My Real Life

I feel like time is passing too quickly.

And I realize it is so cliche to say that, but I can’t help but hear this constant tick, tick, tick in the back of my mind.

Perhaps it’s because I have to return to work at the end of May.

Perhaps it’s because I know this is my last monkey.

I don’t really know, but things seem to be happening in fast forward these days.

How is it that my days being home are going more quickly than my days full of work?

Tiny Monkey has already outgrown his 0-3 month clothes.

I knew he wouldn’t fit in newborn stuff.

None of my kids ever did.

But 0-3 months?

I should have had a little more time with them!

He outgrew them at 3 weeks.

I feel like he’s gotten so much bigger, so fast.

But, then I look at this picture and I realize just how tiny he still is.

And I can breathe again.

Yesterday was a tough day around here.

If it could go wrong, it did.

Just to give you an idea, the day ended with Monkey Girl breaking Baby Monkey’s bed, and that was probably the least of our worries yesterday.

So, I was grumpy, upset, and quite frankly, pissed off for most of the day.

Yet, yesterday was also the 2 year anniversary of the death of one of the students at my school.

She died as a 6th grader, and so I now teach, as 8th graders, the students who were her best friends.

Watching these children deal with their grief, and thinking about the pain that her family must have felt yesterday, and every day, shamed me.

I wound up getting out of bed after the monkeys were asleep and kissing them and whispering in their slumbering ears how very much I loved them.

Because bad days come and go, but man, I am one lucky woman, and sometimes, I just need to be reminded of that fact.