Pulling my hair out

Starting to teach a class and go back to work in the same week, along with tutoring for biology finals was not a smart move. I almost had a panic attack last Friday when I couldn't find where we had stashed our unused books of checks (I figured out we actually don't have any empty books).

Since I last posted, I had a revelation. Baby N was just not able to sleep more than a couple of hours at night. It seemed like we were moving backwards instead of making progress in the sleeping department. So when I was in Iowa, Mom and I decided to give him some cereal before he went to bed. It worked like magic. He absolutely loves it, and now he usually sleeps 6-7 hours at night. I know starting him on cereal when he was even three months old may raise some eyebrows, but I think the poor kid was hungry all the time.

Now I am trying to be a time management superstar. Trying is the operative word here. Take last Thursday, for example. 7:45 am, run south and drop off baby N at daycare, then drive back North to school to teach at 9 am. This involved me freaking out in rush hour traffic that I would be late and trying to find an alternate route on the GPS option on my cellphone. I made it at 9am on the dot. Then at noon I had to drive back south again to work at TREC, and then pick up N at 6 pm. Then I intended to get home and make dinner, but dinner often doesn't happen because I am so darn tired.

Well, that's my life for now. I think the commuting is eating up a couple hours of my time each day. Boy will I be glad to move back to a smaller place, where you can get to work in 15 minutes vs. an hour and 15 minutes. I think that's why urbanites are so stressed out and rushing around all the time---they spend half of there lives just getting where they need to go.

The great thing is that I started teaching and it is really fun. It's stressful because I never feel 100% prepared (it must be the perfectionist in me), and I really, really, really want to do a good job. But I love interacting with my students. It is a small class with students from all walks of life, and the class atmosphere really breeds many questions and discussions.