Enough!!!

Somebody please answer this: How is it that the very same students who state clearly and loudly that my very presence in their lives is intrusive and overwhelming, that I should leave them alone, that I exist only to make their school day a miserable and work-laden experience, are the exact same students who are standing outside the bathroom door all expectant-like and awaiting the emergence of the hated Ms. Sheep?

Apparently, the time it takes for me to enter the restroom, relieve the pressure that has been building in my middle aged bladder for nigh on three hours and wash my hands in order that the children not be exposed to grown up pee-pee germs is enough to cause severe separation anxiety in the average fifth and sixth grader. I find this to be somewhat "oppressive." It is enough to make a Sheep want to throw up her hands and shout in a voice tinged with shrill hysteria:

I am not your mother!!!

I didn't. I wanted to. But I didn't. I clenched my teeth, smiled benevolently (or maniacally depending on your perspective) and set about meeting their needs.

School vacation can't come fast enough.

I'm all about the kidlets. I'm a giver of knowledge. I nurture the young minds of this great land with all the devotion of a master gardener tending the sweet rosebuds. But, hand to God, I don't know how you Mommies and Daddies do it. When do you make numbers 1 and 2? Do you have to wait until they are asleep? Or until they go to college? No wonder you all look so "strained." Hats off to you, parents. I just couldn't do it...I'll stick to mothering my cats.

No knitting of import will be done this evening in my child-free home. I put in a few hours at job #2 after my teaching day and, despite the cancellation of the parenting education session, there was still a need to put more time into the accursed program I am currently developing for the agency. The draft we finished last week made it up to the board meeting but remains "on the table" as they didn't get much of a chance to look at it. The lower level higher ups (for lack of a better title) are very pleased, though. So it looks like the whole thing will be a "go." And, predictably, there is more work to do on this thing that has begun to consume my life in not such a good way. Word of warning: use care when showing competence. People start to "expect" stuff. Expectations give me the hives...

And interfere with my using the restroom in a timely and unconstrained fashion. The countdown to the holiday vacation has begun in earnest.

SA