There are days when I cannot believe that I get paid for my job.  When it is all smiles and giggles and hugs and kisses.  I get to lay in the ball pit and slide down the slide and roll Hot Wheel cars into the wall and build train tracks that curve along the floor boards complete with hills and tunnels.  There are sweet little inside jokes and falling laughing onto our backs on the gym matts.

And then there are days like today.

Days full of tears, snot, screaming and back-arching, face-reddening tantrums.  When I have to spend most of my day with a lil one separated from the rest of her peers because she just can’t get a handle on the world and how she fits into it.

And yet, even with all of that, as I snuggled with her in a hammock chair in a darkened room, watching a slowly moving, multi-colored disco ball and listening to Somewhere Over The Rainbow, I absolutely, without a doubt, cannot believe that I get paid to do my job.

Day 11: 5:52 a.m.

It’s 5:52 in the morning and I’m awake.  I’m certainly not wide awake and chipper, but I’m up.  I orignally had W set the alarm for 6:45, but seeing as I was laying in bed tossing and turning since around 3, I decided I might as well just get up.  Let’s just hope this coffee does something wonderful for me today and makes life a bit easier to handle.

I have to be at the administrative offices by 8 to begin my orientation.  It’s this part of starting any job that I just hate.  I want to be able to just jump in and get going.  Instead I’ll spend four hours today being told about the history of the organization, filling out tax paperwork, and generally having to be social with the other newly-hired teachers.  Exhausting!  Give me a room full of challenging three and four year olds over a group of nervous, socially awkward adults any day!