Kiddo Diddos

Crash programs fail because they are based on the theory that, with nine women pregnant, you can get a baby a month.

--Wernher Von Braun

And golly gee willickers if it doesn't feel like that's been happening lately . . . and yes, I did just sound like Opie Taylor.

People continue to ask me when Chris and I will be expecting. I'm hoping it's not because of my weight . . . *glare* I think part of it is because so many young married couples have been popping up fertile recently. Looking at all those magazine covers in the library and grocery store, I felt like an old-fashioned silly getting married at 22, without a real career. Women, statistics said, were happier marrying in their 30s with a well-established career, and even happier having babies years afterward by natural or scientific methods or wonderful adoption. So here I am, 23, ring on my finger, contemplating creating little mini clones of my husband (if you've seen his family photos, you know his genes are so dominant it's ridiculous ;) ), and wondering if I seem like a relic from Little House on the Prairie. Well, goooolly I was fooled. Maybe it's because I run in church circles, but we're pretty much your average couple . . . give or take the baby thing.

It helps me feel a tiny bit better about having kids working in class. Gosh, these kids are the cutest. Hysterical and chatty but cute. I had a little boy tell me flat-out that school was too long, that I should shorten it. I told him I couldn't but he was free to ask our principal about it. He hasn't really said anything about it since. I hope the kids are learning. They seem to be having fun, and they're all brilliant. Class days seem both not long enough and too long. I try to keep it interesting. Today, one of my boys decided to constantly remind me that I can't say the word "poem" correctly. We were talking poetry, and I confessed I say "poim" or "po-um," which drives Chris insane. Do you think my class let me forget that?? Nope. Not one bit. The parents are awesome. No mutant mother nightmares, though I do continue to dream about passing out papers. It's all a learning experiences . . . pun intended, I guess.

Blustery Days . . .

Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.

--Flannery O'Connor

Amen, Miss O'Connor. A-Bloody-Men. Because, you see, if I had my say, people like Danielle Steel, Stephanie Meyer, and all those trashy romance novelists would have never EVER had a single title printed. But, as it is, my say means so little in the publishing world, they continue to turn the young woman's mind into a pile of sentimental mush with a longing for moody, stalker boyfriends. But, I digress. I'm a cynic after all; the romantic in me died in college.

Ok, so I survived my first day of school without murder -- parents didn't brandish weapons, students resisted tantrums, and, by golly we might have actually learned something. In fact, nearly parent that I have talked with since yesterday (and, when you believe in open parent-teacher communication thru the glories of email, text, and cell phone, you talk a lot) has told me what a wonderful time her child had. Oh I hope it continues to go well. One day down . . . oh so many more months to go. :) There is still so much I'm finding out that I don't know, but, hopefully, by the end of the school year I'll have most of it down. Searching for your life's calling is an intriguing trip. Chris asked me last night if being around super cute (and oh golly are they CUUUUTE) first graders has helped me feel more excited about having spawn of my own. Yeah, no. Now, I'm beginning to think that he was in league with the principle: "Hey, could you put Sarah in a lower grade with all the cute kids? I have a feeling if she's around older, moodier ones she may never ever want to have kids so . . . help me out, here?"

Oh, and last Tuesday, taking my furry little creatures to the vet, I had my first fender bender. More like a fender bump, as the dent in my car is pathetically minuscule. Do not repeat this to the lady I hit. Oh my. In her eyes, I took out her bumper, maybe an arm and a leg. If any of you know me, you know I hate making mistakes, and, even more than that, I HATE having people upset with me. I become literally ill. So, at that moment, not only am I having to deal with my nerves about my parent orientation the next day, but now I have a short, well-dress, hair-dyed, coordinated gold accessory-ed, miniature poodle of a woman shouting at me, "You just hit my car! You were probably talking on your damn phone! You're paying for this! Sorry doesn't cut it! You're paying for it! I'm calling the police!" (ok, and no, I wasn't on my phone--I glanced behind me very quickly because I thought the cat carrier was falling in the back seat, turned around, and there was a pristine BMW in front of me . . . oops)
I didn't even realize there was damage to the car, kept apologizing profusely to her as she snapped "Sorry doesn't cut it!" The policeman came and was very matter of fact about it. His main concern was injury to our persons. Other than my ego I was fine; Miss BMW barked "NO" as if wounds were not at all the point. I cried for the next two hours. Not really sobbing, just cried. Everything was wrong, all wrong, and it was my fault. Chris was a knight in shining armor and rushed to the scene of the crime to comfort me, then picked up something for dinner so I didn't have to cook. I adore my sweet hubby :). Monday, Chris went to our insurance agent to assess the damage; apparently, Miss BMW's mood was not entirely my fault; the agent said she was insane when he had to deal with her. Then again, I'm not sure if you could expect anything other than an anal temper from someone with a name like a Nazi school marm. Yikes. But, yes, the accident was my fault, I should not have looked behind me, and people were inconvenienced by my carelessness, and I'm very, very sorry.

Eventful week around here. I hope it becomes incredibly boring soon. :)

Taking a moment . . .

We can lick gravity, but sometimes the paperwork is overwhelming.--Wernher von Braun

I don't know whether to scream, pass out, or just start working . . . or a combination of all three. I'm having flashbacks of college all-nighters. Mom, you may stop reading now. You know . . . the ones with filled with panic, Vault energy drink, highlighters, notebooks, and a blank computer screen? So many nights, a paper would be due in my 9 AM class, my clock said 3 AM, and of the 12 required pages of a detailed analysis were at zero. Once I didn't start a paper until the day it was due. I just couldn't get my brain to work. I had the ideas, I had the theme, I had the quotes . . . but I couldn't vomit anything intelligible onto that Word document. I wrote it in three hours and dropped it off in the office at midnight. Mom, you did not just read this paragraph . . . I got an A on that paper though. Whew. So yes, the panic, the sweat, the shortness of breath, the wandering mind, the headache . . . it's all coming back to me.

Parent orientation is this Wednesday. Meaning I have three hours to sit down with women who could probably be my mothers and tell them everything I will pour into their precious child's mind and how I'm going to do it. Oh my. Mothers are terrifying creatures. Beautiful, wonderful, but absolutely terrifying. Next tuesday, they dump their little angels into my arms and hope I don't drop them. I'm only hoping the kids don't run away kicking and screaming.
On top of that, I have had three full days of information being stuffed into my brain like an overcooked overstuffed mushroom. Delicious, lovely, but oh so overstuffed. Teacher orientation kills. It's great stuff, but it's loooooooong and it's a lot.

I'm really beginning to realize that I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing.
I've trained, I've prepped, I've thought out, I've imagined . . . but I really have no clue. If parenthood is anything at all like this, I don't know if I will ever be cut out for the job.

People keep telling me I'll do fine, so I'm trying to believe them. Trying really, really hard. Let's hope they're right.
God put me in this position for a reason; it could just be for humbling ;)

When I get worked up like this, I tend to have nightmares. I can feel them coming on. Mutant mothers with first grade math homework . . . oi vey . . .