2012 is shaping up to be extremely busy, as I thought it would be. The semester is a little over half way finished for both Geoff and me. I am on Spring Break, Geoff's was 2 weeks ago. We haven't seen in each in what feels like forever because he is getting ready for store-wide inventory this coming Thursday. He also has two midterms this week, poor guy. Overall Geoff is doing well in school right now, but I can tell he is starting to crack under the pressure of it all. He has been struggling to keep up with the demands of homework, labs, and his unforgiving work schedule. Inventory is a BIG deal at Wal-mart, as they only do store-wide inventory once a year...and it directly impacts things like his raise and job security. I hope he can focus on school once inventory is over and manage to pull this semester together! I know he can, he's a smart guy, just under a ton of pressure.
As for me, I have been very busy as well. I finished up my capstone project which was basically an entire unit of social studies lesson plans (I had 9 total) that had to integrate math and reading into them. I also had to do a bunch of write ups about my lesson plans, such as what standards did I meet, how did I evaluate the students' learning, etc. It was a giant pain. However, I am done with it now and awaiting feedback from my supervising professor. I hope I did well enough on it that there are no corrections needed! I also took over the class last week, the week before Spring Break. Needless to say, that was interesting!! It went better than I thought it would, and I felt good about being in charge of the class all day, everyday. I think it further solidified my goal of becoming a classroom teacher. Next week I am in charge of the class for the two days that I will actually be there. Wednesday and Thursday I am going to be in Greeley for a job fair and Friday the kids don't have school for parent-teacher conferences. I am nervous about the job fair, its my best chance of getting hired somewhere but it seems so impossible to be going against all of the other hundreds of recent grads for the handful of jobs that are out there. I am trying to spend this week getting as ready for the job fair as possible. I have spent a good chunk of time going over my resume again and fixing it up, and also going online and researching schools I might want to teach at. The problem is I would take a job anywhere, I am desperate for a job, so that leaves a lot to be researched.
As far as Eli goes, he is doing amazingly well! He has gotten big, about 30" and 20lbs, he is still TINY for his age, in the 1%ile for weight and the 5%ile for height, but he's healthy and happy. He has started speaking in 3-4 word sentences, which is fun. Its amazing to hear all these words come out of a tiny little boy. He has also recently decided he needs a pacifier! Its the funniest thing because as an infant we could hardly get him to take one, but now he insists he needs it. He goes around asking "Bink, please mama? Have it?" LOL. I have him convinced he can have it at night-night time only. He's ok with that. Eli has also started sleeping through the night, provided he sleeps with me. So he stays up til 9-10 pm and goes to bed with me and gets up at 6ish. He then takes two 2-hour naps a day to compensate for it. I am fine with it, it works for me. He is also used to my dad taking him in the morning because yesterday morning he reached for papa and said "bye mama, see ya later! Loves you!" hahaha he's fun. He also has developed his own sense of fairness....He and Monica (my niece who is 3 weeks older than E) will hit him and he will come to me and yell "Monica hit! NO HITTING!!" hee hee. He is quite the little talker. It will be interesting to see how he adapts to being back in Fort Collins come May. I think he will miss the family, but be glad to have Daddy back. He misses his daddy a lot. After we see Geoff, Eli acts sad for a few days and asks for Daddy a lot. It makes me want to cry. I can't wait to be a family again. Well thats pretty much it for us!
