Marching on

 I forgot that the Friday we got back from NYC we went to see Hoppers in the evening and it was okay. I feel like Disney movies have lost their magic lately and it makes me sad. It was kind of funny and I think pretty clever but it just didn't quite make it all the way. Saturday was busy and I spent four hours watching baseball since Curtis had a double header scrimmage. It was cold and windy and lonely but Curtis played well. I left during the second game to get Emma to a birthday party and take Joel home (who had come to spend the day with Brandon) and Josh came and watched the end then brought Curtis home. 

Last week was a challenging one. Josh left on Sunday so after the linger longer I invited Michelle and her girls to come play games with us since Matt was gone too. It was a fun evening and I always love spending time with my favorite people. 

The rest of the week was challenging because it was hard to talk to Josh at all with the time difference and his work schedule, which always makes me a bit sad. I rely a lot on talking through my feelings with him at the end of the day and I had two really hard days and didn't get to process them well. I have really been trying to work every Thursday within my limited schedule so I took a job that was pre-K special Ed. It ended up being very different from what I expected and I was way in over my head. It was a very challenging day for me and I couldn't wait to get out of there. It is so hard to know how to help kids when you don't know them at all or have any training with serious needs. But I tried to be kind and helpful and I gave lots of hugs and held a few kids and tried to keep everyone safe. It was hard to also just feel like such an idiot all day; so incapable and out of my league and clueless. I hate feeling like that and in a regular classroom, I can hold my own but this classroom was so hard. 

Anyway, that was Thursday and then Friday I got asked to sub at our school but for a special Ed para and it turned out to be another difficult day. The para can't take students to work on them one on one (which is what I like doing when I sub for special Ed) and so just pushes into classrooms to be a help, which should be easier, but I find it so hard to be watching another teacher teach and to just magically know how to support this student I just met. I worked with a couple groups on a stem project (building a spaghetti tower) and I tried to help this kid read through a story and answer some questions but he totally shut down on me and another kid I was sitting with turned out to be non-verbal but I had no idea. Again, I just felt so dumb and useless. The other special Ed teachers were super nice and the regular teachers were too but I dislike feeling so dumb. I kept telling myself that I am doing  this to earn money and relieve our financial stress but I came home so depleted; I could maybe work full time and still be a good mom but not with kids. I could definitely not be a full time teacher and still have energy and emotional strength to give my own family. It didn't help I suppose that Josh was gone so I was the only parent around but we got where we needed to be and did all the things and made it through the week. 

Brandon started flag football and is really enjoying it. The coach is awesome and practices are in a good location and they are shorter than baseball so all in all, I'd say that we aren't missing baseball too much. Brandon is very nervous for his first game on Saturday but I am excited to see how it all works. 

Curtis had his first official game last Friday and it was pretty rough. I don't know why his team isn't better but they have lost every game by 10 plus runs. It is hard to sit through but usually as long as Curtis plays well, I'm fine. He had a few errors on Friday and the other school was being super obnoxious and it was cold and windy so not a great start to the season. I wonder is it the coaching or a money issue or demographics? Anyway, that's what Brandon and I did Friday night and then Saturday the girls had dance and Curtis had practice and then we were so brave and went to try and find our package. 

Long story short my mom sent us a package that got delivered to the wrong street (same house number) and I went to the post office three times and said there wasn't anything more they could do because the people weren't responding so I took Curtis after practice to the house to ask for our package back. It was a sketch house for sure and we knocked but no one answered (and thankfully no one shot at us) so we gave up and I told my mom to get her money back. It was thankfully just food but I felt badly for my mom that her kind deed turned into such a mess. 

Then I took Brandon up to the Tripp's house to play with Eli for the afternoon, the big kids left for a fireside up by the temple and I spent a few hours writing my talk for Sunday. It was nice to have a quiet house but weird to be alone on a Saturday night. I went and picked Brandon up at 9pm and he had had so much fun; I wish his friends lived a bit closer! The big kids came home and said the fireside was good so that made me happy and I had my talk done so it was a win win win. 

Sunday I spoke in sacrament meeting, which I generally love to do because I love all the studying and preparing and then being able to testify and share with a purpose, but I had prepared too much given that another adult spoke (I had been told there would be two youth speakers) so then I was way over time and had to speak fast and cut things and it was stressful for me.  Then I played the piano for our primary time and then taught our primary class and then rehearsed a special musical number for this week and then took Emma home for her camp meeting. I was pretty tired but people were very sweet about my talk and many reached out to tell me that they felt the spirit and were uplifted by what I shared so that made me feel better, since that was my goal and what I prayed would happen.

We all kind of had our chill time and then I made dinner and then I went to the RS broadcast, which I enjoyed. They talk a lot about how hard life is and sometimes I just can't connect, but I really liked what President Johnson said when she quoted Elder Maxwell that if we aren't being stretched on our own cross at the moment then we should be at the feet of someone else who is. I can do that and am going to make more of an effort to be there for others who are struggling. It was nice to be with awesome ladies but I left pretty quickly after to get home to be with my kids for scripture study and to get everyone to bed so we could start another week.