The End of an Epoch

My Junior Primary days are over, at least for now. OK, so I've only been teaching the Sunbeams for a little under two years - that hardly merits the "epoch" title - however, Adam was 6 months old when I was called to teach Sunbeams, and I had just been released as the CTR 5 teacher (a calling I had held since we had moved in the ward, so almost a year and a half) right before he was born. I was also in the Nursery in our previous ward for a year and a half or so, so that's 5 of the 7 years we've been married that I've been teaching the 18 months - 5 years age group. Pretty much all of the time that I didn't have a child under 18 months myself (and part of the time that I did!), I've been with the young'uns. So, today I was told that my contract's up, and I'm not going to be re-signed for next year. This is the first time I've been released from Primary without having a baby! Honestly, I thought it would be a huge relief - and in some ways it definitely is - but I really think I'm going to miss teaching Primary. I know that Primary 1 manual like the back of my hand. Not to mention, Sunday School's going to be a lot less entertaining than Sister Carter's Singing Time! I had a really lively group of little girls this year who always kept things interesting and were a lot of fun to teach. I'll really miss them, but I just tell myself, I would have lost them anyway and gotten a new group at the new year. Better to be released now before I have another really fun group of kids to miss!

On the flip side, maybe I won't feel quite so wiped out after church on Sundays. These last few weeks have been rough - Jared goes to church at 9 for choir, comes back to pick us up at 10:50 to head over to church (so I'm getting everyone ready myself, plus generally gathering things up for my lesson, though I should have been doing that earlier in the week!), we go to church, and then I head home with the kids while Jared sticks around for tithing settlement. He's been getting home around 6:00, so naps (if we're lucky!), lunch, afternoon entertainment - it's all me. Don't get me wrong, I know others have it much worse, but for me, it'll be much more manageable without the pre-church lesson frenzy and the post-church exhaustion and headache. Who knows, though, maybe it's not the Sunbeams that induce headaches and exhaustion, maybe it's just church. I guess I'll find out!