Why I love my job

I've survived the morning!

This morning started off in much the same manner as Alexander's terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day. You know, it was one of those "Murphy's Law" days. First, I hit the snooze a few too many times before actually getting out of bed. Then, while I was taking my shower, I remembered that I had struggled to get some of the last few drops of my body wash out of the bottle yesterday. Only, yesterday I had been in too much of a hurry to transfer a new bottle from my closet to the shower. Then, I had my breakfast cereal half-dry because I had forgotten to stop and get new milk yesterday. Since I was alreay running late, the discovery of the half-inch of snow on my car was not well received. It's not that I dislike snow or that this was all that difficult to remove. It's just that I hadn't expected it, and this was another thing to slow down my trip to school.

So, needless to say, I didn't spend any extra time on my personal appearance. At best, I probably looked frazzled when I finally did get to school. But here's the really good part:
(God really knows when I need those extra boosts.) Today, when I walked in the door, one of the 3-yr.-old preschool students was waiting for his mom while she dropped off his older siblings and talked to their teachers. Now, to put this into perspecitve, he usually only sees me at the beginning of the week (because PK3 only comes on Mon. and Tues. mornings,) and today is chapel day, so I'm wearing a skirt as per school chapel dress code requirements. Anyway, upon seeing me, he stopped his rambunctious play, and said to me (as if in awe), "You look BEAUTIFUL!"

Those three simple words turned my day around. They were also the little reminder I needed to remember the power of words. I love the little ego boosts my students can give me during my days at school. Yet, I very often allow myself to get too busy to say little words of encouragement that could just as easily turn someone else's day around.

Also, the "Murphy's Law Effect" that slowed down my morning so much seemed to turn around when I got to school. That's probably largely due to the fact that everything that went wrong while I was still at home was my own fault, and I was much better prepared for school. The fact that it's Friday and the countdown to the weekend is now down to just a few hours sure doesn't hurt anything, either.