Literacy & Exhaustion

I am not a morning person. I'm just not. When I get in a routine and a schedule (see: going to bed at a decent hour and getting enough sleep) I can tolerate mornings..but I still don't like them. I especially don't like mornings on the weekend though..because weekends are supposed to be for sleeping and being lazy...and not for being awake and productive and a contributing member to society...nuh uh I say.

All of this is made a little bit funny sad ironic by the fact that during the summer...I'm up somewhere between 4am and 5am each and every Saturday from June --> October. Saturdays are early mornings...it's just a fact of life when you're living and working on a farm. Come November though? Saturdays are supposed to be glorious sleep in days.

Ha - at least that's what I thought.

Then I took up a job tutoring a little girl that I know and so far..it's been really fun. We've now set up a regular day and time to meet..so that's kind of nice because it just ensures continuity...but it kind of sucks that the regular time is 9am Saturday mornings. Sure it allows me to get on with my weekend right after that..but...uhh...Saturday? Saturday MORNING? Ew.

Alas...it is what it is. And that's b-r-i-g-h-t and e-a-r-l-y folks. And of course by the time I get there I feel like a zombie because my body is like...SATURDAY MORNING! SLEEP! WHY ARE YOU AWAKE AND ATTEMPTING TO FUNCTION! SLEEEEEEEP!

And the little girl is like this:
ERIN!YOU'REHERE!WHATAREWEDOINGTODAY?!DIDYOUKNOWTHATWHENYOUPUTTHE'E'ANDTHE'A'BESIDEEACHOTHERINAWORDTHEYMAKEAN'EEEEEEEEE' SOUND?!
COOLEH!
YOUTAUGHTMETHATLASTWEEK!
WHATAREYOUGOINGTOTEACHMETHISWEEK?
CANWEPLAYTHEGAMEILIKETOPLAYWITHTHEWORDS?
CANYOUCOMEOVERSOMEDAYANDWEPLAYPIRATES?
WHAT'SYOURFAVOURITECOLOUR?
ILIKEBLUE!
BLUESTARTSWITHA'BUHBUH'B!

And I'm like...Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Calm down there Peppy McPepperson...I'm excited that you're excited about learning..but FYI - It's Saturday....MORNING.

Luckily..my brain and I are on pretty good terms and it lets me stay awake for the couple of hours I'm there while we do some phonemic awareness stuff, practice stretching out some letters into words and play some games to help with vocab, phonics and a variety of dipthongs. When my brain is about ready to call it quits..it's time to go home where I can apologize to my body for waking it up early on a Saturday morning..and make up to it by having a delicious Saturday afternoon nap.

Oh - and just to confuse myself even more...this morning...I was all ready to go. I had my lesson plan and all of our activities planned..and I even had some extra stuff printed off in a couple in a few different areas on a couple of different areas (both higher and lower) in case there was a lack of concentration or some frustration happening and I needed to switch more than usual (like I had to last week..) and what loop was thrown at my tired, old Saturday morning brain? Oh yeah...just throw in an extra child for me to work with without any warning what-so-ever! No worries!

Luckily..it all worked out well..mostly because I was awesome and accidentally had double of almost activity I was going to do with her...which actually happened to be REALLY close to both of their indivdual literacy levels. I must have KNOWN on some weird deeper level that was going to happen. Even when I didn't have double the activities...I quickly converted what we were doing into a group activity that they could both manage...instead of something for one kid. I'm not sure whether flexibility is my middle name or if it's just awesome.

And yes, you may now call me 'the most awesome tutor who has ever existed and rocks the socks right off of everything'. I'd be okay with that...because...well..I even rock my own socks.

And on that note..I'm now rocking my own socks right into bed where I intend to nap for the next couple of hours. Ah delicious naps...whoever came up with the concept of you is a freakin' genius.

That should totally be somewhere in my next lesson plan....eh...I'll sleep on it.