'Twas the night before school...

Never in my life would I have thought that in my twenties I'd be too jittery to sleep right the night before school started - primary school, that is. Or that I'd peruse the back to school aisle in Target with such interest in the school planners. But, here I am, waiting for tomorrow morning with excitement, nerves, and a lot of questions about what this year might bring.

The excitement stems from the orientation night I went to last week, where the little siblings of my middle school whispered not too quietly to their parents, "Hey, that's my nurse!" The nerves stem from a project I started on Friday: making the health alert lists for my students so that the teachers know any serious (or what I deem serious) health concerns for their students. I was at an elementary school and by the time I'd reached partway through first grade I had so far found two students requiring Epipens for peanut allergies, neither of whom had brought one in. One parent/guardian said she was working on it; another couldn't be reached. <sigh.> The questions: How many emergencies will there be? How am I going to teach my diabetics to be independent? How am I going to get my remaining Tdap-less students to bring those shots in or get their parents to come in and sign a waiver? Will the dynamics of the nurses and district office change? (Rumor has it we might get a new boss.) Is anyone serious about making me coordinator? What's it going to be like in my new school?

You get the idea. 2011-2012 kicks off in T-11 hours. I don't feel ready at all, I don't think my ducks are in quite the row I want them to be, but at the same time...the kids can't come soon enough.