Exhaustion Finalized

You've heard it before, you'll hear it again, but nothing else expresses this past week as well as the following:

What a long strange trip it's been!

In an effort to explain what I've been going through, I have rewritten this post several times. In writing, my week sounds very boring and I can hear the chorus of "What's so difficult about that?" echoing throughout the blog comments.

All I can say is that this week was emotionally draining on me. And a simple call to my Mother made everything OK.

I am required to spend 3-hours (approximately) a week in The Princess' school class. I figured that this wouldn't be so difficult to do because The Dragon will be in preschool for 3-hours a day, 4 days a week. HA! Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!

The first attempt of scheduling resulted in the teacher wanting me to teach Science in the afternoon. This doesn't work for two reasons. One, I don't want to "teach" anything that requires me to come up with a lesson plan on my own. I want to simply "show up" and "do" whatever the teacher needs me to do. Sometimes this does require "teaching" but I NEVER have to come up with the lesson plan. Two, the afternoon won't work for me because The Dragon will not be in preschool at this time.

The second attempt of scheduling was better because they moved Science to the morning hours. This got rid of my second excuse, but I held strong to my first excuse in that I did not want to PLAN anything. They finally caught on, and now there are two parents who are willing to "teach" science, and I am their assistant. I will be there every week to help maintain order in the classroom and keep things running smoothly, and I will also assist in the "shopping" for supplies as needed. This I can do.

You might think that this solved the problem, but it wasn't that simple. I still wasn't meeting the 3-hour a week requirement. So I offered to come in earlier during the day and spend the morning in the classroom every other week. The teacher was thrilled! I'd be helping out with math. I explained to the co-op coordinator that I wouldn't be able to be there at 8:30 due to dropping my child off at preschool at some unknown time, but I was assured that whenever I got there would be just fine.

Last night was "Back To School Night." Turns out that there is a new math program being implemented this year, and that 2 parents plus the teacher are essential to making this work. My coming in late is not ideal to the situation, though the teacher was very kind to me about my concerns.

At this point, I am stressing. Stressing is something I do very well - just ask The King.

So I broke down. And this morning I called my Mom. And I asked her if she would be willing to take The Dragon to preschool every other Thursday for me. And she said...

"YES."

I hate relying on somebody else, but at this point, I don't really have a choice. I think it will work (except for when my parents go out of town, etc), but at that point the teacher will just have to take what she can get... and I can't worry about it until it occurs... IF it occurs.

All I can do is get some sleep.

[ By the way, I was floored by how many responses I got to my whiny lack-of-sleep post and by how many of you are also 'Sleepless in Blog-land.' Wednesday night I was in bed before 1:45 - not a great improvement but it was a full hour earlier than the night before. But Thursday night? Yeah, last night I made it to bed before MIDNIGHT. Crazy, I know. Keep the comments coming, eh? You guys totally made my day! ]