something to remember when I'm a "seasoned" teacher

Yesterday was a very long but awesome day. I, and my amazing assistant ,started bright and early in our classroom. We labeled, organized and speculated. We also had 4 parent teacher conferences - 2 of which were in Spanish! God has been so good in helping me remember words. One of the Moms (who is doing well in learning English herself) told me I have a good Spanish accent. What a wonderful compliment!! Then, a little later in the day, one of the other pre-k teachers and her assistant came by to see if we needed any help setting up our classroom. They were so wonderful. To be honest, they didn't "do" much... we'd already done a lot, and I'm still horrible about doling out tasks on the fly. They ended up putting up paper and border on our 3 bulletin boards, which was VERY helpful, but the lead teacher, Cindy, ended up doing more than any other teacher I've met yet. She told me many things she liked about the classroom. Then she asked me how I handle center time. After I explained it to her, she looked at her assistant and said, "We are going to do that!" (And today when I saw them again, they said they'd already made a chart like the one I use:)) Wow. To hear a teacher, who has been teaching for many years, say that she is going to use my idea made my teacher ego soar! I had some issues last year with my new supervisor telling me all the things she didn't like about my classroom, and not much at all about what she liked. I felt like I was a great teacher, but she made me have some doubts. Well, I've been finding my nitch the past couple of days. I like where I am, as a teacher, right now. I kind of have that "new teacher" excitement still because I've really only taught for 1.5 years, and I'm finally where I've wanted to be from the beginning. But, I'm about 4 years older than a brand new teacher would be, and I have a little bit of life experience under my belt. ;) I'm new enough that I've still got some "fresh ideas" to try out (and tell others about apparently!), but experienced enough to know about some things that work and don't work. So yeah... the past couple of days have been great. And I definitely need to remember when I'm a seasoned teacher and meeting young, doe-eyed teachers... find an idea they have, and adopt it! And be positive positive positive! Oh... and at our pre-k meeting today, Cindy was appointed as my "mentor." Hooray! The Lord is good, and His mercies endure forever! :-D