Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It's Back to Work I Go!

Well, I went back to work this week. School started back on Tuesday. What I thought was going to be the worst day of my whole entire life turned out to really be ok. Parker is staying with a sweet friend of ours who takes such good care of him. She has a baby of her own and another on the way, so Parker has lots of fun playing with them. She's so thoughtful and keeps me posted on everything he does during the day. It's so nice that I don't have to worry about him at all while I'm at work. Of course I miss him and want to be with him all day but not worrying about him makes it more than bearable. I really do love what I do, and it's been fun to be back with the kids and with my friends. The funny thing about kids is that they expect you to pick up right where you left off...no time to waste. So I had to jump in with both feet.

I was welcomed back with stacks of senior project portfolios to grade. Senior project is the class I teach and love. Basically, the students choose a topic, find a mentor who works in that area, spend 15 hours with the mentor, write a research paper relating to the topic, conduct a community service project that relates to the paper, compile these portfolios, and do a final presentation in front of a board of judges at the end of the year. The students whine about it for a while, but this is the fun time of year when they start seeing things come together. They learn so many life skills through this class, and it's always fun to watch them grow and mature. This is the first of two portfolios they turn in. Instead of going up to the school every day over Spring Break, Lee and I went to the school and loaded mine up to bring them home. They took DAYS to grade, but some of our students did some really cool things. I could talk about this forever!!

So it's good to be back. And I'm glad I only have a little bit before it's time for summer and I can be back home with my sweet baby every day!!