Though the summer heat is still here in force, summer break is over for this teacher mama and the first day of school is fast approaching!

All my teacher friends in California are back to school already and the teachers I know in Georgia, including my parents, are already a couple of weeks into the year. But around here the traditional calendar schools end mid-June and don’t go back until the end of August. Open House is one week from today (eeps!!) and the first day of school for me is the following Monday.

Big changes going on to get our family ready for the school year. It’s a big transition for all of us with me going back to teaching for the first time since Calvin was born and with Calvin starting Pre-K and Henry starting preschool.

We hired a nanny!! And she’s great. The boys love her, I love her, and I think she’s going to continue to do a wonderful job. She will be Henry’s nanny once the school year starts because his special ed preschool program is not full time. For now, she’s caring for both kids while I get my classroom ready and go to a bajillion teacher meetings.

My mom and dad, even though they were both exhausted from their first full weeks of school, were so kind to drive up last weekend to help me out with getting my classroom ready. My dad took care of Calvin and Henry so my mom and I could do classroom shopping and so that James and my mom could come help me move my school stuff in and hang some bulletin boards. James did an awesome job putting up my content area wall!

The classroom is still a work-in-progress, but it’s coming together.

It’s been 4 years since I’ve done this, but it all came back to me just like riding a bike. Feels like yesterday! In fact, I have caught my self a couple of times talking about “my classroom last year” which was, um, actually FOUR years ago, HELLO!

Though this week was not my official first week of work, I have been treating it like a work week, going either to my classroom to set up or to my teacher training meetings for full work hours. Meanwhile, the boys have been home with our nanny. And I gotta admit, it is so nice to come home from work to find the house clean and the boys happy and cared for. I am feeling VERY grateful for our nanny and hopeful for what the school year will be like.

I started to write in this post my thoughts about Calvin and Henry going off to school and as I started to tear up I stopped myself and decided that nope, that’s a whole other post. It’s not time for that yet! So that’s enough for now 🙂 Gotta go hang up some more pocket charts!