"Just around the corner"

I went back to work this week. Overall, it's been good, even if it's only been a day and a half. Caleb has been going to my parent's house during the day and we will keep this up until the end of the school year, which is only about 3 weeks away. He's doing great with it, overall. I think I worried a little in the beginning because I wasn't sure how it would go. But, we had a couple of practice days while I was off, where we went and spent most of the day there and he could take a nap. My parents live in the country, so the whole farm thing is also a big draw. The tractors and the riding lawn mower are parked at the top of the hill from the house. Every day that we pull in the driveway, the pointing/grunting begins before we are even out of the car. Tractors! We let him sit in the tractor with my dad, which was a big treat for him.

This time off has gone amazingly fast, and before I knew it, I was driving to work on Wednesday morning. As many already know, this job has been a little questionable for me this past year. While I have really enjoyed the schedule (and I would continue to enjoy that for, well, forever), the actual job itself hasn't been as great as I had hoped. Oh well, we live and learn. I was driving to work--alone in the car for the first time in weeks, and it suddenly seemed strange--and I was thinking about all of the real reasons I was at this job for the past year. Looking back, when I was hired, it was for a one-year-only contract: a fact I was disappointed about in the beginning. Now, I am grateful that when my year is up, I'm done. But in the past year, I've gotten to enjoy my weekends off, sleeping at night, eating breakfast routine that I once gushed about in a previous post. It still holds true. I've also learned a lot about the public school system, and now that I have a child, I am a little more aware of current and future opportunities that are out there. And, I've met some really neat people, some of whom I could even call friends (!). So, I will try to enjoy my last three weeks, knowing that it is almost over. And yet....I somehow couldn't manage to get through the year without having to do the school nurse "talk" to the fourth and fifth graders. The PC/somewhat misleading and vague term for it is called "Growth and Development" class. In other words, puberty. I've been off work for 8 weeks, I go back for the last 3 weeks of the school year, and I still have this squeezed into my schedule. The teachers have deflected to me: they are so uncomfortable with it that they schedule it for the last couple of weeks of school, on a Friday, the last hour of the day. That way, they can have the school nurse do the talking, the bell rings, and they send the kids home for the weekend where they can ask their parents the embarassing questions. And what does the school nurse do? This particular one took the easy way out and checked out educational videos from the district office that will do the talking for her, appropriately called "Just Around the Corner". Here's what you can expect, kids. Watch this video to learn how you will be changing soon, it's just around the corner! Now, if you have any questions, be sure you ask your mom and dad!

Okay, so I'm not copping out that much. I will do some talking, as uncomfortable as it may be. Actually, being a nurse, I can honestly say that I've seen more than an average person's share of uncomfortable things, and this class ranks kind of low. But I did check out the videos.... hey, whatever works, right?