New Job - Week 1

Oh. My. Goodness.

I know that it has only been one week, so what I say is likely based more on emotions than experience, because there is SO much to experience, but I can say this: Week 1... TWO THUMBS UP!

I love this school.

This job is SOOO different than anything that I have done before. There is so much to learn, and it will probably be a year before I can speak clearly about it all, but I am so thankful for this position.

So. How was my week? HECTIC! I didn't know what to call my position in the beginning, but I know now that I will be the office manager. Not the head office manager, the second office manager. But it is a huge job. The head office manager is the face of the school, and they want her to be the main person in the position, but I will need to know how to do everything that she does, and be able to step in at any moment to fill any task. Michelle is her name. The number one gal. And she is on maternity leave right now! She will be back in mid August, I believe. But I did get to meet her this week. She brought her precious baby up to the school for the teachers to meet. What a sweetie! I will probably be intimidated by Michelle for a while, because right now I am being trained by Lauren, the girl who I am replacing. Lauren is AMAZING! She is doing a great job showing me our position. But this coming Friday is her last day, so I hope that I am learning things the way that Michelle would have me do them. And Lauren is so great at her job, and so kind, I know that it will not be an easy job filling her shoes. But I hope to learn well and be a worthy replacement!

So, the kids are ADORABLE! I spent brief periods of time in almost every class at some point last week. I learned really quickly that I like the three year olds best. Three and younger are all super cute! I mean, EVERY child is a cutie, all the way up to the fifth grade! But the older they get, the less interested they are in knowing a random adult. The little ones walk right up to you with arms open wide! I love 'em =-) I got a few hugs last week, and they were all so sweet =-) A two year old cried when I put him down after watching the kids outside who were having "Splash Day". His teacher said he has never cried for someone before. Wowzers, did that make me smile!

I know I can't really say much about individual kids, so I will just say that they are all really special. I am trying my best to learn names, but there are SO many! It is amazing how every teacher in the school knows the name of every single child and every single parent, and other relatives that pick up the kids regularly. Really??? I hope I can learn all of the summer names before school starts again.

I am not even sure what all I have said about the school on the blog so far. It is a private school and daycare. It normally starts at age 2, but when a teacher has a baby, the school opens up a baby room, which means when Michelle comes back in August, a baby room will open up with 4 precious little ones! I can't wait!!! So the school offers childcare/pre-school for the little ones and then has private school for Pre-K through 5th grade. It also has an after school program for kids who are public school students but need after school care during the school year.

During the summer, 1st-5th grade goes on a field trip EVERY DAY! Are you kidding me? How cool is that? And it's a really great variety! All kinds of fun places, some of which I had never heard of. And the Kindergarten aged kids will have 2 field trips a week for the month of July. The kids really seem to enjoy themselves.

Most of the teachers have been at the school for a LONG time, and the ones who have only been there a few years seem like they plan on staying around. I really enjoyed meeting them all, and I know that several of them will most likely become friends =-) Imagine that. Work friends.

That's been the most amazing thing. This job is SO different. I mean, at my last job I sat in front of a computer all day, and pretty much did the same thing every day. At my new job, I sit down for maybe 5 minutes a day, and each day feels really different! I know that as I learn the tasks, it will become more of a routine, but there will always be variety. I come home really tired, but it feels really good because I know that I worked hard.

So I will leave you with a few highlights from my week:

On Friday, the school had a Fourth of July Parade. Each class made some kind of decoration or noise maker to carry and then we all lined up and watched the flag go up and sang the National Anthem. Then we marched around the school shaking our noise makers. I got to hold the hand of two 2 year olds. SO FUN!

I also cleaned up throw up on Friday. haha... good times.

I drove my boss home on Tuesday because her car was in the shop. She is so easy to talk to!

I painted a banner on Thursday. It was totally not a big deal - just painting letters that someone had drawn on - but it felt so good to hold a brush.

I wore two big plastic necklaces for the parade, that I bought from the Dollar Spot at Target on Thursday night because Lauren told me that the owners like us to dress up on theme days. It rained all over me so the blue necklace turned my white shirt a little blue, but it washed right out.

I called a vendor to come fill up our soda machine, and I wasn't even scared! I'm usually not good at making random phone calls to strangers, but Lauren told me exactly what to say, and I wasn't even nervous. Thank goodness!

I cried on my way to work on Friday because I can't remember the last time I was so happy to go to work =-)

I am so thankful for this job. I pray blessings for the school, the teachers and the students, and I pray that I will be a servant to all.

It will definitely take me some time to get used to my life's new schedule, but I will blog as often as I can! I thought that having a three day weekend would give me tons of time to catch up reading and writing blogs, but I am staying up past my bedtime to post this. Hmm... didn't quite work out like I planned.