The Big Race!

So Saturday was the Valentine's Day Race for Charles and I...3.5 miles around Whitecliff Park in Crestwood. About 25 people showed up for the race, it was a great day for the run I must say and with a combined time of 1:31.02 (45:51 for each of us though Charles probably could have finished the course about 20 minutes faster but he was feeling chivalrous and staying pace with me)we came in 2nd of the couples...out of 3! There would have been 4 but the last couple dropped out. The funny thing was, we crossed the finish line second to last, the 3rd place couple finished last.

On the personal level, let's just say, I stunk that course up!! I chalk a lot of it up to the fact that I really haven't been able to run since November but I would have thought that being mid-hockey season would have helped me out a little. I was wrong...dead wrong, I should have been like 1o minutes faster than I was but oh well, it was fun anyway. We got a box of chocolates each for our placement and if I hadn't had to walk most of the second loop I would have finished first in my age group, which again isn't saying much because I think there were three of us, but I think this may become a yearly tradition for us, we're hoping to rope other couples into it too but we have to try to take it all next year!

The Snow Day...NOT

So we got about 8 inches of snow last night, over 400 schools in the St. Louis metro area were closed today, major businesses were closed, Government offices were closed...basically unless it was essential for you to be out, it was advised for you to be home. Well apparently work felt that we fall under the catagory of needing to be out in the bad weather. I wouldn't mind this, we do have parents that are doctors that work in hospitals, so I understand if they are on call, but when I have to go into work that means that Logan and Nora have to go with me so not only am I risking my life, I am risking theirs as well. I should have taken it as a sign when it took me three tries to get up the hill of our street but I knew that I had to go in so I kept going. What is usually a 12 minute drive took 45, we almost wiped out 3 times, and so by the time I actually got to school I was a shaking, crying mess. I was lucky though, one of our interns actually did get hit by a car that spun out, obviously there was no way to avoid this but really it just shows that the roads were not safe.


In total, only the 6 lead teachers that aren't on maternity leave, one intern, and five assitants and our boss made it in. The phone was ringing off the hook with people trying to get in and either putting their cars into ditches, getting stuck or not being able to get out at all. So we had to close early because we didn't have enough staff. Then there were the parents that did bring their children in. Of the 4 from my class, three had siblings whose schools were closed for the day so a parent was home, two showed up at lunch time. I would say that of the 20 or so children we had in total, probably 5 of them actually had parents who went to work.



It's very frustrating to be in this position, we obviously have to be open for parents who really need us but why does our administration feel that our lives are not valuable enough to close for one day just so they can make money? My feeling is, especially after one person got in an accident is, isn't better for us to close and insure that your staff is safe for one day than have them risk getting injured and then lose that person for days or worse? The other thing is that the Elementary school on our campus closes for the snow but we are open, why are those teachers lives more valuable than ours? We try to shake the stigma of being a "daycare" but yet doing things like this doesn't really present ourselves as a school setting, schools have snow policies in place.


I wish there was something that we could all do to present this to someone to show how we as a collective group feel. I am not alone in my feeling on this, but there is no way for anyone to voice their concerns or feelings on this...we are not in a union, all we can do is vent to one another, grit our teeth and get through it as we did today. I know I am complaining, I have been since yesterday, its over, done with and I need to move on, but everytime this happens it gets me so frustrated. Hopefully writing it out will allow me to move on.


On the plus side, once we did get home this afternoon, the girls and I, along with Charles enjoyed a wonderful afternoon playing in the snow. We were disapointed that it wasn't very good sledding snow but Logan made a very wonderful and creative snow elephant, she decorated the whole thing herself and it was so much fun watching her come up with ideas for how it should look. Nora got cold pretty quickly and went inside and made herself a bowl of yogurt, then she and I colored with markers.