Teachers are saints!

Today I went to help out in Morgan's classroom. I haven't been on a "regular" schedule since my swap partner moved away. Morgan's teacher had told me previously, that she was willing to try Bennett sitting in the classroom during the days when I was helping out because he'd been so good on the class party days. I've been a little weary of this, not just because of my unpredictable son, but also because I know that the class tends to be distracted by him (I mean, he is pretty cute!). But since the class was going to be out watching a play for two hours today, I thought it would be a good day to give it a shot. I crammed my diaper bag full of snacks and headed off to school with the two kiddos.

The plan for the day was for me to help keep the kids on task while the teacher finished some assessments she needed to complete so she can get report cards done next week. After the kids left for the play, I would get to work on the kids' memory books. The teacher has been keeping some of the kids' more special projects for a memory book that she will give to each child/parent at the end of the year. There are pages and pages of their work that were stacked in no particular order in bins and under tables and they needed to be sorted by child, organized by date, and then alphabetized for later updating. I also needed to note who was missing what for the memory books so that they could possibly finish the projects later. It took the rest of the school day to get that stuff done. I was alternating between making notes on who had missed what, figuring out who had done which polar bear picture based on the way they had cut it out (since they had left off their name), and switching Bennett from area to area to keep him busy. He actually did pretty good, especially during the time that the kids were in the class. He stayed out of their way for the most part, so that was good.

I worked HARD in the class today. I was on my feet, moving around, correcting, entertaining, and sorting the entire morning. And I am EXHAUSTED this afternoon. How do teachers do it EVERY. DAY.?? They are saints, it's as simple as that.