7:30am - Arrive at school
7:31am - Bug Ky to move faster so that I can get signed in, drop my lunch in the lounge fridge, and get to my classroom so I can get work done before whatever inevitable meeting I have to attend gets called over the PA system.
7:37am - Get to my room. Try to work, but get interrupted every 12 seconds or so by a certain child who seems to have no ability whatsoever to entertain himself. I give him choices for centers to play in and he refuses all of them.
7:45am - Send Ky to timeout and continue to attempt to get work done.
8:05am - [Already exhausted and frustrated] Go to meeting. Try desperately to pay attention while constantly trying to make sure my son doesn't interrupt or misplace materials.
8:45am - Rush out of meeting to meet my class and send my kids to their class.
Things run fairly smoothly at this point until...
11:15am - My kids come back to my classroom because their teacher runs half-day preschool for the 3-year-olds, while I do full-day for the 4-year-olds. Acacia usually comes in quietly and has little or no trouble joining an activity center group. Ky, however, usually tries to play in a center that is not currently open for the rest of my students, thus causing a major distraction.
12:15pm - Send my kids back to their class for the afternoon session. Go to lunch and try not to cry in the teacher's lounge.
12:45pm - Continue normally with my own class.
1:45pm - Dismiss my class. Run around my school/classroom working as fast as humanly possible because I know that when I have to pick my own kids back up in an hour, I will be able to accomplish little if anything.
In short, I'm going nuts. I love Ky. I really do. I don't want to feel resentment toward him for making it too difficult for me to do my job...which I absolutely must have in order to provide basic needs for him and his brother and sister.
Acacia has very little problem following directions and making choices when given a few options. She does well with and even thrives on structure.
Ky does not. He has a hard time at school and he's causing me to have extreme difficulty doing my job to the best of my ability. He does better in an open, but safe and child-friendly environment.
I can't keep doing this. It's making me a bad teacher and a bad parent...even a bad friend sometimes because I'm not as kind as I should be when I'm so frustrated and overwhelmed.
Money is going to be a lot tighter again, but this just isn't worth me dreading going to work everyday.
I'm sending Ky to daycare with Dawson full-time starting tomorrow.
It's tough to admit all these things. It makes me so sad. But I just can't do this anymore.