Week Two

I have seven minutes before I have to wake Nora up, so I thought I'd post a quick update and say thank you again to all of you who sent me notes after my last post.  Whether or not I am ready for the exam depends on whether the amount of time I have to give is enough to complete enough reading and thinking to be adequately prepared for the test.  Only time will tell, I think.

Week two got off to a better start yesterday.  I was afraid Nora would start crying as soon as she realized she was back at school but, as usual, she did fine with the drop off.  I taught my students for the second time, and I was pleased at the level of talking that went on during our group activity and class discussion.  Most of my students claim to be fairly confident as readers and writers so we will see how the class pans out.  Walking back to my office from the classroom, I felt a bit more like myself again instead of feeling like a ball of emotions, so that felt like a step in the right direction.

Nora still started crying uncontrollably when I picked her up, but her teachers reported that she had a much better day.  (They say this every day, which makes me think they must have been stretching the truth when they told me, on the first day, that she "did well."  I guess it's relative.)  She didn't refuse her bottles, she ate her lunch, and she even drank water from the straw cup, which she has refused to do since she started there.  The biggest step in the right direction, though, was that they managed to get her to take two naps.  Each was only about thirty minutes long, but since she was napping for 30 minutes total each day last week, it was a big improvement.

Well, six of my seven minutes are up so I will end it there.  I'm also including a picture Billy took of us yesterday.  Last week was too much of a whirlwind to get a first day of school picture, so a second week of school picture will have to do.  I am still struggling to figure out the best way to manage my time, the commute to Nora's day care and to campus, and how to develop a routine that maximizes my work time, but hopefully by the start of week 3 I'll have a firmer handle on that, too.