Another early morning blog post (because I am incapable of falling back to sleep once I wake up to pee)! I know, I know, it's been forever since I last blogged, and you probably thought I was a lost cause. Would you believe me if I said I had a bunch, a BUNCH of legitimate excuses as to why I haven't blogged in over a month? It all started with taking my final online class through University of Phoenix. The class was 6 weeks long, and as all online classes do, require a lot of writing and discussion board work. Because I teach during the week and am exhausted by the time I get home, I procrastinated on all of my assignments until the weekend, which left me with both lesson planning for the following week AND completing my online assignments every weekend. Needless to say I spent a lot of time scrambling to finish on time.
Add to the mix that 2 out of the 4 weekends in February (were there 4 weekends in February? I can't keep track anymore) I had baby showers thrown for me, one of which was in Ohio meaning a 7 hour drive to and from the shower in one weekend, and the other one here in NC for which we had family who drove 7 hours to and from the shower in one weekend. They were both wonderful showers with amazing food and great company, and David and I are so incredibly blessed to have so many people who love us and our little baby Ezra so much. We are so thankful to everyone who bought us a gift, because we feel so much more ready for our son's arrival than we did before! We spent a whole Saturday preparing the nursery by renting a Rug Doctor and cleaning the carpet, followed by hours upon hours of building things like a crib, a swing, a bouncer, and a stroller. And when family was here for the baby shower, they helped us so much by giving us a changing table and a dresser and helping us to organize the room further...it actually looks like a nursery instead of a disaster now! As soon as we put on some finishing touches I will be posting pictures! Oh, and did I mention that we got our maternity pictures taken by my wonderful and talented cousin Lindsey who made the 9 hour trip from Indiana to North Carolina with my sister for the shower we had here? The pictures that she's edited so far have been amazing, and she tells me there are even more to come! I'm so excited to see them!
To top it all off, there have been some family issues that I won't get into (but I will tell you that they occupied a lot of my thoughts in the month of February), there was the nasty head cold that I got one weekend and the stomach bug that my husband had a few weekends after, and then there was the tragic death of one of my students just a little over a week ago (which to be honest I don't think I've fully come to terms with yet, because when I see her empty desk I still think she'll be coming back someday). I don't even know how to describe how awful it was to come to school the day after the accident and face a classroom full of students with questions and to not be able to answer them...I can always answer their questions and if I can't, I find the answer. Not this time. I couldn't face them, so although I felt like a complete coward, I left them in the hands of the crisis team counselors and sought out the room that was set aside for grieving teachers, and I was relieved to find that all of my teammates had done the same. It was a rough day during which the four of us who taught this precious girl walked around the school like zombies and took turns crying, but I was so glad that we were all there for each other, and what's more the students were there for us too. So many students have been scared to hug me because of my huge, pregnant belly (especially my students from last year who only knew me as my former tiny self) but on that day well all held each other for as long as we needed to. So many tears and so much heartbreak...I will unfortunately never forget that day. But I will also never forget how much I love my students, which was proven to me ten times over with the loss of one sweet girl, and I told them so with tears in my eyes the next day.
I'm not sure how to transition from that last paragraph, which is so sad, on to things a little bit more exciting except to say that life goes on for us left behind. My husband and I have been tasked with the exciting job of taking care of a boy named Ezra so although we will never forget those who have gone on to heaven, we must move on with our own lives. We have recently started attending classes on breastfeeding and child birthing, both of which scare me to death but are so fascinating to learn about at the same time. It's hard to believe that women have been breastfeeding since the beginning of time because during the class they make it seem sooooo complicated! I want to breastfeed so badly for so many reasons, the most important of which being my baby's health! I just pray that Ezra and I will be able to get the hang of it and that I'll have the perseverance to not give up! And then there's child birthing...um yikes! I'm kinda terrified of it, but excited about it at the same time. Actually, I don't want to think about that part right now...I'm still enjoying pregnancy and I'm not ready for this stage to end quite yet. Although I am currently 35 weeks and feeling huge. AND to make it even better, people are saying I look huge and won't make it to my due date...gee thanks people! Within the last couple of weeks I have gained some badges of honor from my pregnancy in the form of stretch marks...oh joy! I did all I could to prevent them, oiling up my belly multiple times per day, but when you go from very little to very not little it's bound to happen at some point. I'm trying to accept them, but it's a struggle. It doesn't help that my little boy is still a wiggle worm, constantly pushing stretching my belly even more. It's like he's trying to expand his space in there a little more by pushing on it and holding, which can be quite painful when he does it over and over and over again in the same spot all the time...he is a persistent little one! And still stubborn...my mother-in-law could not get my little boy to cooperate so she could feel him moving when she was here for our baby shower, and I'm not kidding when I say this kid moves all the time, but for some reason when someone besides David or I try to feel him, he immediately stops. Yeah, can you say STUBBORN? Our doctor said that he believes you can tell a lot about a child's personality by the way he is inside the womb...which if it's true means we will very likely have a hyperactive child who is both persistent and stubborn...I'm not quite sure we're ready for this...
P.S. I was going to add some pictures to this blog, but blogger is not cooperating with me right now...maybe another day.
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