I have two essays kicking around in my head that I plan to write, but both require some basic research that I haven’t been able to get to this week. I’m careful how I use my work computer, and I don’t think it would be a good idea to Google “Tiger Woods, mistresses” or “famous homewreckers” on the job. I can barely get through my teaching days lately. The nausea, heartburn and headaches of early pregnancy are getting me down in a big way.
I am using the usual remedies. Ginger beer, candied ginger, watching Conan’s new show (since he is “a ginger”). Sweet and tart things help somewhat, so I’m eating pineapple (not great for heartburn) and drinking lemonade (ditto).
About halfway through this past week, I woke up after a crappy night’s sleep where I went to bed nauseated and battled Baby V’s attempts to twiddle my nipple all night, and I was still barfy. In my last pregnancy, I had nausea from around ten in the morning until seven at night, which was rough, but I had a few hours of relief. So far, this “morning sickness” is around the clock.
Today was our big homecoming rally day. As I type, our varsity football team is embarrassing itself against our crosstown rivals, who are hopefully embarrassing themselves worse. The teams are 0-6 this year, a typical record for both, so spirits at today’s assembly were high for a win. Standing at the back of the auditorium, I felt an overwhelming wave of nausea hit, and it wasn’t just the lameness of the juniors’ skit. I rushed outside and revived myself with deep breaths of fresh air, but it didn’t relieve what I’ve really been suffering from all week.
Depression.
I blame the sickness and nausea. Oh, and my job. It’s been seven years since I had a group of students that were this intractable. Back then, I was in the honeymoon phase of my romance with Odie, so not much could bum me out. While I am a philosophical optimist, I am not a cock-eyed nor a buck-toothed one. I fight a dark cynicism that I believe many people who stay in education for decades also battle. Many succumb. I try not to be one of them, but I see how it happens. I understand why pretty young twenty-something teachers often abandon ship as soon as a man with a six-figure income waves an engagement ring at them. I went to a pricey grad school, and my classes were full of this type of girl. All of them wanted to teach kindergarten or fifth grade, and I could tell that every one of them would drop the job for good the minute she got pregnant. I was already in the classroom when I got my degree, and I loved telling them stories from my workdays that made them gasp and clutch their pearls. Literally. They wore pearls.
Would I love to give it all up, be a stay-at-home mom, redecorate my bathroom to resemble a French whorehouse, and paint my toenails every day? You bet your sweet bippy I would. It isn’t a “calling” for me. It’s a job. A job that is frankly not feeling like such a good fit lately. In years past, I was teaching my students something that they were grateful for. They didn’t always enjoy it, but they knew they needed it. I cannot find my current students’ wavelength. They are a wild bunch, so they take a lot of management. Getting them to settle down and pay attention to a lesson is an exhausting daily struggle. I fail every day. Not at everything, but enough to discourage and demoralize me.
Add morning sickness and a toddler who won’t wean, and you get depression. That’s why I haven’t written. I get my babe to bed around seven-thirty or eight, and then I just stare at the television, exhausted, until about nine, when I have to go back in and settle her down again. I know that I have to write every day, even when I don’t publish, but I have not been holding myself to this. I came home early today and decided to leave Baby V at day care until 4:30 as usual. She is always on the playground if I get there too early, and she doesn’t want to leave. My workday is over at 1:50 because I’m a part-timer, but I usually stay and work until at least three. Not today! I collapsed in a heap in my chair and pulled out the computer intending to write something, ANYTHING to keep my readers coming back, only to be surprised by Odie coming home early too. His school was also getting revved up to humiliate themselves in football, so he had a shorter day.
Odie and I found ourselves in an unfamiliar situation. We were home alone. Not alone as in “the baby is asleep in the next room,” but ALONE alone. Now, I don’t want to pull this bus over to the side of too much information highway, so let’s just say everyone is feeling much happier now. We promised each other that we really need to find more ALONE alone time, because we miss each other. Lying in the crook of Odie’s arm with Norah Jones’ first CD playing and no baby monitor nearby, I felt like I’d gone back in time. Being a working mother, I often forget to be a wife. And I love being a wife.
TGIF, I say to you all. I don’t get to sleep in tomorrow, but I do get to skip gagging on Axe body spray while trying to force teenagers to learn. My depression is suddenly better.
The Friendly Pedant by Mrs. Odie 
French whorehouse – that cracked me up! Describes it perfectly though. As usual though, so many are spewing forth their adoration.
Went and looked at the horrid pictures of that bathroom. I don’t which paint colors are worse. The colors on the bathroom walls and on those Disneyland mirrors or the ones on her face. Good God, what the hell is with the Cleopatra look on that woman?
Ugh…feel for you with the teaching and the morning sickness. Can you take next year off to spend with your babes? Daycare is so expensive and tutoring in the evenings is such a great way to make extra money. Congrats on the wife-husband time. Hope you had fun!!!
You know what? Don’t just wish for it. Make it happen. Do you know how many moms I know who have stayed home and made it work without 6 figure earning husbands? Many. Several with teacher husbands, in fact. Subtract out the cost of daycare for 2 babies, clothing expenses, travel expenses. Then start adding up how much you will save as you have the time to spend super carefully at the grocery store, etc. You won’t be rich but you will be happy.
You’ll never get these years back.
You are so right. I am seriously thinking about it.
Don’t forget–not only would you and I be painting our toenails every week, we’d be photographing them or so-cutely-pigeon-toed on a weekly basis too. As well as staging dinner scenes with a big fork in our child’s hand with a plate of food she is not really eating, who’d rather be eating some chicken nuggets and applesauce. And staging knit caps on our kids in 80 degree weather.
Do not worry about your writing frequency nor your readers….you are growing someone’s lung or kidney these days.
I hear you on the husband/wife time. I hear you on the job thing too. I just do it for the money. I don’t teach but my Hubs does and he bemoans the days he used to be able to really teach and not teach for the tests. He’d be glad with being able to teach at all this year. His whole class are a bunch of hellions. Meanwhile the teacher next door was given half a class of easy to teach gifted children. Would anyone like to discuss how teachers should be graded?
Hope you find some rest and reprieve the rest of the weekend!
OK…you totally made me laugh out loud when I read about the pearls. That was funny!
Couldn’t have said it better with the French whorehouse comparison. Her taste is just so tacky. No other word for it.
SHE said her inspiration was “Moulin Rouge.” The Moulin Rouge was a French bordello (perhaps a burlesque club if you want to split hairs), but the women were definitely for sale.
Thank goodness it was just an inspiration and not an imitation or else I’d have to start hating burlesque.
I come to your site like some kind of addict, multiple times per day. Seriously, I’m ill. My point is though, if you take time off, or can’t write daily, it won’t stop me. I jones for ya!
Laura is so right. I too left teaching after having my first child, and have been home with my kids for a few years now. Husband doesn’t make much but we make it work and could not be happier. Just like she said, daycare for the two would have taken more than I’d be taking home if not all of it. Didn’t make any sense. Plus, I just wanted to stay home with them so badly.
Anyways, whorehouse is hilarious. You know, ever since she declared a couple of months back that she had regained her voice or whatever, I feel like the blog has gotten more boring than ever. It is the same thing week after week but with more and more advertising shoved down your throat. Blah.
Hope your nausea subsides sooner than later. With my second pregnancy I had 24/7 nausea and I tried every gingered thing I could (except Conan), the wristbands, the b12. Nothing helped but a swig of emetrol here and there but that relief was very temporary. 12 weeks was the magic number where I felt human again.
So KH describes her home as a whorehouse. Nothing could be funnier. Hmmm, now this might finally explain her warpaint make-up, extra high heels and skin tight pants.
Regarding the nameless boring blogger-I fully expect a full Thanksgiving dinner picture with the older child posing with fork in hand and massive amounts of food in front of her. The life in the House Of Hizzle must be like a movie set. I feel for those kids.
I can only imagine the photoshoots those poor family members have to be prepared for. My family Thanksgiving is stressful enough, but at least I don’t have to show up camera-ready.
I’m not clear who could ever stomach going to that house. It seems anyone who enters has no choice but to be subjected to a camera shoved in their face, staged photo ops w/ kids, goofy looking husband, Poppa and/or the self appointed Queen K herself and waiting for the 15 outfit changes on the kids you are expected to fawn over in the shots. Her friends and family must be as self absorbed. How else could they stand it!
Could someone explain why KH is always taking picture of her damn bare feet? I mean, what the hell is that? It is just digusting and makes no sense.
I used to work on a television show, and all of the actresses (regular and guests) would get requests from prisoners and others for pictures of their feet. This happened weekly. It was a running joke at the office. KH and her kids are making a LOT of foot fetishists very very happy.
Couldn’t agree more on the feet photos. They ARE NOT pretty feet, doesn’t matter what colour the nails are painted. And what’s with painting a baby’s toenails? At Nella’s age, all babies do is start shoving into their mouths fingers, toes, whatever they can grab. She’ll be sucking all the nail varnish off and digesting chemicals! We’ve already got enough chemicals in our food, why toxify the poor little mite even more?