My Second First Day of Kindergarten

I still remember my first day of kindergarten. I was four years old; soon to be five, only a few days later, but still the youngest student in the class.

I remember being ushered into the room by my kindergarten teacher. I went straight to play with blocks while she dashed around madly organizing kleenex boxes and clorox wipes. I remember watching her console parents and kneel to redirect crying children. I remember noting how much patience that woman had.

I remember walking in to a room I'd never seen before, knowing no one in the school, having no prior knowledge to apply to my new situation, and not having a single clue what was going on. I was flying by the absolute seat of my pants, just waiting on the teacher to tell me what to do.

And somehow, sixteen years later, all my days of kindergarten, and elementary, and middle school, and high school, and college had brought me right back around full circle.

I was twenty-one years old; soon to be twenty-two, only a few days later, but still the youngest teacher in the building.

I set up my room and put tubs of blocks on each table. I dashed around madly organizing kleenex boxes and clorox wipes. I consoled parents and knelt to redirect crying children. And I noted how much patience I never knew I had until that moment. They always said that kindergarten teachers were gifted with a certain type of patience that no one else had. I get it now.

I walked in to a room I'd never seen before only a week prior. And once again, I knew no one in the school. I had no prior teaching experience to apply to my first year teaching. And I still didn't have a single clue what was going on. I was still flying by the absolute seat of my pants. Except now I was the teacher who was supposed to tell 20 four and five years olds what to do.

I didn't eat lunch my entire first week. I worked 14 hour days the week before school started, and 12 hours days the first week of school. My classroom is already a mess, like I promised myself it never would be. My desk is already piled high and disorganized, like I promised myself I'd never let it get. And I've never needed more sleep than I did this past weekend; not in all my years of band concerts and guard competitions and theatre productions. Five year olds take a special kind of energy.

But my heart is so full...and so is my wallet! That's right ya'll, pay day was on Friday, which is the best possible Friday you can have.

So thus far... Teaching is pretty much the weirdest thing I've ever done. I get to wake up every morning in a metropolitan area, and drive to work doing what I love most with the age group I love most, and then return home to have dinner and hang out with my love and best friend. And then, every two weeks, there's more money than I've ever seen collectively on one check being deposited into my bank account. I pay rent. I pay bills. I pay credit cards. And I get to pay for awesome stuff too, like clothes I like, and furniture I've wanted forever, and the best pasta at my favorite italian restaurant every once in awhile.

And it all occurred to me as I was driving home tonight, away from the skyline, getting ready to lay everything out for work tomorrow morning. I used to dread waking up to go to class. To go to rehearsal. To go to work. And somehow, I don't seem to mind to anymore. And I think that's the absolute best thing a girl could possibly ask for.

Will the year get harder? Absolutely, in some ways. The thing is: I don't know what I don't know. So I'm not sure how far behind I am, or what I'm forgetting, or what I should've done on the first day of school that I didn't do. But it'll also get easier in other ways. I'll get used to lesson planning quickly. I'll get used to stealing the copier at the busiest time of day. I'll get used to teaching and my kinders will get used to learning and in the end, we'll both have accomplished something amazing. We'll both have had our first year of school, together. And we couldn't have done it without each other.

There are times during the day I wish I was more experienced, and could make faster decisions, and could recycle some old lesson plans when I wanted to leave school early. But I also recognize that I will never get this experience again. The ability to figure life out with five year olds, who are also trying to figure their life out, is undoubtedly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And I plan to savor every second of it.

I love my job. I love my apartment. I love Nashville, and the people I've met here. I love my home. I love my life. And I've never been more thankful of anything.

Bethany's First Classroom Reveal!

T'was the night before kindergarten, when all the through the house, a teacher was stirring, and so were the mice in her house. (Check out I Don't Think I Was Meant To Grow Up for that lovely story...)

We're cutting it a little close here at Bellshire Elementary. Our school had some beautiful and much-needed renovations completed over the summer, but that left us teachers with only one week to prep in our rooms, and the custodians were left to work around us while waxing the floors.

I walked in to chaos.

It was the first time I'd ever seen my room, and random furniture was thrown into each of them. I had no guided reading tables, one teacher desk that was falling apart, two sets of classroom chairs (neither the correct size for kindergarteners) and about forty-five more tables than I needed. There was some second grade curriculum in there, too: globes, workbooks much too hard for my kinders, etc...

But the whole team pulled together. We swapped until we all ended up with the correct curriculum. We stole furniture from everyone else's surplus pile. Teachers would roam the hallways yelling, "File cabinet?!" until someone would poke their head out and say "Come on in! I have four!"

Until finally, somehow, we were ready. (Or as ready as we'll ever be.)

So without further adieu... Welcome to Harper Headquarters! This is where Nashville's kindergarten detectives will become confident, creative, and curious...ready to make observations, search for clues and strategies, and ultimately learn new things until their case is cracked...and they are ready for first grade!

Special thanks to my kinder team for guiding me and swapping materials / furniture with me when everything was randomly piled in our room! Thanks to the janitors who helped us with our setups prior to waxing our floors, thanks to the tech team for installing everything in a matter of three days, and thanks to everyone who sent graduation money or school supplies / classroom essentials directly. And huge thanks to Dylan Roth for coming up basically every day to move and assemble furniture, hang everything out of my reach (i.e. ... nearly half my classroom), and for keeping me mentally sane through this crazy week! 

The first day of school is tomorrow... Kinder teachers, it's time to get our cray on!

I Don't Think I Was Meant To Grow Up

I'm two months in to this adulting thing, and I have to say... It's not goin' so hot.

It was a week before I had a bed in my apartment, a month before I even had something to sit on to watch TV, and the rug I ordered six weeks ago still isn't here. (Don't worry, it's only been sent back to the company twice, but the address confusion has been addressed and it's on its way. Third time's the charm I hear. We'll see.)

When I first moved in to my apartment in Nashville, my locks didn't work. And I refused to sleep on the floor behind a door that didn't lock, so there I was, staying at Dylan's. Two weeks later, my air conditioner broke. I'm extremely hot natured but sightly more stubborn, so I tried to tough it out. Dylan walked in once and said, "Your thermostat says it's 80 degrees in here! It's cooler outside!" So I was back at Dylan's for a few nights, at least until the poor maintenance man that already knew me by name had completed the work order. And don't even get me started on the smoke detectors. Those things go off every time I take something out of the oven without remembering to turn the stovetop vent fans on.

Well about a week ago, I started waking up to falling objects. Every time I would emerge from my bedroom the next morning, something new would be on the kitchen floor. A chip bag. A cereal box. A few tea bags scattered from their can on the shelf. I glanced up at the air vent directly above the pantry shelf; the same one that's been testy since the cooling system was fixed. It's been known to blow my papers around every time the air kicks on, so I didn't really think much of it. I just sat things back where they belonged and went on about my day.

The longer time went on, things weren't just falling. They were moving. I'd come out into the kitchen to see cereal on the floor, a jar of peanut butter tipped over, and a box of rice moved to a new place on the shelf. That's when I first started fretting.

Two nights ago, I awoke to a crash. I live by myself, and dared not open the door. The way I saw it... something had been moving my food around without attacking me thus far, so it was likely safer to stay put and pray for protection than it would've been to emerge in the dark with nothing to defend myself. I stayed awake for a good while, until several minutes of silence had passed. Go back to sleep, I told myself, Deal with it in the morning. When your head is on tighter, and it's light outside. 

The next morning, the sun was shining and I was showered, my hair was straightened, and my face was makeuped before I dared to take on the kitchen. And when I first emerged, nothing seemed out of the ordinary compared to the past few nights. One chip bag was on the floor and a cereal box was tilted over. I couldn't find the source of anything warranting a large crash, until I leaned down to pick up the chip bag.

The picture frames atop the pantry shelf had fallen, and half of my loaf of bread was gone. The same loaf I'd only bought the day before and eaten two pieces out of for a sandwich. The bag was torn open and my bread hadn't fallen. It wasn't thrown away. It was eaten. 

I'd had enough. I grabbed my phone; no wallet, no keys; and walked right out of my apartment. I dailed in a frenzy. "Dylan?! Dylan, please. Come over here. Now." My anxious mind and untrusting soul went everywhere except to any logical conclusions.

What if the previous resident is a prankster who still has a key to my door?! 
or
What if there's a homeless man who lives in the tall bushes behind my apartment complex and he comes in every night for food?! 
or
Good god, I just got my air conditioner fixed and now there's a demon in my ventilation system... 

And sweet Dylan, being the logical fixer-upper that he is, arrives within minutes, waltzes right up to the door and says, "Ready to take a look?" like it's totally no big deal.

He picked up the chip bag. He poked around the bread bag. He got out his phone flashlight and looked on the floor under the pantry shelving. "Well," he sighed, "You've got mice."

"...WHAT?!"

I'm sure it left my mouth like I was an absolute madwoman. My primary thought: Tiny little rodents ate half my loaf of bread?! It would take me two weeks to do that! There's just no way... Secondary thought (and Dylan's primary thought): It's rodents. Nothing human. Nothing paranormal. Just rodents. And we can fix rodents. 

He explained it all. And suddenly it made a whole lot of sense. The crumbs, the fallen food, the holes in the bread bag, and the mysterious brown specs that kept appearing on my floor. You guessed it. "Mice poops," as quoted by Dylan. Wonderful.

He watched as the fear vanished from my eyes and my breathing returned to normal. And with his smirky little grin, he stifled a laugh and said, "You were thinking ghosts. Weren't you."

"No," I defended and neglected to mention the demon thought, "I thought someone got in here. I thought someone was breaking in in the middle of the night for bread."

He gave me that really?! look. You know, the one people give you when they know what you've just said is ridiculous, but they want to make sure you know it, too.

"Besides," I countered, "I'm no expert, but I was pretty sure ghosts wouldn't eat bread."

He busted out laughing. I didn't understand why he thought it was so funny. It was probably the most logical thought I'd had all morning. Duh Bethany, it's can't be a demon. Demons eat souls. Not bread. 

And so, after a hug and a trip to the apartment office, pest control was called. The appointment is scheduled for Wednesday. And where am I in the meantime?

You guessed it. Dylan's. Again. Suggested by him, out of the kindness of his heart. Or out of the likelihood that his girlfriend, who thought a homeless man was breaking into her house for bread, would be calling in the middle of the night asking him to come over when she heard rodent feet scurrying around her kitchen.

So, yeah. That happened.

And adulthood is going about like I expected it to. I start my job in a week. I have trainings to attend and a classroom to plan and a few seconds left of summer to enjoy, and what am I doing? Fending myself from mice. 

My mother always told me that once I graduated college, I would be a real adult. I'd have a real job and a real home and real life, and I'd spend the rest of my days trying to get it all together.

If that ain't the truth.

I miss the lunch box days and the nights when my parents would lay in my room until I fell asleep. I miss having help for school and love and life (and don't get me wrong, I still call my mom for all of those things), but I miss being taken care of. I miss having someone else pay to fix the locks, or contact the air conditioner repair man, or get rid of the mice. And I can't believe I spent all of those moments wishing I was the one who could take care of it all myself.

Because now I've become the one who's writing those words, even though I swore I'd never say them. I swore I'd never tell a child, enjoy it while you're young, because they don't believe you and they won't take your word for it. Because they don't know everything that goes into being an adult. They just know that daddy gets to drive a car, and mommy gets an expensive purse, and adults get to touch the stove and plug in lamps and do everything that you aren't allowed to as a kid.

And I suppose I am thankful for that, now. I get to drive a car (which is cool until you get a $200 speeding ticket in a small town that floods two weeks later and won't tell you whether or not they got your check). And I get to touch the stove (cooking, ugh...) and I get to plug in lamps (cause that's as exciting as it was cracked up to be). And...I'm still waiting on my expensive grown-up purse... Why? Because I'm paying for mice repellant so I don't have to buy a new loaf of bread every day.

No wonder I like hanging out with kids so much. They keep me hoping and dreaming and imagining when I'm bogged down by rent and finances and the rat-like intruders that are in my home. Children are such a gift in this way, and I'm so lucky that I get to spend so much time with them.

So I suppose I'm truly in the best position for an adult to be in. I'm in the constant companionship of kiddos. And I suppose if you look at it that way, I wouldn't have that blessing without my real job in my real life.

Even though (yes, mom...) I'm spending every moment trying to keep it all together.