Back to school already!

So yesterday was my first official day back to school without the kids. We had boring staff meetings in the morning which are helpful to no one. If it is your first year, everything is over your head because they move too fast and use an inordinate amount of acronyms for everything which they never stop to explain. If it is your second year, you finally figure out what they are talking about, but are too busy trying to remember what in the world you planned for the kids in your foggy first week of school from last year. If it is your third year (as is mine), you realize that nothing they ever say is helpful and you just want them to shut up so you can start decorating your classroom! Any years of experience after that must just be more miserable. Luckily, I cleaned my room well at the end of last year and have everything organized and ready to hang up this year. I am actually very excited to start again except for the fact that it is exhausting to think that I am starting with babies and have to make them into third graders by the end of the year. I am also a little nervous about my class this year. The first grade teachers LOVE to visit all of us second grade teachers and freak us out about all the kids they had that are now our little lovelies. So far I know that I have a strange child with a strange dad who likes to hit on the teachers, a child who will die if he breathes in the scent of peanuts, a child who speaks no english, 2 more who speak limited english, one who's last name is Iraq, one who is a twin that was held back but her sister was not (ouch!), and two who barely made it into 2nd grade. The rest better be angels!!! What I have learned though, is that kids act differently with different teachers and to take what past teachers say with a grain of salt.  Bring it on!