Just When I Thought I've Heard it All...

"So, *anonymous child in my classroom*, when are you gonna get a haircut?"

"Well, my Mom won't let me because she wants it to grow long like my Dad's...





...and she wants me to look like Jesus."

Music Made Just for Me!

Anyone who knew me in high school (or college) knows how much I love Jewel's music. When I was a freshman in high school, I bought her "Pieces of You" album after hearing her songs on the radio. Turns out I listened to that album for four years straight and it really spoke to me! We all know how high school goes, one day you're on top of the world and the next day you in a bawling heap of tears and snot on your bed crying about how you just can't go on for another day - for some reason. High school is weird. I would pop that CD in my boombox and either jump on the bed singing at the top of my lungs (when no one else was home, of course), or I'd sit cross legged on the floor with my box of tissues and sing along with her sad, teary songs. It was great! I'd go so far as to say that CD helped me survive high school.

Then, during my senior year of high school, as I was prepraring to go away to college, her album "Spirit" came out. And I was ready for it! It was full of soft, folky, acoustic guitar, lyrical gems. I used to take the long way home from school and from church and from...anywhere...just so I could be alone in Mom's Ford Taurus singing my little heart out to every song on that CD. When I went to college it made me feel at home. I dated a guy who used to put the CD in his computer and we'd drink bourbon and watch that crazy light show that Windows Media Player would do with the music. I used to sit on the back porch of dingy college apartments late at night and play those songs on the guitar. My roomates bought me Jewel's first poetry book and I read it cover to cover in one night, sometimes crying over they way her writing just felt so much like my writing, as if she'd torn a page out of my journal and published it without my consent! (I'd totally give her consent, but still).

Also, right after I started college, just when I thought my life was amazing and things could not possibly get any better, she made a Christmas Album!! Do you have any idea how excited I was about this? And it was GOOOOD! Her Ave Maria gives me chills and the way she adapted some of her other songs to sound all "Holiday inspired" was magical! I still listen to it every Christmas and love it more and more each year.

The next few albums she made were less than perfect for me, so I stuck to those three favorites for a while. Long enough for the rest of the world to decide she was no good and for my friends to start thinking I was crazy for listening to her "old" stuff. I had officially become a closet Jewel fan, but I did not mind at all. Then I went to Colorado for a summer and met another girl who loved her as much as I did. I cannot remember her name for the life of me, but she was tall, she had red hair, and she was from Michigan so she had a northern-y accent which I adored. She was really sassy too, so we became very good friends. Somewhere around July, we found out Jewel was coming to Red Rocks, only a couple hours away from our camp. It was general admission, so we got there super early and ended up sitting in the fourth row. If you've ever been to Red Rocks, you know that any show there is nearly a spiritual experience, but to see Jewel live was unbelieveable. My nameless friend and I just sang along and I got teary eyed at a few points in the show and we left there feeling completely and totally serene. It was amazing!

So, for all this time, I've been thinking that three albums and a concert were going to have to last me for the rest of my life. I looked forward to sharing her music with my kids, especially her "Spirit" album with my daughter. I imagined it would help her deal with emotions and "growing up feelings" like it did for me. Then, before I found out I was pregnant, I passed the music aisle at Target and spotted Jewel's face. I did a double-take and stopped dead in my tracks. She had a NEW album....called "Lullaby!" A whole CD of Jewel singing lullabies for babies! I could not beleive it. It was like she knew that I was ready for more music and she made this one album just for me! I've been obsessed with baby music ever since I made a mixed CD for Meredith when precious Annabelle was born two and a half years ago, and since then I've amassed quite a collection on iTunes. I've made two more baby CD's; one for my cousin's son Nolan, and one for my brother's son Charlie. I LOVE baby music, but I promised myself that this Jewel CD was for me, so I wasn't going to buy it until I knew I was pregnant. We'd been trying for a few months and I thought that would be a good little present to myself if it ever actually happened.

That was on a Tuesday. Four days later I took a positive pregnancy test.

I listened to my new CD non-stop for a whole weekend. It is wonderful. Her version of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star is so precious, and she has lots of original lullabies that I absolutely love. One of them is called "Forever and A Day." It has a line about Dali, Sylvain's favorite artist, so I pretty much figured she wrote it just for us. It reminds me of her "Spirit" album because it's soft and slow and lyrical and beautiful and I LOVE IT!! Once again, the perfect time for a perfect CD from my perfectly favorite musician.

They say you should play one song, the same song, every day for your baby while it's developing, so that when it comes out into the real world, it can hear something familiar. They say it helps to soothe them and sometimes helps them fall asleep. I'm so glad I have this CD, because now my baby can learn my favorite music before it's even born, and we can use Jewel's songs to rock us to sleep each night. "Forever and a Day" is officially our Family Song, and I could not be happier.

Thank you, Jewel!

Excuse Me While My Belly and I Step Onto this Giant Soapbox

Here it is. Every expectant mother's guide. The bible of all baby books. The one that I saw my stepmother reading when I was ten years old and the one I couldn't wait to buy when it was time for me to prep for a little one. The giant, massive, black-and-white-sketch-filled, insert-laden reference tool that screams at you when you walk by it at the book store. What to Expect When You're Expecting....and I hate it.

Okay, I don't hate it. In fact, I use it ALL THE TIME. I bought it at the beginning of the summer and couldn't wait to read it cover to cover. I read the first couple chapters with such gusto! I left it by my bedside and couldn't wait to get back to it every night. Then...I got frustrated. I couldn't figure out why this book started to bother me. I thought maybe it was just too big, and maybe it just had too much information. Then, one evening while I was sitting on the couch browsing through the What to Expect website, it dawned on me. It's not the information...I LOVE information! It's something much more subtle:

I hate the way this woman writes!

For those of you that have read it and those of you that have it at home, maybe you've noticed. If you haven't, I guarantee, you will now. Open it up to a random page and read about three paragraphs. Did you find it? That part where she's trying to be really funny? Where she's trying to be your best friend? Where she uses all those quips and puns and idioms and side notes in parenthesis (aren't they great)? Here are a few examples:

"Varicose veins run in families - and they definitely sound like they have legs in yours."

"Are you passing gas like a college frat boy (make that more than a college frat boy)? Sorry, guys, but nobody does gas like a pregnant woman."

"It's the best of times; it's the worst of times. And it's how an estimated 60 to 80 percent of new moms feel after childbirth. So-called baby blues appear (approximately) out of the blue..."

Give me a break! Just cut to the nitty-gritty information, already! I don't need jokes and parenthesis to make me feel better, I need to know why I'm farting all the time and I need to know NOW!

I will say this: it has been able to answer EVERY question we've had about pregnancy and babies so far. Even though it's not a good cover-to-cover read, it really comes in handy when I'm trying to remember what kind of fish and seafood to stay away from, or when I should worry about cramps, or what to do when someone creepy touches my tummy - which hasn't happened yet, but it's one of my biggest fears. Even though she writes like a maniac, the woman has thought of everything...or I guess her publishers have thought of everything, but that's fine with me.

At first, I felt so guilty when I stopped reading it at night. I wondered if I was going to be a good mother because EVERY mother reads this book! Now, I don't feel so bad. Now, when Sylvain has a question, all I have to do is say "Get the book!" And he knows exactly where to find it...

In the bathroom. Where all good reference books belong.

I had some posting issues with this one...sorry to those of you who had three emails about the same post. I think it's fixed now.

"Well that can only be true if you're having a baby."

I finally told my students this week that I was pregnant. Let me just tell you, it was more fun than I imagined. I was planning to tie it in to our chick incubation and I was going to wait until they hatched, but I just couldn't wait another day, especially since my belly was starting to knock their pencils over as I walked between their tables.

We all sat down on the carpet and I started with a review of Life Cycles, during which I always like to give a little "don't have babies when you're in high school" speech:

Me: Okay, everyone! What are the four phases of all life cycles?
J: Birth!
A: Growth and Development!
K: Adulthood!
L: Death!
Me: Okay great. Now, what does a species have to do in order to survive? If they didn't do this, there wouldn't be any more of that species after the ones living now have died...
A: Reproduction!
Me: Good! And in what phase of the life cycle does reproduction occur?
Everyone: ADULTHOOD!
Me: Great! And remember, adulthood is different for humans than it is for other organisms. Just because nature says you're an adult doesn't mean you should reproduce...right???
A: Right! You need a job, and an education.
Oh thank goodness, it sank in with somebody...if I taught this girl nothing else this year at least she knows this.
Me: Yes, you need lots of things. Now, we've been watching the embryos develop inside these eggs for a couple weeks now, and I have some big news. We're going to watch the embryo of another organism develop in our classroom this year. Can anyone guess what it is?
K: The lizards!
Me: No
T: The hamster!
Me: No, keep thinking.
M: Bess Beetles! (they have these in 3rd grade)
Me: No. I'll give you a hint...it's a mammal.
Lots of thinking....I can see the wheels turning...what's a mammal again?
I: a kangaroo!
Me: No...
A: A polar bear!
Me: No, I'll give you another hint...it's in the room with us right now!
The kids start looking around. They're glancing under desks and tables, totally confused.
J: Us?
Me: You're getting closer...long pause...We're going to have a human embryo developing in our classroom.....I see the light bulbs start to go on, the kids start looking at each other, then finally...
J: Well, that can only be true if you're having a baby.
Me: That's right! I'm having a baby.

GASPS AND OOHS AND AHHS AND LAUGHS AND HUGS AND HANDS AND SHOUTS AND QUESTIONS AND OH MY GOSH OH MY GOODNESS YOU'RE KIDDING ARE YOU REALLY I KNEW IT!

When we learned about the chicken embryos, all I ever said was that you need to have a female part and a male part come together in the right way. The kids were asking about me and my husband and if we planned it ("because my sister had a baby with her boyfriend and they were SURPRISED!") I explained that yes, we planned it, and we've been planning it for a long time. We wanted to be out of college, and we wanted to be married, and we wanted to have jobs and a house...

One little boy sitting across the circle from me just curled up in a ball and shook his head back and forth. I knew exactly what he was thinking..."She better not talk about sex." I said, "B, is this too much for you?" He looked right at me and said, "Yes. Can we please go to recess?" I said sure.

Not All School Stories Are Cute Ones

Before I get to the embarrassingly naughty school story, let me tell you what we did in Science today...

We candled our eggs! We turned out all the lights, took each egg out of the incubator and held a flashlight up to it so we could see the shadow of the embryo inside. This is the sixth year I've done it and this day always amazes me. Two of our eggs are unfertilized, but four of them have embryos in them! (I only have six eggs total this year...boo). However, one of the embryos is really tiny compared to the others and we think it might be because it stopped developing somewhere around day three. The kids were wondering if we could crack it open after the other eggs hatch to see what it looks like on day three and we had a long discussion about whether or not to do that. It seems like they all really want to do it, so we'll see what happens!

Okay, now for my funny story. I have to say, I'm so embarrassed about my reaction to this little boy's comment, that I was debating whether or not to even post this, but it's pretty darn funny, so here I go.

Mr. E and I were eating lunch with two of our boys who have been fighting for a while. They live in the same neighborhood and the conversation was winding down. In fact, Mr. E had already left the room, so it was just me and the two boys. They were telling me all about the buildings on their street. Then, one of them says....

"...And behind our laundromat there's this old building and it has electrical things on top and sometimes the guys climb up there to get their balls off."

If I didn't have a mouth full of strawberry yogurt I would have flown off the handle and said, "K! That is a totally inappropriate lunch conversation topic!" But instead, as I was choking on my yogurt, I had a few seconds to think it through. Then I asked him to clarify. "You mean, like the kickballs that get stuck up there?"

"Yeah," he said. And my heart rate returned to normal.

Keeping My Head Above Water

Things have been getting pretty hectic at school. The year is in full swing and we are rocking and rolling through our lessons, while at the same time trying to keep everyone happy and healthy. The paperwork is piling up, the meetings are non-stop, and my to-do list seems to write itself while I'm away from my desk. I'm entering that teacher-mode of living where there aren't enough hours in a day to do all that needs to be done. Priorities rise and unimportant things get pushed aside - until you realize it was something someone else really needed you to do. It's a constant shuffle between what to do now and what to do later.

On top of all of that, this is the time of year when I usually start to get sick. I know it's a combination of the "go go go" lifestyle and the fact that I'm stuck in a room with twenty four kids who cough and sneeze all over each other all day. Every year I'm careful to eat right and use lots of Germ-X in the classroom, but this year my obsession with staying healthy has reached a whole new level! I really don't want to take any drugs at all if I don't have to, so I drink about three big glasses of orange juice a day, I don't touch my kids except to hug them at the end of the day and even then I wash my hands as soon as they're all gone, and I try to slow down and get as much sleep as I possibly can. Sometimes I think the constant threat of getting sick is what might end up making me sick. For example, I woke up with a scratchy throat this morning and wondered, "Is it really scratchy, or am I over-analyzing this?" Luckily when I got up and got moving I felt fine. I guess that's just what happens when the air starts to change.

Here's to hoping we all stay germ-free and healthy this winter! I don't want to use any sick days unless they're the ones I use in April and May to stay home with my li'l pooper!

Only Because So Many People Have Asked...

Here is a (one, only one) "belly picture." Ugh! I swore I would never do this because I think they are totally silly and I have no interest in documenting how fat I get, but many (many, many) people have asked me to take some belly pics and post them. The only reason I decided to do it is because these people live far away and I love them...a lot. I'm not doing it every week, in fact, you'll be lucky to see one every month, but I'll do it. And I'll complain about it every time just to make myself feel better.

Without Further Ado, I Give You....

Pregnant Rachael:

(insert scene from Jurassic Park when T-Rex makes the water glass shake with his gigantic, stomping hugeness)
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Keep Going!

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Is she having a baby or does she eat children alive?

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Me and the baby - 13 weeks

I'm wearing my regular jeans which still fit (thank goodness) but I'm afraid to wash them because we all know what happens to washed jeans. Black has become my new best friend, especially at work, but I think this pic does a good job showing my enormous "pooch," as I like to call it. Anyone who knew me four years ago knows that I have a loooong list of fears about pregnancy and right at the top is GETTING FAT, so you all better tell me I look cute, even though my hair's a mess and I'm wearing my custom-made hair band bracelet (at least I put on make-up for you...that's a big deal)! Now, just to make myself feel better, here's a picture of me that I actually like - from a long time ago:

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See! Aren't I pretty!

(You're welcome.)

A Few Words for Baby

Dear Baby,

It took a while to get up the nerve to write you a letter, but I think tonight I'm ready. You've been growing inside me for 13 weeks, and I'm really getting used to being pregnant. If our first trimester together is any sign of things to come, then I can tell you're going to be a great baby. You hardly made me sick at all! Sometimes you make me really tired and sometimes you give me these superhuman bursts of energy - like today when you helped me clean and organize the closets! Sometimes you make me re-think the way I have to do things - like how I stand up and how I sleep at night - but I'm starting to get the hang of it. As your body develops every day, mine changes a little bit, too.

I hope you're doing well in there. We heard your heartbeat last month and you sounded strong and safe. We go back to the doctor this week and I hope they give us an ultrasound so we can finally see you in your tiny world! I'm doing the best I can to eat right and be healthy. I got my flu shot and I exercise every now and then. I'm trying to make all the right choices so you'll be happy and healthy when you finally arrive.

Your Dad is awfully excited about your arrival. He might not show it like I do, but I can tell. I can tell by the way he smiles at other babies and by the way he talks about you. He has big plans for the games you'll play and the things he wants to teach you. I can already see that the two of you are going to have lots of fun together.

The rest of our family is really excited to meet you, too. You better enjoy this quiet time while you've got it, because once you're out, you're going to get passed around like a rag doll! You have not one, not two, but FOUR sets of Grandparents to fight over you. Grandma and Grandpa E. live in C-- near Grandma and Grandpa H. Mami and Papi T live in I--, and Mami and Papi F live all the way in France! I hope we get to take you there while you're still a baby because I know they'll be sad if they don't get to see you soon. All your aunts and uncles are waiting patiently to meet you, too. You'll probably meet Uncle Jordan first, because he lives here near us. Your Uncle Matt and Aunt Jen want you to hurry up and get here so you can play with your cousin Charlie. Your other Aunt Jenny will probably kiss you to death. Oh! And you Uncles John and Evan might try to put you on a dirtbike as soon as you open your eyes, but don't worry, I won't let them. Then there's your Aunt Dorinda, who also lives in France, and you'll probably see her on the webcam. As you can see, there are lots of people out here just waiting to love you, so consider yourself one lucky baby!

Don't get yourself into too big of a hurry though, my dear. Because once you come out, it's you and the world, but for now, it's just you and me. This is the only time of your life when I can truly protect you with everything I have and I like it that way. We get to spend this quiet, safe time together - growing and learning about each other. Of course, I can't wait to see you face to face, but I don't want to wish this time away because I love it, and I love you!

So stay safe in there, little one. Be good and do your growing like you should. You'll be here soon enough, so enjoy this quiet, calm Mama time.

Good night, sleep tight!
Love,
Mom

God Bless Pillows

I read somewhere that pregnant women should go out and buy lots of pillows that help them sleep. Body pillows, wedge pillows, there's even some fancy kind of support pillow that has velcro straps all over it! Well, I have been a teensy bit uncomfortable at night, mainly because I can't sleep on my stomach anymore without feeling like I'm sleeping on a piece of sports equipment, so I thought I'd try out my own pillows first and see how that feels.

Oh

My

God!

I shove our tiny little throw pillow from Target between my knees and curl myself around one of the 2-ft long, round pillows that sit on our bed, and people, I'm telling you, I've never slept so well in my LIFE! Poor Sylvain gets no attention anymore because when I go to bed, I'm drooling over how I get to curl up with those two pillows! I don't know if they'll last as long as I need them to before I need more support somewhere, but I'm hoping they hold out, because right now they're really getting the job done!