The pain was incredible.

Last night I was a nervous nelly. Checking my alarm ten times and asking not one but three people to call and check with me in the morning to make sure I was up.

It was my first day of student teaching.

Waking up early is not my thing.

Especially 5 am.

But nevertheless my weary eyes popped upon when my phone alarm went off and I dragged my feet over to turn off the other alarm I set across the room.

It was a miracle.

I'm one of those light sleepers except when it comes to the sound of my alarm. The minute it goes off, my mind automatically tranforms it into the voice of someone in my dream. And for some strange reason I accept the fact that someone in my dream has resorted to speaking in beeps.

But today, I was able to combat my sleep disorder.

I made myself a fresh cup of coffee.

As I'm filling my Kuerig K-cup, I hear the faint sound of some super trendy pop song drifting from the living room where my sister sleeps which I'm guessing is her phone alarm and I shake my head because there's no way in heck that would ever wake me up. And who knows why her alarm was set this early anyway.

I sip my coffee, sit down for a minute and think what do people do in the morning, watch the today show, read the newspaper? take the trash out?

I have no clue.

Instead, I take a shower, start blow drying my hair and in one clean inexplicable sweep of the blowdryer wire send my more than half full coffee cup across the bathroom coating the entire bathroom in coffee. Fantastic.

The school day went fine. Except that I locked myself out of the school when I went to get my lunch out the car and I had to break into the cafeteria kitchen to get back in. It was sort of embarrassing for my first day.

And when I got home, I told Ham to help me find his shoes so that we could take my sister back home. I was relieved to be home, tired even. A visit to my mom and dad's would be nice. Plus we could stop for snowballs on the way.

Just when we got to the hallway, one of Ham's feet tripped over one of the three brooms he likes to pull out and leave as booby traps on the floor, forcing one of his feet up in the air, his other leg buckled beneath him and of course, his head came crashing down to the floor. It seemed like it happened in slow motion. In my head, I thought "nooooo.... Hammy's head!"

But not to worry. Since I was so close behind him, I attempted to save the day. I put one foot forward and tried to scoop down to save him and that's when his head came crashing down on my toe and I howled in pain. Ham was unscathed. Thank goodness.

My toe, sad and broken.

Every minute that passed the pain got worse. As my dad would say, "The pain was incredible."

I called Mr. Yardbird while I searched for Ham's shoes. "My toe, I think it's broken." I explain what happened. "It looks kind of weird."

"But that's how your toes look."

Thanks. Seriously? he had to go there? I'm no foot model, but sheesh. So what if my first two toes look like two fingers making the peace sign. So what if the rest of them are midget toes. It's quirky and fun, different, unique. Right?

I show my sister as I hobble out the door. "You see, doesn't it look bad?"

"Oh yea," she says, shaking her head. "It looks REAL bad."

I look up at her and I realize she's not looking at the right toe. "Wait a minute. Which toe do you think it is?"

She points to my second toe. I grimace a little. "No, Anna, it's not that one."

"Well which one is it?"

"The one that's screaming!" I say with desperation. "That one!"

"Oh, well um....it's hard to tell."

Thanks ya'll. I'll never show my feet again.

So I survived my first day of school, but my foot did not.