Do I Feel Overwhelmed?

I've been doing the chicken dance.

Our local schools started Wednesday and that was a whole lot of work. I had to withdraw Anni from the middle school, meet with the high school Resource team and call K12 about Colter's status. I decided to get in a good mid-day workout, made dinner for the family and finished the day at the golf course with my ladies for our last league play of the season. I was Tiger Woods playing in the dark.

What? Did you think it was all about the school?

But Thursday was and I asked another fitness coach to cover my shift at they gym so I could go to IDVA's Zoo Day in Idaho Falls with Colter and Anni. I wasn't about to miss that. I wanted the chance to meet the teachers, parents and their kids. I woke up early so that I could take part in a Mentor and Learning Coach session before we left, made more calls to K12 and IDVA, conferenced with Colter's high school placement coordinator, Emily, to select his classes, and sent off a few emails before heading out the door.

I was on fire and throughout the day, I felt good about the direction we were taking. Sure, there was a moment or two when I ran smack into Colter's all-or-nothing world  but it's a common enough occurrence that I have to learn to face his intractability with a heavy dose of patience and an equal amount of medication–er, meditation.

My morning began with the 15 Minute High School Mentor. It was an interesting session and one that I will need to revisit again. Having to make accommodations for a special learner is a difficult task that I have a great deal of nervousness about. Listening to Tiffany Higgins as I made my way through my morning ritual in the kitchen made me realize that to be a mentor, I had to give up certain degree of control.

And I am a control freak.

Worse still, I am like my son.

Okay...I need to work on that.

Making Time: Scheduling for Home Learning and Life

The Learning Coach session at 11 a.m. would have been more interesting but scheduling seemed to me a premature lesson given that I had nothing concrete that I could look at on the OLS because Annika's courses and plans have still not been loaded. She starts on Monday and yet I have no teacher assigned either. Only half the materials are arriving and we had to chase down her hardware shipment at the UPS docks because we weren't home to sign for the packages only to find that the computer is not set up for wireless networking. It's a small setback to add to the series of small setbacks I already am facing as I try to get ready for next week.

So maybe overwhelmed is something of a work in progress for me–literally and figuratively.