Some Days I Miss Teaching

Most days I love my current job as a Stay at Home Mom.  

I love being home with Olive and I love being there to witness her milestones.  I love teaching her new things and I love that she is thriving.  I love being her mom and I love being with her 24/7.  I am thankful to have the opportunity to be home with her and definitely know it was the right thing for our family right now.

BUT,

if I'm being 100% honest,

some days I miss teaching...

I miss my students.

I've been a part of about 300 kids lives in my 10 years of teaching and I loved spending my days with "my kids".  I miss their funny jokes, their silly stories, their hugs and having a captive little audience to spend my days with.  I miss the sweet things they'd say - you look pretty today, that was the best day ever or thank you for always being nice to me.  I miss being a positive influence in their lives.

I miss planning lessons.

I loved pinning ideas, looking for new units on-line and collaborating with colleagues.  I did a lot of work at home mostly because I enjoyed it so much and it never really seemed like WORK.

I miss my teacher friends.
I was lucky enough to LOVE LOVE LOVE the people I worked with and some days I miss adult conversations.  I miss friends like family and I miss planning all of our parties throughout the year.  I miss sending flowers to friends, baking treats and making a mad dash to get some Mexican for lunch on Fridays.

I miss the organizing, planning and mapping of the school year.

I always designed my own teacher planner - color coded, typed out and personalized just for me.  I loved celebrating each child and working hard to get to know every one of my students.  I loved writing POSITIVE notes to parents and spent a great deal of time handing out compliments to my students.  Parents loved this, students beamed and I was happy to spread the love.

I miss writing newsletters, being creative and running a classroom.

I was known for being very organized and parents loved it.  I miss teaching my little people how to be organized and how to be responsible.  I loved doing fun things for every holiday, planning art projects and decorating my classroom with student art.

I miss helping kids.

I love teaching all subjects, helping students to learn new concepts and giving parents ideas of things to do with their children at home.  I miss helping kids make friends, zipping jackets, drying tears and teaching cursive.  I miss reading my favorite books out loud and having kids beg me to read just one more chapter.

I miss playing an important role on committees, teams and helping run a school.

It's no secret that I like to be in charge.  I like to run things, to plan things and to organize them.  I like being trusted to take care of things and I like doing hard things.

I think it's a great thing that I miss my job.  

I love teaching so much and have always known that my career was perfect for me.  I am excited to return to the classroom one day, but for now I'm going to fondly remember my time in the classroom and 

ENJOY the heck out of my current, important job.