Somebody pinch me!

Sometimes I wake up in the morning, get ready for the day, head to work, and walk into my classroom and feel completely awestruck.

I just can't believe that I'm a teacher! A real teacher! My dream has finally come true!

I have to say, I love every minute of it. My kids are amazing and hilarious and adorable and I love seeing their faces every morning.

Most of my students have pretty tragic histories and it's heartbreaking to look at their files and read about all the terrible things that have happened to them in their short lives, but, as my aide told me my first week, "You love them while you have them. Make this classroom a safe place where they know they are being cared for."

And that's my goal with this class. I think I'm doing a pretty good job! I get a lot of hugs and compliments each day and it warms my heart to know that they like having me as their teacher.

I think my favorite part of the day is journal time. Each morning we write a journal entry from a prompt that one of the students has come up with. Today's journal prompt was "If I could be a dinosaur, I would be a..."

Needless to say, we got some pretty amazing answers.

"If I could be a dinosaur I would be T-Rex because I can paly videogames with my tiny arms."

(If you look closely, you can see that the T-Rex is playing a T-Rex themed video game. Awesome.)

"If I could be a dinosaur I would be a T-REX. I would go to the market but I'll try to hide and fit in the meat selection because people will FREAKOUT! And they are GIGANTIC! The market would be WALMART."

It's official! I have the best job in the world.