A Star is Born

I have a really, really good reason for not posting in such a long time. My baby was born!

Samantha Florence was born on Friday, June 27, 2008 at 6:25 p.m.

She weighed 8 lbs. 3 oz. and was 20 inches long. I will eventually post her birth story (in the process of writing it), but for now,

here are some pictures of the day she was born. Looking at them, I'm amazed at how much she's already changed!

My husband and I feel so lucky to have her in our lives. All our nervousness and fear has been replaced by happiness and thankfulness.

The Next Chapter

School is officially over. The next 14 months are mine, all mine! Okay, who am I kidding? The next couple days/weeks are mine-all-mine...after that, they belong to my future son/daughter.

*giggles nervously*

While I can't wait to meet him/her and start this next chapter of life together, part of me is like, "What the hell was I thinking???" I was perfectly happy before getting pg, why did I think I needed to be any happier? Have I bitten off more than I can (or want to) chew?


Mothers assure me that having a baby is "the best thing there is," and then follow it up with horror stories of labor, complaints about how little sleep they got the first month, difficulties breastfeeding, and so on. "It's all worth it," they say. I hope so, because at this point, this kid has GOT to come out of me.


Being pregnant has been great...up until about 2 weeks ago. Now, not so much. The little things I used to take for granted are now some of my greatest obstacles. Tying my shoes, for example, is the hardest thing I do all day. Turning over in bed without waking up...forget it.


So while I'm ready to get this kid OUT, the aforementioned fears make me want to keep the kid IN. Better yet, I wish there was a hidden option "C," in which I wake up from this dream and I'm on vacation in Belize or something.

It's Official

I'm officially taking the year off next year. It's weird and I have mixed feelings about it. On one hand, I'm grateful that I have the opportunity to spend a maximum amount of time with the baby during its first year of life. I'm happy that my husband and I are the kind of people who save money by living below our means (I don't buy killer shoes and we drive practical, gas-saving cars) which allows me to stay home. I'm excited by the idea of not having to pick out an outfit to wear everyday (at least one that matches) and not having to sit in traffic. I'm excited to have a break from what I've been doing for the past 11 years in a row. I'm happy that the crazy third graders across the hall are the class that I'm going to be skipping. They seem nuts.

But...

I'm also kinda freaked out. I've always worked. I'm not good at relaxing. Okay, not that I'm going to be sleeping in and eating bon-bons all day during the year I stay home. Ha! Far from it, I'm sure! But I don't do well without structure. Even over my summer vacations I get a little stir-crazy by the end and almost look forward to school starting again. Almost. I fear being bored. I fear not enjoying motherhood. I fear feeling guilty for not enjoying motherhood. I worry about being lonely...I mean, a newborn doesn't make a very good conversation partner. I don't want to turn into the kind of person who talks baby talk all day to her little one and then can no longer hold an intelligent conversation with an adult because the only things she is exposed to are binkies, blankies, and poopy diapers. I will need exposure to grown up things.

So if you are a person who knows me. Please call me next year and talk to me about things that don't end in the long e sound. Invite me out to lunch. Go to a movie with me. Anything to remind me that I am still a real person.

I'll tell you one thing, though. I will NOT miss grading papers, which is what I've blown off by writing this blog entry.

Advertising Works

I have a beautiful commute. Even with the crappy weather we've had for the past 500 months, my commute remains beautiful. I work 20 miles from home, which actually doesn't take very long as I can pretty much take one main road: Lake Shore Drive. For those of you unfamiliar with Lake Shore Drive (LSD), it runs along Lake Michigan pretty much the length of the city. I pass such iconic places as Buckingham Fountain, Soldier Field, and get to view the Chicago skyline every day. Even when stuck in a traffic jam, hell, especially when I'm stuck in a traffic jam, I can admire the beauty, both natural and manmade, that surrounds me. Unless...

I'm not on Lake Shore Drive. The part of my commute that's not on LSD is slow, boring, and not very pretty. Yesterday I had the pleasure of sitting at a verrrrry long traffic light behind 7.5 thousand other cars and a bus. For approximately 15 minutes, this is what I stared at on the back of the bus:

(Yes, I took a picture of the back of the bus...I wasn't doing anything else!).

In case you can't see it, here's a close-up:

So guess what I'm craving? Yup, new Chocolate Chex Cereal! I can't stop thinking about it! The worst thing is, I don't even like Chex! But staring at this bowl for so long made me want some.

Reason #4,612

Yet another reason why I love kids:

As I may or may not have mentioned before (remember I'm pregnant, I can't remember anything and I'm too tired to go back into the archives and look), my students have to write a letter to me every week about what they're reading. These are called "Reading Responses." Well, in honor of Black History Month, my students had to read biographies about, uh, famous black people. I changed the reading response assignment so that the letters they wrote were not to be addressed to me, but rather to the person about whom the biography they chose was written. They could ask the person questions, give them advice, tell them what they thought of them...you get the idea.

This is what what of my kids wrote in his letter to Duke Ellington:

Dear Mr. Ellington,

I've just read 3 chapters of Duke Ellington (yourself) by Richard Terrill. I wanted to ask you....[insert several pertinent questions here].

I'm also interested in the piano (like yourself) and am wondering if you can send me a miniature piano (if you're still alive at 109 years old). I'm going to look up if you're still alive on Google. I wish I could meet you in person. Too bad you're 109.

Sincerely, your reader,

R

I guess since he had only read the first 3 chapters at that point, he hadn't gotten to the part where Duke Ellington died in 1974.

Q and A Jitters

Today we had musicians visit our classroom. They were part of an orchestra we heard play yesterday. Did I blog about that? I can't even remember. They say it's the pregnancy. I hope so, cuz my forgetfulness is getting to be a real problem. Seriously. In fact, let me go off on a tangent and tell a little story about this:

Saturday night I had a dream in which I was very forgetful. The whole dream was about me trying to find something, finding it, and then forgetting what I did with it. It was exhausting. Sunday morning, I told my husband, "I'm so forgetful, I'm having dreams in which I'm forgetful!" and proceeded to tell him about my dream. Later on that same day, probably not even 5 hours later, I piped up, "God, I'm so forgetful lately. I even had a dream last night in which I was forgetful." He about peed in his pants. I forgot that I had told him. Pathetic.

Aaaaanyway...back to the musicians. When my kids are open to Q and A sessions that do not involve me doing the Q'ing or A'ing, I get a little nervous. This is because some of my kids ask the stupidest questions imagineable. No, not all of them. In fact, the first two kids picked to ask questions asked very intelligent questions. The third...not so much. The short musical session taught them about how music moved to the "New World" in the 1700s since there were no recording devices. A flutist (flautist?) and violinist gave the talk and played samples of music from the time. Here are their questions:

Student 1: Shit, I can't remember her question. (Told you).

Student 2: "Back in the 1700s, would they have been playing a metal flute? Wouldn't it have been made out of wood?" (I was so proud!)

Student 3: "Do you know where I can get an African knife?"

Uh, WHAT? Hello???? We are talking about music here! Yes, there was some mention about music slaves sang, but NOTHING about knives. wtf???

Thank god they cut off the questions after that, because after one kid goes off-topic, it's like a free-for-all.

True Dat

Wow, my rate of posting has really slowed down. Maybe it's because I'm so tiiiiiiired all the time! And busy. The 2nd quarter ends today and the end of the quarter is always a crazy time. At least there's no school tomorrow (for the kids anyway). Hopefully I can get some work done!

Actually, this is not likely as we have to spend the first half of the day at another school for a completely unorganized Professional Development (PD) session. The reason I know it's gonna be a mess is because a couple of weeks ago, I volunteered to do presentation at this thing. However, I received NO information about it. Nobody was able to tell me anything about it, such as what the topic was, who my audience was, how long it was supposed to be, etc. FINALLY, I got an email yesterday answering all my questions. Yesterday. The presentation was supposed to be tomorrow. Yeah, I pulled out. There's no way I'm going to prepare something in one day. Fuck that.

Something funny that happened today to lighten the mood:

One of my kids, who is the oldest child in her family said to me, "Ms. M, after you have your baby, you shouldn't have anymore." Another one of my kids who is also the oldest child piped in, "True dat! True dat!" Well, at least I thought it was funny.

Winter Break Announcement

It's officially Winter Break. It's Monday morning and I'm not at work. (Okay, so most people aren't today, but whatever...I won't be at work until January 7th). My posts will be sparse seeing as though I won't have much school stuff to talk about....or will I?

I've already received a couple of emails from parents. Seriously. The most annoying one is that I gave my students 2 assignments over the break and one of the students forgot them at school. Are you kidding me? You had to bring ONE thing home (your homework folder) over break, and you forgot it? Grrrrr...

The parent wanted to know if the principal or assistant principal would be back in the building the day after Christmas so they could go in and get the homework folder. I was like, "Ummmm...no." They must think a lot goes on over break, but I know for a fact that NO ONE, with the exception of the janitorial staff, is going to step foot into the school until January 7th. (Although I admit in my rookie days I would spend one day over break in my classroom getting ready...what a nerd.)

I also got some emails from parents congratulating me on my PREGNANCY!!! I told my kids on Friday I was pregnant (pg). I've known for months, but I wanted to wait until my 13th week to tell them...y'know, just in case. They were so cute when they found out, lots of hugs and congratulations. To tell them the news, I played hangman with them on the board: the message was "Ms. M___ is expecting a baby!!!" I was worried they'd guess it quickly, but boy was I wrong! They didn't guess it until the only letter missing was the "y" in "baby." We've got a lot of word study to do, don't we?

So this blog may start taking a bit of a turn. While I plan to still focus on teaching, a little bit of teaching while pg will start creeping in. I won't be able to help it, so hopefully you'll stay on as a reader.

Merry Christmas tomorrow!