Sunday, October 30, 2005

I am the goddess of all that is good

This morning I took a bath with Number One Daughter (which is getting increasingly difficult to do, as there is less and less room available for said daughter, let alone any water). We usually sing in the tub. Today the song that occured to me to sing was apparently a new one for her. I regaled her with all 6 verses of "BINGO" as in "There was a farmer had a dog and...," you know the rest. She lay there in the water and gazed at me in open-mouthed reverence. Completely agape, such adoration radiating from her face as if to say, "You Goddess-Mommy, you have such knowledge of all that is magical and wonderful, I am in awe of your wisdom. Please sing that gorgeous song for me again."

I'm taking advantage of every one of those moments, because I know that I will not always be so amazingly powerful.

Iron

[Background - I'm taking pretty heavy-duty iron supplements during this pregnancy to combat anemia. Iron has a certain - ugh - effect on one's digestive system]

- Honey, {in obvious discomfort} please go pick up some prunes today.

- Hey, why don't you have some coffee, we have some, that would help you.

- Oh, that's a great suggestion, give that much caffeine...

- ...to a baby...!

- Yeah, right, sweetie. That's just what I want to do. Give caffeine to my little prisoner. Give caffeine to the one person who has nothing to do but KICK THE CRAP OUT OF MY INTERNAL ORGANS.

- I'll get prunes.

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Finally, the rain!

This is one I probably won't be crowing about once we move up north. But, here in California, it is finally raining! OK, Schpritzing. But it's wet, and the roads are slick and people are crashing into each other all over the place! And the greening can begin.

Even looking at that cute picture of Number One Daughter is not enough to lighten my mood these days. Even having the real deal looking me in the face can't do it. I'm 31 weeks pregnant and ABSOLUTELY MISERABLE, no excuses, just 100% UNCOMFORTABLE ALL THE TIME. I'm afraid that my relationship with this new child isn't getting off to a great start, as I spend quite a lot of time yelling at it things like GET YOUR FOOT OUT OF MY RIBS DAMMIT or WHATEVER THE HELL YOU ARE DOING CUT IT OUT! I am really hoping that once it is born, all those endorphins and hormones kick in so that I can actually love it.

Friday, October 21, 2005

Jesus loves me

Ever since I started listening to KPIG again, I've been reminded of how many songs by the Austin Lounge Lizards I associate with Santa Cruz in my head. Songs like "Teenage Immigrant Welfare Mothers on Drugs," "Momma Don't Allow," "Industrial Strength Tranquilizer," "Life is Hard, But Life is Hardest When You're Dumb," and "Jesus Loves Me But He Can't Stand You." I just don't know how I managed to get this far in my life without owning everything they've recorded.

They've also done a "Proposed UC Santa Cruz Fight Song" called, "Banana Slugs! Racing Down The Field" for my alma mater.

While we're on the subject, check out the video "The Tower," at HearUSNow.org, featuring a song by the Lounge Lizards.

Wednesday, October 19, 2005

Pregnancy sucks, but...

...Every time I start really wishing I wasn't doing this, all I have to do is look at this person:
And I think, yeah, this will all work out ok.

Saturday, October 15, 2005

Some things that make life more bearable

KPIG is now broadcasting in the Bay Area, at 1510 AM. This brings a refreshing breath of S'Cruzin up here to the Metropolis. I can arrive at work with a smile on my face, now, because outside of the car it's MacArthur Boulevard, but inside of the car it's Highway 1.

My application for an Oregon Teaching License is in the mail.

The borage is coming back up. I think it is wonderful that borage comes up in the early spring, before you have even the faintest hope of cucumbers in the garden, is over-blowsy and going to seed when the cucumbers are in their full swing, and then starts coming back up just after you have to rip out the cucumber vines in the fall. The flavour of cucumbers has been sustaining me through this pregnancy.

Number-one daughter is becoming more fluent. What amazes me is that she has these words in her vocabulary that didn't even exist when I was her same age, like "DVD" ("I want to watch a Deeveedeevee!") and "IPOD." I'm quite sure I didn't know the word "computer" until much later in my life. She knows that if she wants to look at pictures that is where she should go. But she also knows where the tomatoes and cucumbers come from, and that food comes from plants and animals. Oh, but she is urban; the other day she said to me, "Cars go bvvvvvv, bvvvvv, bvvvvvv, bvvvvvv" (That's the closest I could come to spelling it, the sound she made was that of the overly-loud bass beat vibrating the car that is so common, here).

The Grub "Number-two something" is running out of room and becoming more squirmy and insistent on space. The good news is, I'm on iron supplements now and have more energy. The other good news is no news, I haven't had a phone call from my midwife about the three-hour glucose tolerance test I had a week ago, so I'm taking that as meaning that I don't have gestational diabetes. But I am definitely sick of being pregnant, we're in the last two months of Oh-Jeez-Get-This-Thing-Out-Of-Me-ness. Just the perfect time to have a party to perk things up a bit and remind me that, yeah, this is a good thing I'm doing. Oh, and Her Wendyness Appearing All the Way From Michigan will be attending that party, which is the best news I've had all month.

And October is my favourite month. And it rained last night.

Friday, October 14, 2005

Appropriate Penances for Bush Voters

My sincerest apologies to Ted Rall for putting this comic here without his permission. Hey, Mr. Rall, I'm doing this to promote your site! Think of it as free advertising. So here's the comic:

Friday, October 07, 2005

All in the title

Today was bubbling-in-the-grades day, because grades for the first marking period are due on Monday morning. Thanks to the help of my WONDERFUL classroom volunteer, I was able to get everything bubbled and in by 3:30pm today.

The grade sheets include a report card "teacher comments" section, where we can bubble in up to three selections of pre-written commentary that will be printed out on the report card. We get a list of what letter on the bubble sheet corresponds to what comments. In the course of bubbling, today, I learned that what I was using most often were the three letters, "G-O-P."

G = Improve/Do Homework
O = Decrease tardies
P = Please contact teacher at once

My volunteer and I agreed that, yeah, that was about right.