No Coffee Strong Enough

Grading essays is hard. Planning lessons is my jam. Fortunately, these duties merge when I'm about five essay into my stack, and I have fresh plans for what I can teach my students as soon as I've made it to the bottom of the stack. However, that might take a while.

I woke up this morning to my familiar six-year-old eye-to-eye inquiry (just before the sun as brightened the sky), "Is this a school day?" 

"No, it's Saturday, so we have the day to ourselves," I lie from a slumber because when I take home a bag of essays over the weekend, I know my those hours off are not my own. 

With the simple comfort of some nice pens, I drink a couple cups of coffee and make myself an avocado toast. I oversee Bey-blade battles as I evaluate thesis statements that could be pruned. I plan a dog walk as I notice a need for commas after prepositional phrases. Four prominent footsteps tell me that both the dad and teenager are ready for breakfast, but I'm only on essay six. Jeez, it's going to be a long couple of days. 

The bad news is that I'm as tired on a Saturday night as after any school day. The good news is that I already know what to say to my kiddos when they're in front of me again, "Hey, great work on your first literary essay. I have only a couple tips to make this draft incredible." However, when I consider the unfortunate truth that my thoughtful comments won't mean as much to them as they do to me...let's just say that I'll want that weekend back. Forget the coffee, I should have poured myself a glass of Pinot instead.