We survived the first week of the new program. I’m not gonna lie. It wasn’t pretty.

It’s Saturday night, and I’m still trying to recover. You know it was a tough one when scrubbing the ring out of your kids’ toilet at home looks like a smashing-good time.

So many things haven’t quite turned out the way I wanted, and I’m feeling the sort of soul-crushing fatigue that I don’t usually feel until sometime in January. None–NONE!!!–of the items Jenny and I requested back in April for the new program came. I repeat…none. 10 days ago, when we were down to t-minus 3 days until the students came and nothing had arrived, we scrambled off to empty our savings accounts and hit up every Swap and Shop website and Wal-Mart in the greater metropolitan area to stock our classrooms. We got lucky and were able to get a stationary bike and heavy bag for the therapeutic room on Craig’s List (bonus that neither of us were murdered in the process). School supplies are–blessedly–really cheap right now at Wal-Mart. Amazon has had some great sales. Still, my pocketbook is hurting from buying so much stuff that I thought was paid for. Yesterday, a box containing 16 stress balls (which we don’t use because the kids throw them and it creates even more power struggles), a few fidgets that look like dog chew toys, several containers of a Play-Doh-like putty, 400 disposable gloves, et 2/3 of a package of Lysol wipes arrived. I wasn’t sure if I should laugh or cry.

Friday was a special-schedule day at school. Whenever I hear the words “special schedule” in a staff meeting, my eye gets all twitchy and I start sweating like a sinner in church–it’s PTSD. Even with lots of front-loading, our students had a tough day. Okay, in all fairness, Comme, HALF of them had a tough day. The other half did fine (I should probably celebrate this, but I’m waaaayyyy too cranky for that right now). Jenny was a rockstar. Yesterday, Jenny kept one kid from getting into a massive fistfight during lunch. She chased down another kid who was having a major episode of depression and tried to run into the street. She figured out a triage plan for another one who’d gotten into some hot water on social media and was afraid (and rightly so) to go to class with peers. I had it easy; I just typed…and typed…and typed to document it all for data collection. I think I burned my retinas from staring at the computer screen for so long.

The computerized credit recovery program upon which huge portions of our day hinges has not yet been readied to roll out on schedule, leaving us with 15 preps to sort out so the kids don’t just sit there texting and Facebooking. We have reached a level of schedule-making that rivals a top-secret battle plan at the Pentagon. Jenny has been hounding the building administrator so mercilessly that he has stopped making eye contact with either of us and avoids the hallway where our main classroom is like it’s Chernobyl. It’s not this dude’s fault, but we have to pester somebody.

I’m picking up a used media cart at my son’s friend’s mother’s church tomorrow so I can convert it into a laptop charging cart and stop having the room look like the wired den of a conspiracy theorist every night when I charge the kids’ laptops. I wonder what the custodians have thought about all the random cords and laptops strewn about the room. They’ve been nice enough to clean gingerly around all the chaos and haven’t said anything. I keep waiting to find one all tangled up like a snared rabbit when I walk in the next morning, but so far, they’ve been wily enough to avoid the trap.

I see why people drop out of school. Stop the ride; I want to get off.