tested a kid. We literally did nothing educational all week haha. Try living this week with the previously mentioned headache. I mean, just a normal day in Kindergarten with the headache would be bad enough...but really? report card week?

Then my roommate told me today that she is moving out. So let's add that to all the stress and hope I don't get a weirdo replacement!

Still love my job. Just hating my health right now. I'll never be normal.

oh and PS. I saw Sara Bareilles last night and Kelly Clarkson better watch out. I might have 2 obsessions now.