rain, rain, go away. i’m tired of all this gloom and doom in the sky. at least i’m getting use out of the lap pool that is my basement. grrrr.

other than rain, i’ve made it through my first full week of school. they’re so tiny this year. they seem younger and smaller than last year’s crop. but i cannot complain because it’s been great so far. great classes, great kids. no wild child-attention whores vying for control of my classroom. my honors kids, if they’re not in a corner pulling their hair out and crying, they’re plowing through eight prompt responses due on monday. did i say “plowing”? i meant “word smithing”. my bad.

while at school i’m also enjoying my status as crazy pregnant lady. today at lunch i was eyeballing some community chocolate chip cookies at the other end of the table. one of my coworkers made a play to eat the last cookie until my murderous screams of chocolate deficiencies stopped him cold in his tracks. do not toy with a chocolate craving lunatic. no jury is going to prosecute a pregnant english teacher, for crying out loud.

speaking of being pregnant, my girth is spreading. i’m working a bit of gut/baby action in the mid-section. it’s not pretty. and i’m getting doughy. *sigh* and it didn’t help that i see all kinds of pregnant women every time i turn around. and they’re all big. i know, i know. they’re supposed to be. see how i’m not saying “we”? i’m in a little bit of denial. there’s this one teacher who’s pregnant is ready to pop. she has cankles. she’s this tall, skinny thing, with swollen cankles. it’s just not fair. i don’t want to get fat. i don’t want to have fat feet. i like my ankles.

and don’t even get me started about stretch marks.

i know it’s a little early to whine, but the impending demise of my shape weighs heavily on my gut, um, mind.

in the mean time, there’s one last brownie in the kitchen. it has our name on it.

another week down and many, many, many more pregnant ones to go. i had my second doctor’s visit last friday. this one was especially fun because tony was there to see the spectacle that is an ob-gyn visit.

first, pee in a cup. i managed to splash a minimal amount of urine on my hand as i shakily tried to measure the exact longitude my trickle would be coming from. good thing i’m not showing yet, because i have a feeling that very shortly, with all my unmanageable girth, i’ll need to wear protective clothing and gloves for all these urine tests i’ll be doing. with all this testing, i’m beginning to feel like an olympic track athlete.

peeing in a cup portion of the event over, now we go to the room where i get to remove half of my clothing. i’m sure tony was hoping i’d put the moves on him, but the paper sheet-skirt really isn’t very sexy. my doctor comes in and right away starts lubing up the very sex-toy looking ultrasound “wand”. tony eyed it suspiciously, but seemed willing to see where this was heading. today she’s all business and nary one minute of chit-chat, scootch down in the stirrup position, and it’s HELLO to the wonder wand.

i was begining to feel a little cheap when i looked at the screen. awwwww. it’s a baby.

sniff, sniff. *tear*

there he-she was, bopping away to the rhythms of the wonder wand gyroscoping in my innards. baby was a moving and a shaking its little stubby arms and legs, staring into the screen with it’s humongous black eyes. a little creepy, but very sweet.

and that’s when it hits. i have a real thing living inside of me. not just an idea of a thing. a real thing. a human. a little helpless life-form waiting around to be born. completely dependent on ME to be nice to it. to not drink five margaritas like i wanted to at my brother-in-law’s thirtieth dinner.

mmmm. margarita.

i digress. i now have a built in buddy. so instead of just treating it like the abstract idea that i had been, now that it’s more concrete to me, i catch myself patting my belly and humming. poor kid has to listen to me sing. i’m soo sorry little guy. but that’s the cool part. realizing it’s a little human that’s growing and developing in that weird space between my ho-ha and belly button kind of makes me want to put on my best self. if baby’s listening and feeling me, i want to be the best version of myself and send off lots of good karmic vibes.

it’s like i want to be this really (insert superlative here) person so that my kid isn’t kicking himself down the road. “man, why did SHE have to be my mom?” i’m sure that will eventually happen, but not in the trailer park jerry springer episode way. too bad i’ll be screaming and swarthy when it’s born. it’s first look at me in my altered state will be enough to send it looking for alternate housing.

so there it is. now i have a reason to be a better person. is that too cheesy? i hope not. so no more late night bar brawling for me. sayanora, crack house. adios, amateur nights. see you later, internet porn….

it’s a new road for me. yup. so good-bye to the skin-a-max subscription, hello to the wiggles.