Stress

I love my job. That's the plain and simple truth. The smile I see on kids faces, when they run up and tell me they love me, or when they want me to chase them around the playground. Watching the children learn and grow... Developing the skills they need for school. Watching them go from crawling to walking, babbles to sentences, ripping paper to cutting paper, scribbles to writing letters. It's completely rewarding. But it's not always easy. 

You see this past year has been very challenging and stressful for us, not only because there are only 3 teachers left (when there was 7 when I first started), but also because there are only 3 of us we can't split up and separate the children into the groups in order for things to run smoothly. There is one toddler group, and two preschool. In our preschool group there are (now-as of today) 14 children. Of those 14 children 9 are diagnosed special needs, 2 should be referred, and 3 "normal" children. But the thing is, of those 14 children, 5 are very busy, rough, and aggressive. Of those 14 kids, 9 have speech problems and have difficulties expressing themselves- 2 of those 9 are autistic, 2 are not diagnoses, and 7 are in the system. All of those between 2 teachers with no hope of hiring a new teacher because we can't get any new kids with our subsidy frozen (making me worried about what's gonna happen in the fall- if we don't get new kids we either get cut hours, which I can't live off, or dismiss a teacher). 

We've always had children with special needs at our centre, but it's never been as bad as it has been this past year. My coworker and I go home at the end of the day wondering how we made it 8 hours. This post is NOT about me complaining about working with these children, because I love every child at this centre. I want them to succeed, but how can I help those who need help when every child needs help? When every child learns a different way?

And it doesn't help that we have Minisity and our RC breathing down our backs and changing everything we've been doing for the past 4 years I've worked here. Our RC is supposed to be here to help those children with special needs but all she does is watch our every step, watching/observing and not working with the children who need it. It's frustrating. 

I love my job. But I am completely stressed out this week. Between the kids not listening (like at all- I'm finding myself repeating to "clean up" "stop hitting" and "listen to my words" at least 5 times before a request is heard, and I can't even count how many times a day I say these things), our RC being in Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday from 830-11 (and letting the children do whatever they want rather than following classrooms rules and routines), and the general stress and frustration of the job and classroom- I'm finding myself burnt out this week. And close to a break down. 

Last night I basically had one. The accumulation of stress from the week had gotten to me and I was in a terrible mood. To top it off my husband said something that annoyed me, and with my emotions so close to the surface I snapped. At first it was just a few tears and me feeling angry, until I dropped a stuffed pepper that I'd made for dinner. It landed on the floor and I stared at it for a second before yelling "FUCK" at the top of my lungs and throwing my fork and knife on the ground. Tears feel harder and as I reached down to pick up my utensils I just felt defeated. I fell down, moved into a sitting position, and just bawled against the wall in the kitchen. My husband heard me and came to see what's wrong; he lifted me up and hugged me, and told me "it's just a pepper, it's nothing to cry about. It's okay." He didn't understand it wasn't just the pepper. It was everything. 

Eventually I got around to eating my pepper and decided I needed to relax so I had an hour long bath, listening to Kira Isabella  and Taylor Swift the whole time. At the end of that hour I was feeling a bit better. 

But now, again, this morning I woke feeling and knowing it was going to be a bad day. I don't know what it was exactly but I just knew- and as I was leaving for work my husband got all annoyed at me again and I left feeling pissed off. He was telling me yesterday that he's going to be done by 1 today (making me annoyed that he's rubbing in my face that he'll be done early when that's all I want) so I didn't make him a sandwich for lunch today, figuring if he's gonna be done by 1 at the latest he could just eat when he gets home. I always kiss him goodbye when I leave and he's usually sleeping, but today he wasn't so I just told him I didn't make the sandwich, and he got all pissy that I didn't. "I might not be done by 1, we could get landed with another job". So of course I got pissed and annoyed and said "well I didn't make you one" and he kinda rolled away mumbling under his breath. I stormed off, said "you can make your own fucking sandwiches than" and slammed the door, quite loudly, when I left. 

So... Yeah. This week has been shit. And to top it off its raining (again) which means we can't go outside with the kids (again). I'm praying I make it through the day without totally losing it but I'm not too optimistic. 

Til next time. 

Nessie