Work is so frustrating this time of year. We’re just a few weeks away from the end of the year, and I feel frantic, counting the instructional days remaining, and the number of units and lessons to cover (way too many). I’m losing eight of those days to state testing and final exams. I’m hoping that the time the students spend taking state tests gives me time to catch up on some planning and paperwork (it never does). I stayed after school for 3 hours today, and I feel like all I did was put my work into colorful folders and orderly stacks. It isn’t done, but now I know exactly what and where it is.
Every adult I see during the day asks me when I’m due. I wore a blouse today that has a little ruffle on the empire waistline, and it makes me look bigger than I am. I’m big, though. Big enough to make people’s eyes bug out when I tell them I have six more weeks.
Six weeks! Can you believe it? I love it when people tell me how this time has just FLOWN by. Maybe for them it has. Every second of the first 12 weeks lasted an eternity. The nausea, the depression, and the fatigue combined with the beginning of a new school year with a brand new textbook did not make for fleet days.
I’ve been going in for monthly ultrasounds to check the baby’s growth, and if all looks good at this next appointment, I suspect it will be my last ultrasound. Fine by me. Those appointments cause me so much anxiety, I am happy to be done with them forever.
Forever. This is my last baby. I said that to my mother the other day, and she said, “That’s what I said after you! And I was on the pill!” Sure you were, Mom. Sure you were. Needless to say, I have a younger sister. Odie and I have a more permanent birth control solution in mind. I’m not sure I trust myself to avoid the allure of ONE MORE BABY that is sure to accompany approaching menopause. Even though I’m almost 40, and even though this pregnancy has been a rollercoaster of worry about chromosomal defects related to advanced maternal age, I think that biology reigns supreme, and I’ll be weeping when I pack away those 0-3 month onesies. So, snip, snip it is.
Sunday night, staring at my two year-old sleeping in her toddler bed, looking like a CHILD and not a baby, I felt so thankful there will soon be another infant in my arms. I’m not ready to say goodbye to babyhood. I predict that I will feel that way times a thousand when this girl I’m carrying blows out the 2 candle on her cupcake.
I have a friend with four children. She had a tubal ligation with her last cesarean. Her daughter was about 18 months when mine was born. She, her husband, and their youngest came over to meet Baby V in the first month of her life. The way my friend, mother of four, took my baby in her arms, then looked longingly and imploringly at her husband, I knew that but for her surgical procedure, there’d have been a fifth kid. And a sixth.
Nature made men to love making babies, and women to love snuggling them and smelling the tops of their heads. Perfect design. The species will continue.
For our part, however, our contribution to the advancement of the human race ends at two.
The Friendly Pedant by Mrs. Odie 
Good news about Baby V and her bed – way to go, Mrs.O!
ha! You are funny. Mine ended as well as I had a tubal ligation with my csection after our second. Yet even though the thought of 3 is not appealing, I do find myself wanting another baby. Or maybe it is just I’d like to snuggle again with my babies?! I remember with such fondness those first few weeks. I didn’t even miss the sleep and I’m a girl that loves my sleep, but there is such an adrenaline rush with meeting a new person and caring for this little soul. See, I miss it! In any case, even though several doctors and a couple nurses tried to talk me out of it, I don’t regret it at all. Cheers to 2 kids!
Oh, and our school is altering our schedule for 15 days due to state testing and if the kids do well, our principal will be considered brilliant. I am so saddened to hear kids say about my subject (Ancient History, which is not tested at the 8th grade level), so why do we have to take this/learn this/care about this if there isn’t an end of the year exam. I want to write a book exposing public education from a normal mother/normal teacher’s point of view, but am thinking it would jeopardize my job (i.e. our health insurance), so I just stifle it. I was curious about an anonymous blog…how do you get readers?
I have a coworker who has written two books about education, and his job is in no jeopardy. He even said some nasty things about the teachers and admin at our school. He just didn’t name any names. First amendment rights will pretty much protect you from anything you want to say, as long as you don’t commit libel.
As for how I get readers, most of my readers are my friends and family and a few people I’ve “met” by being part of the blogging community. I try to read and comment as Mrs Odie in lots of different places where people might then seek me out.
And it takes time. I’m still building my readership and hope to continue doing so. I figure it will take a couple of years to get a good solid following, unless something catastrophically interesting happens to me and goes viral. If you look at the success stories of many bloggers, luck was a huge factor.
Good luck to YOU!
Thank you so much, Mrs. Odie!!! I think you are great and wish we were colleagues!!
When are you due?! I’m due 21st june with only my 5th! 😀 4 girls later and we have a little boy cooking away. (There will be another in 15 years perhaps, one I can spoil rotten, all my ‘ideal’ parenting will go out the window.) I’ve subscribed. I’ll limit my ‘comments’ to the ‘essential’ now 😀
Welcome! I am due on June 28 or July 3, depending on which doctor you believe. Knowing when I had too much wine and molested my husband, I’m going with June 28th.
hahaha, I know what you mean, My date is 29th, going off doctor an ultrasound 21st. (I’m clinging to the hope that he comes on the 21st, my back is killing me! Knowing my luck however, I’ll be right and it’ll be the 29th.) Goodluck with it all!
Oh, don’t even get me started on my back. I often use my favorite Homer Simpson quote: “My back is a club sandwich of pain. Only instead of bacon, there’s agony.”