Year 9 and counting. . .

So, as of Wednesday the 20th of August I am officially an "old" teacher. Honestly, who would have thought that I would ever make it to my 9th year of teaching?! (If you are reading this and you thought I would teach for 9 years I don't want to know). I mean, lets be honest, year one and two, even three and four weren't so bad. . . when I hit year 5 I knew I had to do something different, so I was a specialist for a year, then I went and did the administration thing for year six. Years seven and eight were back in the classroom, because I wanted to be back. Now, we are on year nine and I can't believe it! Nine is really close to ten (yes, I teach first grade math and I recognized that is an obvious statement).

Anyway, my plan didn't extend much past year one or two. Most teachers (at least those that I know) teach for a few years, get married, have babies, quit their jobs and stay home to take care of their kids (of course they keep their certification current if and when they decide to go back). So, that was my plan too. I even vowed that I would sign up to be the room mom, volunteer at the school carnival, carpool with other moms and faithfully attend back to school night, and every school program in addition to being super-mom and helping my kids with homework and teaching them to read before they got to school. So far, these options have not exactly been offered to me. Well, I am still at all of those functions, but mostly I am at them as the teacher, not as a loving parent.

Don't get me wrong, I love the kids that I get to teach each year, but someday, just someday don't you think I could have a few of my own?! This year I have a little girl in my class who is the daughter of a friend of mine from high school -- kind of crazy to think that I could by no stretch of the imagination have children old enough to be in school. This has been true for quite some time, but it is really sinking in this year.

So, there is that for my rantings and ravings of the evening. I was originally going to post pictures of my class and tell everyone about my first few days of school, but this is what you get instead -- un=edited, 100% me. And for those of you who need a picture or two of me on the first day of school. . . here it is. Yes, it is true -- I am this cute, and I raise other people's children not my own!

This probably isn't the best picture of me or the boring "back" of my classroom. I promise I will post more -- not of me, but of my class!