Confessions of a Preggo

Jason and I are kinda marching to the beat of our own drum during this pregnancy.  Here are a few confessions that are going to cause some shock and awe, plus some secret judging from well-meaning readers.  Judge all you want... here are five confessions.

I haven't read any pregnancy books.  Honestly, I haven't really read much online either.  Early on, I looked up good foods to eat when pregnant (I pretty much already knew the no-no's) and advice on medicines to take (Remember those two months in a row when I kept getting colds?  Yeah, they were extra bad because I knew I was pregnant and couldn't take much of anything).  While I am not knocking pregnancy books or blogs or informational websites, I'm just saying that I care less about "typical" pregnancy symptoms and more about what's going on with Itself and me.

I have no idea what size my baby is right now or what fruit/vegetable it equates to.  Ok, I have some idea.  At week 19, Itself is larger than my fist and smaller than a toddler.  There ya go.

Baby things I currently own: the onesie I gave Jason to tell him I was pregnant (see it here), a feed-yourself bib Jill got me from IKEA while picking up a new one for Addison, and the cds Jason gave me for Valentine's Day (more about that here).  Yup, totally prepared for the little one to come in just a few months!  Now, truth be told, I think the purchasing with escalate once we know the sex.

I'm still wearing "normal" clothing.  True, I'm having to be MUCH more selective when picking out my clothes for the day, and about 3/4 of my closet are now in the "can't wear" category, but I'm still rocking my old clothes.  I have some maternity stuff I'm borrowing from Jason's coworker, and I'm getting some from Kara this weekend, but so far, everything's been too big for me. (My apologies to moms out there who now hate me.  Like I said before, this is me and Itself.  I know that every pregnancy is totally different and that every bump grows at different rates.)

I'm more worried about leaving my students for a quarter than about the whole parenthood thing.  Ok, that one's not completely true.  I think I'm SO scared/ignorant about parenthood that it's easier for me to focus on what I do know -- teaching and students.  In two years of teaching, completely losing my voice for three days, and being sick without being able to take good meds, I've yet to take a sick day or personal day off of work.  I have control issues with my students.  In August, I'm handing over 90 teenagers to a stranger and entrusting the stranger to follow my lesson plans and invest in those 90 kids like I would.  Now a mentor of mine told me some of these fears and control issues will go away once I'm engrossed in parenthood, but for now, I'm a nervous wreck about it.

I'm sure there are other things I'm doing that are different than the norm, but how would I know what they are?  I don't read pregnancy books to know what the "norm" even is!

It Was the Best Day...

I really hate insurance commercials (seriously, how many spokespeople/animals does Geico need?), but I like the song from this Progressive ad:

"It Was the Best Day"

That song popped in my head on Friday because I was having a really great day.  It had started out really hectic.  I had left work on Thursday with about 15 things still on my to-do list.  Not great.  One of those things was to grade my Earth Science tests.

God bless the scantron machine.  You know, where students bubble in their answers?  Seriously, zzhoomp zzhoomp zzhoomp through the scantron machine, and next thing you know, you have 30 graded tests.  So I guess I'm not opposed to ALL technology.  Anyway, my Earth kids rocked the house with their test!  I'm talking some students were scoring 20 points higher than all their other tests!  Woohoo!

It was great motivation Friday since it was a review day before their midterm this week.  Plus, they really enjoyed "Earth Science Pictionary" and got nearly every clue right!  Where have these geniuses been hiding?

In Physical Science, we learned about one of my favorite topics all semester -- Light and Color.  It combines science (light absorption/reflection), art (mixing pigments), and psychology (perception of color), all things I really love.  Plus, as the granddaughter, cousin, friend, and wife of colorblind guys, I feel quite well-versed in a subject that most students find really interesting.

Colorblind people do not see the number above.  Do you?

Then, we had one of my favorite labs of the semester. Did you know that if you look under a microscope at magazine pictures and newspaper comic strips, you can see the three primary pigment colors -- yellow, cyan, and magenta?  My students now do!  How about when you put a cell phone under a microscope?  Well looky there, the three primary light colors -- red, green, and blue!  

As if that wasn't enough excitement, I then let them mix together yellow, cyan, and magenta paints so they can see how all other colors are combinations of the three.

To top off my day, a student and I had an in-depth conversation about color perception (Is the color I call red the same as what you see as red?) and then she said, "You know, Physical Science is the first science class I've ever really liked.  I used to hate science until this class."

It was the BEST day!