Why You Gotta Be So Mean?

My son hates me.

First, some background.  When I found out I was pregnant, the due date was quickly calculated to be September 1st.  Since this is right at the beginning of the new school year/daycare for newborns is insanely expensive/I don't want someone else to raise my child, Lewis and I decided that I was to become a stay-at-home mom.

For the past year, Lewis and I have been enjoying double insurance benefits.  He has been a dependent on my insurance and I have been a dependent on his.  Mostly that means we haven't had to pay any co-pays whenever we've had to go to the doctor.  With me being pregnant and all, this has saved us some of the green.  When I decided I was going to quit my job at the end of the school year, I got in touch with the benefits office to find out when my insurance benefits would run out.

August 31st.

One day before Jack is due.

Perfect.

Oh and by the way, your deductible is going to go up 150% this year.

Starting September 1st.

Excellent.

What timing!

My doctors will not induce first-time mothers before one week after their due date.  This is a practice that I am in favor of.  I think there are far too many unnecessary inductions which can be detrimental to a newborn's well-being.  Still, an early induction would be mighty tempting for me because of this whole insurance kerfuffle.

We explained this situation to one of my doctors and he said that they would strip my membranes at 38 weeks and see if that helped.  Also that a good indicator of when you'll go into labor (early or late) is when your mother and sisters typically went into labor.

My mom has five kids, my sister has one.  Their labors went (in order): late, early, late, late, early, early. Three earlys, three lates.

Fantastic.

Today is Monday, August 29th.  To be out of the hospital by midnight on the 31st, I pretty much need to have my baby now - and don't get me started on the snafu that would be if we started out our hospital stay on double insurance and ended on single.  It's complicated.

Now back to why my son hates me.  Since I learned of the scheduling conflict between my due date and insurance termination, I've been casually hopeful that he would arrive early.  But I figured he would come when he comes, no big deal.  But then he decided to get my hopes up.

At my 36 weeks appointment the doctor declared Jack to be engaged in a head-down position and my cervix to be dilated 1.5 centimeters, 60% effaced.  I know women can walk around for weeks like that, so I didn't get too chuffed.  But then the contractions started.

I was elated.  I would be meeting my son soon!  They weren't painful contractions yet, but my mom had just told me that that was how they started out for her.  And there sure were a lot of them!  How could this be anything but the real thing.

After almost of week of this, I wanted to cry.  Each night I would go to bed expecting to wake up in joyous pain, ready to speed off to the hospital.  Each morning I would wake up disappointed to have made it through the night.  And still the contractions continued.

My 37 week appointment arrived and I was ready for the doctor to tell me my cervix was all kinds of dilated.  I mean, those contractions had to have been doing something, right?

1-2 cms.  60-70% effaced.  Gross.

And still the irregular, frequent, painless contractions continued.  They told me they would strip my membranes at my next appointment and that that would hopefully get things going.  I was convinced that would do the trick since I was obviously teetering on the edge, right?  Plus I was sure to have progressed because these contractions were still going.

Right?

Almost 2 cms.  70% effaced.  It's okay.  This membrane stripping thing is bound to work.

Right?

Nope.  Today was my 39 week appointment.  Obviously my child is just in the business of getting my hopes all kinds of up and then not committing to anything.  Even when I finally accepted that my uterus just seems to like contracting and that he would come when he comes, it decided to give me a movie's worth of quite painful contractions reigniting my hope all over again.

Today the doctor declared me to be a solid 2 cms and nearly 80% effaced.  Yippee skippee.  The membrane stripping thing from yester-week was useless.  Oh but don't worry, if I do make it to my induction appointment on the eighth, my cervix is right where it ought to be!  Wa-hoo.

So like I said, my son hates me.  He just gets my hopes up and up only to bring them crashing down over and over.  Because it's obviously his fault.

In other news, if you are in the business of praying and wouldn't mind sending one on my behalf, I would appreciate it.  That whole insurance thing has got me on edge.

Stay-at-Home Mommydom: Day 1

Today marks my first official day as a stay-at-home mom.  But Alyssa, you say, you are not yet a mother!  Too true, my friends.  Too true.  However:

1. I will be.  Any day now.  (Seriously kid, feel free to come whenever.)

2. Today is the first day of school and IF I worked outside the home, my summer vacation would be over and I'd be back on the job.  But I don't anymore, so I'm home.  Staying home that is.  To be a mom.

See?

In any case, I've got to say that this gig is pretty simple.  True, I did wake up early (to the tune of 5:30 - yuck), but that was because I am a good wife and made my dear spouse BOTH breakfast AND lunch.  In the future I plan for it to just be lunch (provided there is cooperation from the baby), but it's a special day for Mr. Young, what with it being the first day of school and all.  And my banana pancakes are pretty incredible, letmetellyouwhat.

It's a weird thing not having a job.  I got my first job the summer I was 14.  I was a park attendant at our local pool.  Sort of like a junior lifeguard, just not certified to save anyone.  Thank goodness no one drowned in front of me (don't worry, there were real lifeguards there too).  I'm 24 now.  I've been employed in one form or another for the greater part of the last ten years.  Ten years!  That's almost half my life.

It's also a weird thing not going to school.  Since they let me into kindergarten when I was four-almost-five I've been spending this time of year getting ready/starting school of some form for the last TWENTY years.  More, if you count Joy School.  And I'm a nerd so of course I always got excited about starting school.  Why it took me so long to figure out I wanted to be a teacher, the world will never know.

Boy-oh-boy, Jack, you'd better get here soon.  Being alone with my thoughts all day does not look like it's going to be a good thing.

Okay, let's get this train of thought back on track, shall we?  As you may have gleaned from the title and/or introductory paragraph, I have embarked on a new journey as a stay-at-home mom.  What does that mean for my blog?  Well... since my son is sure to be adorable... and I'll have more time on my hands for this sort of thing... And I'm of the opinion that I am funny, dang it... I'm sure I'll want to tell you all about it...

That's right.

Extra-Strength Awesome is about to become...

A mommy blog.

Dun-dun-dun!

Don't worry.  I won't leave anything out.

Best. Day. Ever.

So you want to hear about the best day ever? Okay, okay I'll tell you.

6:00 - Wake up, wake Lewis up, then go back to sleep for an hour because I can!

7:00 - Wake up for real, eat Pop Tarts for breakfast. This isn't an unusual thing for me, but I love them and it happened.

9:00 - Pick up my class from the playground. Like seven students were absent - a whole third of the class. What the what? Too bad for them; I've got a great day plan

ned.

9:10 - I ordered some boxes of Girl Scout cookies a few weeks ago from a fourth grader and she delivered them today. As I was filling out the check, her mom told her to, "Tell her." I looked up and the scout said to me, very shyly, "Since I brought you Girl Scout cookies, will you let me be in your class next year?" Aww... Too bad I won't be teaching next year. Warm fuzzy moment, though.

9:30 - Spelling test. My student who consistently gets really low scores got her first 100%. Ya-hoo!

9:45 - Science. We made baking soda cannons. Take a little bit of baking soda, fold it up in a toilet paper square, pour some vinegar into a test tube, wedge the TP into the tube, cork it, and shake shake shake. The vinegar dissolves the toilet paper and reacts with the baking soda to create carbon dioxide which builds up until it pops the cork off. Awesome.

10:15 - My Art Moms came to teach art. They normally come on Wednesdays, but they couldn't this week at that time so they came now. I spent the hour correcting tests and chatting with one of the moms. She brought her baby and I got to hold him. He's adorable.

11:55 - Lunch. I buy school lunch on Fridays and the cafeteria was serving their horrible-for-you mozzarella breadsticks, which I love. I decided to eat with my students and that was fun because they love me.

12:45 - I get an hour of prep time every two weeks when my class is at computers. Today I got that hour. Glorious.

1:45 - I go to pick up my students from computers. As they are lining up outside the computer lab, a pair of rather tall young men in BYU athletics shirts saunter past. I smile politely then do a double take. My jaw drops. One of my students, the biggest BYU fan in my class (second only to me) says, just as I realize it, "That's Jake Heaps!" And it was indeed. Plus Kyle Van Noy. They had gone into a classroom, but came back out upon hearing my student's shriek of delight. I walked over nervously with the student and say hello.

1:55 - Five minutes before recess. My entire class his huddled around the window because we see that Jake and Kyle have gone outside, during the younger grades' recess. My students are scrambling around, trying to find things for them to sign. I let them go outside early. They run outside and immediately swarm Jake Heaps. I go outside too (hey! It's a beautiful day!), but I hang back. I'm a grown woman. I had to set an example of maturity for my class. Right? Right?

Yeah, right. My students saw how I reacted when saw them in the hallway. And how I'm a humongo BYU/football/BYU football fan. And how I said I wish I had had my camera with me so I could get a picture. About half of my class tells Jake Heaps about their teacher who is "such a fan," and then run over to get me and drag me over to him. I talk to the teacher with whom they came. She said they came to teach the sixth graders PE and that they would be coming again and that she could get them to teach my class too in a few weeks. Sa-weet. Then she takes a picture of Jake and me with my phone.

2:30 - Reading. My class is quietly doing their reading assignments, and I'm looking longingly outside at the beautiful day (the football players had left by now). So I really quick make up a math facts kick ball game and we go out and play it for the rest of the afternoon.

Yeah. I love my job. Sorry students who were absent today. You missed out.

Surprise Fire

In science right now, we are studying physical and chemical changes. Today we did a lab to introduce a lot of the concepts we will be talking about, as well as to review lab safety procedures. Like a good little teacher, I decided it prudent to test out the lab prior to the students coming in to make sure it, you know, worked.

This experiment is called, "Surprise Fire." If you mix these two chemicals together (potassium permanganate and glycerine) they are supposed to react and spontaneously combust. Key word: supposed.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get into the room where the chemicals are stored until about 15 minutes before school started. I wasn't worried, though, because the reaction was supposed to occur within 20-60 seconds. So I donned my safety goggles, poured out a silver dollar size pile of potassium permanganate, dabbled in a bit of glycerine, and waited. And waited. Nothing happened.

Another teacher came by to ask me a question. I went to talk to her while keeping the corner of my eye on the table where the chemicals were sitting. Nothing happened.

The vice principal came in to see how I was doing and if I needed any help with anything. I told him I was fine unless he knew how to make a couple of dangerous chemicals react with each other and catch on fire. Meanwhile, another teacher from my team came by. Apparently she had also had trouble with this lab when she did it. It also would not combust while for her, so she tried to wipe it up with a paper towel, giving it up as a bad job. Her students were disappointed (this was during class), but whatevs. But then! The paper towel caught on fire! And she dropped it on the ground.

So now all three of us were at a loss. We didn't know what to do. We didn't want to just throw it out, cause what if it caught fire in the trash can. Joe (the VP) tried to wipe it up with a damp paper towel, thinking maybe the friction would get things going. No luck. By now the bell has long since rung and I am supposed to have picked up my students from outside. But I didn't want to just leave it there. What if it burned down my classroom?!

Deciding that since it had been almost twenty minutes since I had started this experiment, I deemed it allowable to get my class. A couple of students were waiting outside my door, hoping to go in before everyone else showed up. I told them, rather forcefully, to "Wait. There." and "Do NOT go in the classroom." Then I hightailed it to the outside and get the rest of my kids.

When we got back to my door, I gave them the following instructions: "When I open this door, you are to go straight to your desks, pull out your journals, and start writing. Do NOT touch ANYTHING."

Of course none of them listened to me and they all immediately gathered 'round the back table where the experiment was set up. No respect. How a pie tin containing a small pile of wet purpleish flakes attracts some much attention from 10-year-olds, I'll never know. I successfully shooed some of them away and then sat down to tackle the problem at hand.

I figured the best problem would be to get the chemicals to react so that I didn't have to worry about it catching on fire in the garbage. This is an elementary school. There's lots of paper in there. Poking it with a wet paper towel didn't work, but I certainly didn't want to prod it with a dry one. What if my hand caught fire?!

Well, hows about a half wet half dry paper towel? I carefully scooped up a bit of the mixture with the towel, dropped it on the tin, and hightailed it out of there. Well, to the other side of the classroom, anyway. Then... it happened. The towel started smoking and then - BAM - a two-inch flame licked it's way up the towel. Sure, it wasn't the foot-high flame the lab book promised me, but it was fire! The chemicals reacted!

Like to smartie that I am, I decided to go ahead with the lab as planned. The main point was about safety, right? I could still teach that, right? Right.

So I set it all up to the T. I thought that maybe I was too generous with the glycerine and that it overwhelmed the potassium permanganate or something. The set up was absolutely perfect. But... nothing happened. My students were all disappointed, of course. Most of them caught the tail end of the paper towel burning earlier and were ready for more action. While they all sat there staring at the boring pile of non-combusting chemicals, I explained what was supposed to happen and why.

Then I said, "Now. We will be doing a lot of experiments throughout this unit. Some of them are dangerous. So you must follow the procedure EXACTLY. If I see ANY of you doing ANYthing that is not in your lab book, you will not do ANY more labs in my classroom. Ever. EVER. That being said, I am going to do something that would be an absolute no no if any of you were to do it. But I can. Because I'm the teacher." And I picked up a pencil and poked the chemicals with the eraser.

They started smoking. And then they caught fire. The class all cheered and then gagged cause it was stinky. I sent them all to fill out their lab sheets, cleaned up the ashes, and we were done.

Whew.