The Most Beautiful Sound in the World

Today I heard the baby's heart beat. It is such an amazing thing to see that little blink on the ultrasound screen and hear the sound of another life beating inside of you. The baby is 6 weeks and 5 days along, and everything looks great. I am due October 11th. 10 days after my birthday. I hope he or she is my birthday present. My grandfather, my dad, and I were all born on October 1st. It would be so cool to have a 4th generation born on that day. Delivering 10 days early wouldn't be a bad deal either.

Amazing

Amazing. That is all I can say about my students yesterday. They were amazing. Of my 130 students who took the test, 75 were still testing at 1:30. After 5 hours of testing they were still going strong. My last student finished at 5pm, an hour after the last bell rings. You should have seen his pencil. It started out the normal length, but by the end of the test, it was no more than a nub. I think I am going to frame it or something. He had a PILE of pencil shavings on his desk from sharpening it again and again. Amazing.

I don't know if they passed but I can honestly say I don't really care. They busted their butt on that test yesterday. They did everything I taught them. They were amazing.

So now we have like four days of movies. Movie days are amazing.

Scary.

Today my 7th graders are taking the writing TAKS test. Scary. I think they are ready. They seem to care. I am unusually not stressed about it. But when I see them not working in about two hours, I am going to start panicking. But surely they will work. They know how important this is. It is out of my hands now. Scary.

The scariest part for me right now is the prompt. Last year we were unbelievably lucky with the prompt, "Write a composition about your favorite memory." It was perfect. This year I know the prompt is going to be something horrific like, "write a composition detailing the pros and cons of the war in Iraq." Or "Write a composition about the importance of finding the cure for aids." In reality those would never be the prompts, but something like "Write a composition about an important decision you have made" could pose an equal threat to a 7th grader's mind. Scary.

They will be fine. They will. They have to be.

From Mason

When I asked Mason if he wanted to put anything on my blog(try explaining a blog to a three year old sometime), he said this. "All I want is someone to play in my room with me. I like to play blocks, wedgits, and I love to color, and write, and paint, and read books and watch a movie. My favorite movie is Toy Story. And playing games is fun. Candyland is my favorite. I want to build a fire with my daddy. That's all. Oh, and I love to drink coke and I love to eat candy. I love playing in my room. I love to play with my farm. And I love to play in mommy and daddy's bed."
When I asked him who he loved and why, he said, "I love daddy because he always bonks his head to make me laugh."
"Where is your favorite place to go?"
"Petco."
Favorite Food - Enchiladas
Favorite Team - Spurs(Troy is grinning somewhere)
What are you scared of? Crocodiles

That was all I could get from him.

a dishy situation

I am having a stand off with my dirty dishes. It started because I was out of dishwasher soap. Yes, I have normal dish soap, but any excuse to not do the dishes works for me. So, right now there are about three meals of dishes stacked in my kitchen. That sounds a lot worse than it actually is. I don't cook either so here lately "meals" consist of pb and J or Spaghettios. But nonetheless, there are quite a few dishes piled up in there. I wonder if Troy would just let me throw them all away and buy new ones...I am just so dog tired at the end of the day. Okay, I am doing them tonight and I am cleaning the whole house tomorrow. I am. I promise...maybe. I mean sleep and rest is important to a pregnant woman...

Mason

It just hit me that I haven't written anything about Mason, my son, in my blog. How sad. So here is a snapshot of the little guy.
He invented his own good night kiss routine for he and I. He holds my face with his chubby hands, kisses me on the lips, the nose and then one hard smack on the forehead. It is adorable.
He has a collection of chapstick that fills an old coffee can. I don't know why he carries them in a coffee can. He just does.
He now chews bread, sandwiches, crackers, etc into the shape of a gun to shoot "monsters and alligators."
He calls me Sugarmuffin, daddy sugarmonkey and himself sugarbear. He has names for almost everyone else as well. The funniest is the cat's - sugarmouse.
Every morning he tells me which car he wants me to drive to work. It is quite funny. I don't listen but he is so adamant..."I love you but, momma, TAKE THE MAXIMA."
He told me the other day that I should come to school with him. He said he would share his naptime cot with me. I almost cried.
He made a "picnic" in our kitchen yesterday which meant dragging every blanket he could find and laying them perfectly on top of each other in the middle of the kitchen floor. When I told him it was time to clean it up, he said, "But I want the new baby to have a picnic." The "picnic" is still there.

I can't believe I get to have another little miracle of heaven. How amazing it is to be a mother. It is so undescribably hard while being so unimaginably wonderful.

Hunger

Hunger has taken over my body. I am always hungry. No, that's a lie. Immediately following a meal I am not hungry. About 15 minutes later I am. And it's not like normal hunger. It's weakening, nausea inducing, painful hungry. My husband would say that this is probably "all in my head" because I know I am pregnant. He means well. But he does not know my stomach. Right now, I am drooling over the thought of my salad that is held hostage in the teacher's lounge. I cannot imagine how I will make it the next 8 minutes of stupid advisory. I even ate breakfast this morning and have thin wheats(no, not wheat thins. Those are for people who don't mind working and can spend money on name brand crackers) on my desks to keep the really bad pain away. But thin wheats can only do so much and, apparently, for me, that isn't much. Okay only five minutes till lunch.

Maybe I am having twins...or maybe I am just Jenny.