Today was my first day back at work after a lovely two week vacation. I admit it was a terribly boring vacation which made it absolutely wonderful! I figured out I hadn't gone anywhere in my car since before New Year's Day!

It was a staff development day so no kids so that actually means vacation was one day longer! We had our beginning of the second semester motivation speech from our principal. One of our assignments was to come up with a word or phrase that would help us stay motivated this year. I don't think mine would have pleased her much.

During a powerpoint we watched, there was a quote by Goethe-"Things which matter most but never be at the mercy of things which matter least." The things that matter most are my family. I've neglected them a lot this school year. It has to change.

M had a dr. appointment before Christmas. Her A1C was higher than it should be. (That's a number that gives the dr. an idea of what your glucose numbers have been over the past month.) I know it sounds melodramatic but her health now is going to affect the rest of her life. We have to get her numbers where they need to be or this can start her earlier on a lifetime of more health concerns.

She also was diagnosed with some anxiety issues earlier this summer. The dr. thinks the anxiety is also causing some of the higher numbers. Her numbers over the holiday were really good-until today. Today she was back in the high 200's.

I've got some really high maintenance kids this year. I think that trying to work with them has made me more stressed and not such a good mom. They use up every ounce of energy I have. It's been a hard group to work with. Two of them came to me as fifth graders so next year they move on. Their problems are not going to be solved in one year.

This sounds strange but my campus is kind of like a really good diagnostic hospital. We have teachers on our campus that are experts at diagnosing the problems and coming up with solutions. Our campus doesn't have a really high mobility rate though. A lot of our kids come to us as pre-k students and stay until 5th grade. When they come to us as 5th graders there isn't time to do that massive rehab program. It's more like triage and send them on. The only problem is once you're out of 5th grade school changes so dramatically.

I think working with these two has really brought me down. They both have so much potential but man, it's buried deep. And it's buried under some major aggressive tendencies. Starting in 6th grade the response to that is going to involve the police.

So the point of this was I've got to stay focused on what matters most to me. I tell M all the time the most important job I will ever have is being her mother. It's time to really show her though that she's what matters most.