at the turn

I'm happily exhausted.

Monday I started my low-iodine diet and my first-ever stint as a summer STEM camp instructor.  My school sponsored a session of Camp Invention, and it was both very busy and very fun.  The best part was the team I worked with, including the director and one other instructor, both teachers from my school, and then all the interns and "leaders in training" -- older students -- who helped make it all possible.  I'll get a stipend that sounds great for a week of 9:00 AM - 3:30 PM contact time, but we all earned every penny of it!  I think one afternoon we teachers were out by 4:30, but all the other days it was more like 5:30 or 6, and the day started about 8 the latest.  NIHF sends all the material (more than adequate amounts, but a lot of absolutetly lowest-cost supplies) and curriculum (truly superb), and they provide online support with everything from training videos to background music and timers.  Even though all I had to do was read through the curriculum and deliver it, there was still considerable prep work involved, and my two classes were probably the least fussy! 

The kids had a blast.  It was interesting to work with such young students.  It took me back to my story-time days when my own kids were very small.  The very first sort-of teaching thing I ever did was story time at Borders!  The younger group (rising first through third graders) was completely onboard.  The older group (rising fourth through sixth graders) had some holdouts on some of the slightly sillier things, but there was only one who pretty much sat out the entire week.  Fortunately she wasn't able to poison everyone else's enjoyment, even though she refused to participate in practically everything.  The kids built, and we sent home with them, an inordinate amount of stuff that would make me shudder if anyone brought it into my home now, but looking back, I remember that's what you deal with when you have young kids.  Also: building and experimenting is such a positive activity for them, they all (except that one) loved just having time to make stuff, and no one telling them to stop making a mess or "No, you can't do that."

Notwithstanding all that, I'm definitely in the right job: teaching the "littles" for more than a week and I think my head would explode.   I couldn't even begin to count the number of times the phrase "suck it up, buttercup," went through my head when a child whined about something not being exactly the way they wanted it... I managed not to say it aloud even once! Something to be proud of, I suppose.  Redirect, redirect, redirect... In a week, you can really suss out who the good kids who are and who are, sadly, more or less rotten.  By today I just wasn't as willing to give the brats a lot of energy or attention.  Everyone survived.

LID while at camp: no breakfast (never eat breakfast, really), apple at snack time, a banana and fig & walnut thing from Trader Joe's; after school, a peach, and then dinner.  So far it's going OK but DS2 threw a mini-tantrum about the boring roast pork loin and I did rather harshly put him in his place by suggesting that he find a better recipe and cook it himself!  With any luck, by this time next week I'll be off the diet and have a clean report from my scan.  The scan will be done, of course, but I don't know if I'll get the results immediately the way I usually do, because I'm going to the different, blessedly closer, hospital this time around. 

So, a blood test tomorrow morning kicks off the merry-go-round of appointments. Oh yeah, between the ultrasound and the scan, I'm spending $1000 on medical testing next week -- there goes my stipend...