Waking Up On the Right Side of the Bed

I stayed up way too late last night. Not a good idea knowing what an awful morning person I am.   I thought it was going to be a rough start to the day.  To my surprise, I only pushed the snooze button about three or four times this morning.  I know that sounds bad, but this is vast improvement for me. 

I jumped in the shower and that’s when my wheels started turning.  Isn’t that where everyone does their best thinking?  I felt so good!  I’ve been doing a lot of praying and I’m feeling more at ease and peaceful with myself and my circumstances. I am super motivated to try to stick to my resolutions for the new year (except for the exercising part-just not there yet).  Also, I thought of a great idea while doing lesson plans last night.  I decided that I needed to try to get my kids this motivated by coming up with their own goals.  I was so excited to see my kids, hear their stories about Christmas break, and show them the fun project that they would be working on for the next two days.

My next thought was of something I remembered hearing on the radio yesterday.  Today was going to be the first day for the students of Sandy Hook Elementary to return to school since the tragic shooting that occurred last month.  I thought of all those sweet kids and what they would be going through as they walked in to see their teachers today.   I thought of the innocent children that did and did not survive that day and all the brave teachers that were there protecting their students.  I thought of the story about the teacher that stuffed her students in lockers so that they were hidden when the shooter entered her room and gave her life to spare theirs.

My mind then switched to my colleagues.  I could see their faces and hear their voices and I felt so proud knowing that I work with an incredible group of people who I know would have laid their lives on the line to save the students that they were responsible for.  I know so many people out there are coming down on teachers these days and question many things we do.  I know that teachers grumble about issues related to their jobs, but in the end we all love our kids and would do most anything for them.  Would I have been so clever to put my kids in lockers?  Probably not.  Would I have guarded them and put myself in the line of danger to save them?  ABSOLUTELY!

I started thinking about the things I have seen on tv and Facebook where people are taking on the challenge of completing one random act of kindness per life lost at Sandy Hook.  Now, I told you in a previous post that I am great at starting things, but not so hot at finishing them strong.  So, I’m not going to say that I will be able to complete this many random acts of kindness, but I know I can do at least one.  My hope is that, if I do one, and you do one, and the people who are blessed by our acts do one, we can start a chain that keeps on going.  I KNOW that would definitely honor the victims of Sandy Hook.

Just as I was finishing up my shower, I started thinking about Bennett and Chris and how lucky I am to be able to hug and love them everyday.  And then I felt really good and I finally stepped out of (what seems like) the longest shower ever!

I promise my next post will be on a much lighter topic, but I think it’s important to not forget about Sandy Hook and not take small things in our lives for granted. 

Do you have any ideas for random acts of kindness to help get everybody’s creative juices flowing?  If so, leave them in the comments section.

Thanks for reading,

Jaime