A Very Long Week

I spent this week in student conferences for my 1301 classes.  Some sixty students later, I'm tired!  We've been over their papers, checked in to see how things are going, and once again, I find myself shaking my head at some of the things these students have gone through and are going through.  I've had students in the hospital, students whose children have been in the hospital, students who have been evicted, who have had their books and computer stolen, who aren't sure they can keep their financial aid, etc.  I think I sent five of them over to retention services this week (which I'm sure DN appreciates, as I gave all of them her business card). 

The rest of this week has been spent doing additional things.  I've been trying to read about assessment and get through a ton of materials I have about assessment, and I've been thinking about what I might write for Emerging Dialogues, which is an online journal/newsletter (I'm not entirely sure what to call it) about assessment that our director of assessment is an editor for.  I actually didn't have any meetings this week, though, which meant that I was able to spend my Friday at home with the girl.

But by the end of the week, I've been able to get other things that have been on the back burner done.  I'm writing an article on the Anatomy Act of 1832 (which allowed corpses that had been 'abandonded' at workhouses to be sent to medical schools for dissection.  Previously, there had been such a shortage of bodies, people were grave-robbing to get them, but this law meant that poor people had their bodies donated to science, whether they wanted it or not), and I was actually able to do some research on it this week.  I've even been able to sit down and edit a couple of chapters of my book! 

Speaking of book news, I've pretty much abandoned the sequel as it is and am starting over with it.  My main character just wasn't...well, honestly, enough of an asshole.  He wasn't as nice in the first book as I was writing him in the second, and that doesn't just change overnight.  That's something we've got to see happen gradually.  But as far as the first book goes, a friend of ours is going to design the cover for me, which I'm very excited about.  Now to just talk to my brother about putting me together a website...

My sister-in-law spent a good portion of the week in the hospital, thanks to her gallbladder, which has since been removed, and I know she's glad to be back home with my brother and my niece.

And tragedy struck near my hometown, when Officer Daniel Ellis of the Richmond, KY police department was ambushed and killed.  The entire community has just been shocked by the whole affair.  My alma mater is hosting the visitation and funeral and has suspended classes (at all campuses, no less) from Tuesday night through Wednesday afternoon to accommodate the proceedings.  They know precisely who was responsible for the whole thing--the man is in custody and will not be leaving...ever--but all I can think about is his poor wife and his little boy. 

Among other things, it makes you feel gratitude for what you have, particularly the people you have.

It's a grey, rainy day here in the Coastal Bend, the kind of day that makes you want to snuggle up with a book and a blanket and the baby--the kind of day that looks like it out to be cold, but is really just sticky and humid.  Right now, she's on her activity mat for tummy time and fussing about it, but she's getting good at holding her head up, and she could already pretty much hold herself upright when sitting.  And if you don't watch her while she's on her tummy, she will scoot herself right off her mat.

We taught her how to mimic us sticking our tongues out, and this week, she's started initiating it, sticking her tongue out first to get a reaction out of us.  And KC is so very, very close to laughing.  It's like she has the facial expression, but hasn't quite managed to get the sound out.  She's also had some better nights where she only woke up once--and then we've had other nights where she was up every two hours (and wasn't that fun with twenty some conferences the next day.  Gramma took her the next night so Mommy could get some sleep).   

She was also Wonder Woman for her first Halloween and was absolutely adorable.  She's growing like a weed, too.  She's outgrown her 0-3 clothes, not because she's fat, but because she's so tall.  Last week at her two month appointment, she was 23 1/2 inches long (and 11 lbs and 4 oz.).  My girl is growing and changing every day, and I look forward to what's next.

Back to Work

My girl is eight weeks old today, and it's amazing to me how much she changes each day.  She's learned to mimic people somewhat; if you stick your tongue out at her, she'll stick hers out in return.  She's gotten much stronger in the last week, lifting her head up far more, and if you hold on to her, she can straight up her whole back.  If you hold her and let her stiffen her legs out, she can put her whole weight on them (with support).

She's also smiling a lot more, particularly when she wakes up--she's just glad to see everyone.  Those smiles made it a lot easier to go back to work this week.  I felt horrible when I left for work on Monday.  I just didn't want to leave my baby, even though I knew perfectly well that she was just fine with her gramma and papaw.  But when I got home, I came in, and the moment KC saw me, she just broke out into a grin because her mommy was home.  That made everything worthwhile.  And she's just smiled more and more and more as the week has gone on.  Her hair is starting to come back in where she'd lost it--it's looking like she might not completely lose all of it and be bald until she's two (like her mama was).  Most of the time, I think she looks like me, but every once in a while, she will strike a facial expression and looks just like Dear Husband.  And she and her cousin have the same exact smile!

Sunday, we took her to church for the first time.  This lead to what is one of my favorite pictures of her so far--and definitely my favorite that I've taken.  Her Bunny had bought her a new church dress when they were here, and she looked positively adorable. We took her into church, and she was so good.  She just looked around at everything, and listened to the organ.  I had to take her out and change her and give her a bottle, but she never really fussed loudly.  We took her up to the altar rail, and Father M blessed her--he was tickled, I think.

And, as mentioned, Monday, I went back to work.  There have been a few bumps in the road, but they have either been smoothed out or are in the process of being smoothed out, and they weren't really unexpected.  I'm slowly getting caught up, and getting to know my students again, since I only saw them all twice before KC came along.  (I did show them the picture of her in her church dress, and they were all suitably impressed, as they should have been.)

My world lit class remains amazing.  They're so invested, and I barely have to do any work, because they go back and forth in discussion.  On the other hand, getting my American lit class to talk is like pulling teeth, and I'm trying to figure out how to really get them going.  I'm thinking about breaking them up into groups and giving each group a discussion question, and seeing what happens.  We're doing more poetry on Tuesday, rather than short stories, so we'll see if they do better with that.  And my 1301 classes are moving along, and they all seem to be pretty well involved in the class. 


Friday, there were meetings, and I took KC with me to the department meeting so my colleagues could all meet her, and again, she was so good.  I had to take her out to change her diaper twice, but she behaved so well, just snuggled with me, and looked over my shoulder at two of my colleagues while the meeting went on around her.

We were expecting a huge rain 'event' this weekend, and much of Texas did get it, something on the level of 12 inches of rain in spots, caused by the remnants of Hurricane Patricia and a low pressure system, but the clouds parted over town much like the Red Sea, and all the rain really went around.  It is windy today, but the high is a balmy 70 degrees, and I have the windows open.  (The cats love that.)

Saturday morning, my FIL left for home.  He'd driven down with my MIL, and then flew home.  He will be back at Thanksgiving, and Gramma will be taking care of KC, which makes me feel so much better.  It's wonderful having her here.  Saturday was also DH's birthday.  It wasn't celebrated with great fanfare, but DH said that it was amazing how different his priorities were.   It's yet one more example of how much things have completely changed in the last two months. 

I'm preparing for next week right now.  I've only had homework to grade this last week, and this upcoming week will see my first week with major assignments and work to deal with.  I'm also taking on some additional responsibilities at work, which I'll be able to talk more about next week.  This week, I was also honored by the college with a Disability Advocate of the Year award.  I don't know who nominated me--and I wasn't able to make it to the ceremony, but it made me feel pretty good about the impact I'm having here. 

And that's been the week.  There's no telling what the next week holds, but if it goes as well as this one has, I'll be pretty happy. 

Dreams

I've been having weird dreams in the short spans of hours that I sleep at night.  I've had weird dreams fora while, since before KC came along--probably starting in my second trimester.  They've continued since, often with some reoccurring themes.  (A tunnel space created by trees and plants?  At least I'm not dreaming about my teeth falling out again.)

Sunday night, however, I had one of those dreams that was so incredibly real and vivid that it's stuck with me all week in its entirety.

I dreamed I was at my mom and dad's house, and I came around the corner from the hallway to stop in front of the front door, because standing there was my Mamaw Ree.  It was a full stop, an almost jolting one, because all I could stammer was, "But you're dead." 

Mamaw just shrugged and said she had to see that baby.  So we settled her in to the chair in the front room, and I pulled up the piano bench to sit next to her, and she held KC and made over her and loved on her, and KC smiled and babbled at her.

Finally, Mamaw gave KC back to me, and told me that she had to go, and I began to cry, because I knew what it meant.  She was going, and it really was the last time I would see her.

And then I woke up, not because KC was making noise, but because the dream was over.  KC was asleep in her basinette next to me, and I looked up at the ceiling, but instead of wanting to cry, I felt an almost overwhelming sense of peace.

I don't believe in ghosts or astral projection or any of that nonsense, but if there ever was someone stubborn enough to bend time and space and dimensions to get to visit their great-great-granddaughter, Mamaw would be the one.

I may not have cried then, but I've felt like it now and then since, thinking about it, but I have a very firm picture in my mind now of Mamaw--as I remember her from when I was a kid--holding KC and calling her a piss-ant (just like she did me). 

---

I did update this blog last week, but as I finished it up, KC began fussing, so I never managed to put a link to it on Facebook.  This week has had its ups and downs, like any other week.  I go into my office tomorrow to meet with my substitutes and do my return to work paperwork, and I will be back in the classroom on Monday.

I am not suited to be a stay-at-home mom.  I know that.  And in academia, I couldn't take ten years to be a stay-at-home mom and then return to the field.  It doesn't work like that, even if I wanted it to.  So here I am, getting ready to go back to work...and I so desperately don't want to.  The Modern Mother Guilt Cycle (TM) strikes again.  It's not just that I feel like I need to be home and won't be.  It's that I know good and well that I would go nuts if I was, and therefore, feel guilty over that. 

Already, I know that the idea of 'having it all' is a myth.  You can have a lot, but something will always get missed through the cracks--and it's probably sleep or health or social life or something like that.  I'm seriously terrified of trying to figure out this work-life balance thing.  Balance?  What's that? Even on maternity leave, I've been constantly checking my work email--and been right to do so, as things would have slipped by me.  (Crap, I've got to get my book order for spring in tomorrow.)

The last year, I've always worked really hard not to have to take work home.  That meant more time in the office, but what time I spent at home, I was able to spend at home with Dear Husband and actually be more than just physically present.  I'm not going to be able to do that now.  And that means that I'm going to be working a lot from home, and I worry about KC growing up to find her mama always with her nose buried in her laptop, grading and working.  (I worry about KC growing up with her mama and her daddy having their noses buried in their phones, too, but that's something we're actively working on.)

I know I'm not going through anything any other mother hasn't gone through.  And hopefully, others will be able to read this and say "Hey, it's not just me!"  But for right now, the fear and anxiety are still kind of at the forefront, but I suppose I'll eventually figure it out.

Year 2: Back to School

The last few weeks have been eventful and interesting.  My summer session finished two weeks ago, and to be honest, I was sad to see that class go.  There were only six people in it by the time we finished, but they were a great group of guys who worked really hard and did a great job.  I had a lot of fun with them, and it was neat to see the Northwest Center, which I'd never been to before.  And a couple of the guys have signed up for my lit classes this upcoming semester, which I'm also looking forward to.

Last week was what I refer to as as my "in-service" week, though that's not an entirely the proper term for it.  Monday was convocation and our division meeting, Tuesday was my day to work express registration, Thursday was our professional development day, and Friday was our department meeting. 

In the meantime, I've been working on finishing up schedules and syllabi--and perhaps most importantly, lesson plans, as I've got substitutes coming in to teach while I'm on maternity leave during part of the semester.  I've almost got everything for my 1301 classes finished, so I just need to complete that (about two weeks of lesson plans more for there), and then get my lit classes together.  I'm teaching three sections of 1301 this semester,  American Lit II and World Lit I.  That said, I'm not entirely sure that American Lit is going to make, but we'll find out tomorrow--people can still register tomorrow, so it may yet make. 

We had a childbirth class Thursday on caring for your newborn.  Saturday, we were supposed to go to a getting ready for childbirth class.  This was complicated by the fact that yesterday morning, I spent most of the morning and part of the afternoon in the Labor and Delivery ward getting checked out to see if my water had broken.  It hadn't, but we missed the childbirth class entirely, and there's not another one until after Little Bit is born, so I'm bracing myself for some YouTube research, because surely, there's a video about it on YouTube somewhere. 

In the meantime, we've been preparing quite a bit.  The playpen is up, Dear Husband put together the crib yesterday, and the car seat is ready to go in the car and the stroller is together, which he is going to take care of later today after the weather has cooled off a bit.  Ninety-six degrees is a bit much to be fiddling with things out in a hot car.  I've got all Little Bit's clothes and blankets, etc. in the washing machine right now,   It's hard to believe that she might be that tiny....

And the truth is, she may not be!  I had an ultrasound on Wednesday, and she's already weighing in at 7 lbs, 2 oz., and the doc told me that we are going to have the biggest baby in the nursery, and there's some concern that her head, which in the best family tradition (on both sides), is quite a bit bigger than might have been expected--like a whole month ahead. 

I was disappointed yesterday that we weren't going to have a baby this weekend, but it's just as well.  I really need to get through the first few days of class--preferably the first week--before I go on maternity leave.  I'd like for my students to actually be able to see my face before I disappear on them for a while! 

I have been having contractions off and on, though.  Nothing regular, and generally not particularly strong, though they were stronger last night than they had been.  But baby is still a way off, and in the meantime, she's wiggling about almost all the time now.  So she and I sit in the recliner (which DH bought for me last weekend because I've been having heartburn so badly I can't sleep) and put my feet up and rest as much as possible right now.  I have a feeling I may be spending some of my office hours in the faculty lounge, where I can sit on the cough and put my feet up there.  It's not that I don't have my nice big comfy chair in my office....it's just that I can't really get in and out of it by myself right now! 

This does not mean that we are ready for Little Bit's arrival, by any stretch of the imagination, but I don't think we're ever really going to feel ready for her, so we're doing the best we can.  So we're on baby watch here--and at home, also waiting for Little Bit's cousin, and I'm going to be sitting back trying to rest as much as I can before she gets here.  It's going to be an exciting semester here, and while I'm not sure I'm ready for it to get started, it's here.

Summer: 31 weeks and counting

Not a lot has been happening lately, so I've taken a break from the blog, but things are starting to kick back up a bit, so here I am.

The house did not work.  The inspection report came back with way too much that needed fixed--I'm sure the owners were horrified when they got it, because they've already put a lot of money into the house, an,d now they have a lot more they need to do.  It was too bad, as we really liked it, but there's not much help for it.

Not getting it means that we've put off finding a house until after Little Bit arrives.  The timing now would just not be right putting us moving at the beginning of the school year and right before she comes, so we're just going to wait until after she's here before we start looking again. 

My Summer II class made, with nine people.  There are only eight in the class, as someone waited until the middle of the first class meeting to drop the course.  It meets twice a week in the evenings for three and a half hours, but because there are only eight people in the class, I doubt it's ever going to go the full time, because it just doesn't take as much time to get through everything.  It's a 1302 class, which I really like teaching--honestly, I enjoy teaching 1302 more than 1301, but that's because I'm a research nerd.  I've got a student in the class that I've had before, so it was nice to see a familiar face, and the people up at the northwest center, which is where I'm teaching, are really nice.  And I get paid extra for it!  This class will end a week before school starts; that week before school begins will be taken up by in-service activities--convocation, meetings, professional development day, etc.

Other than that, I've been spending time working on craft projects.  Some quilting, some cross-stitching, some crocheting.  I've always got more projects going on than I need to have going on, but it gives me plenty to do, and to be honest, the actual quilting on a quilt (that I've been working on for longer than DH and I have been married) is probably going to have to wait until winter, because it's just too hot to have a quilt covering my lap while I work on it. I've even learned how to applique this summer!

But I also have some baby projects--I bought muslin to make some swaddling blankets, which at 1.97 a yard is a lot cheaper than actually buying blankets.  I've found some patterns for burp clothes and bibs as well, so I'm going to be working on some of those for Little Bit and for her cousin.

I'm starting to have trouble moving around--to be honest, I'm spending a lot of my time teaching actually sitting down.  Little Bit definitely is running out of space, too, if the movement I've been feeling is any indication.

We also got to see her face for the first time with the 4D ultrasound. 

I cried when I saw her, and I think it threw DH for a loop.  My whole family swears up and down that she looks just like me.

My mom and dad ordered her crib, which arrived this week, and my in-laws have a bassinet that they will bring for her to sleep in until she's big enough for the crib.  I went out to the Baby Depot at the Burlington Coat Factory and got some things for her yesterday--some more bottles, more onesies, a little healthcare set with the nasal aspirator and a thermometer, and some tiny little headbands with bows.  I see people with hats for their babies, and to be honest, I'm not sure if she needs those--it's so hot down here, does she need a hat?  I need to get her some of those little mittens so she won't scratch her little face with her nails.   We still need to get a playpen and a car seat and a stroller.  We've been trying to decide whether or not to get the car seat/stroller combo, or to go ahead and just buy a big car seat that will grow with her for a while.   The only things we haven't really gotten have been diapers and formula.  I do have some newborn diapers that were in a diaper bag of supplies that one of my students gave me, but until we get closer to her being born and I have an idea of how big she's actually going to be, I've been kind of reluctant to get them.  Same with the formula--I don't want to get a big container of something that's going to upset her stomach. 

My Gran and Bud have sent a whole bunch of baby things--a tub, for one (yay!) and bath essentials, changing pad and liner, and a swing.  I think she's going to be pretty well outfitted.

Right now, I've been put on a low-sodium diet by my OB/GYN, because I've been retaining too much fluid.  DH has been really good about helping me find things to eat.  Being a picky eater is a pain in the butt--please don't think that I want to be a picky eater, because I don't. I just can't help it.

So that's what's going on in our neck of the woods.  The weather has hit the hellacious part of the summer--over 100 degrees and very humid, so I'm spending a lot of time inside. 

Don't expect weekly entries through the rest of the summer--I'll update as needed, but regular updates will probably return once school starts back up in the fall. 

Weel 2.17: When it rains....

This week has been interesting.

The Coastal Bend has had some very interesting weather in the last week.  Monday and Tuesday nights were stormy enough that neither Dear Husband or I could sleep--it's hard to sleep, after all, when it's raining sideways, and I began to understand why our neighbor had put his hurricane shutters down.

Over two days, we got ten inches of rain.  Ten.  Naturally, this meant that the garage flooded again.  But it didn't just get some water in it, the way it has in the past--spreading over a quarter of the garage.  No, we had almost half an inch of water over most of the garage. 

And we still had boxes out there.  Cue the wailing and gnashing of teeth, and a trip to Walmart for a new mop and bucket, and sweeping water out with the rubber broom.  All well and good.

Wednesday morning, things were still pretty bad.  In fact, they'd gotten worse.  We couldn't make it out of our driveway to get to school on time--and I had a final exam to give at 8:00, but we very simply weren't going anywhere.  It didn't help that our electric went out about 5:15 that morning either.

We waited until some of the water drained off and headed into school.  Most of my students were there for their final--I'd told them all to wait, as I would be coming in a soon as I could, but I had some who were similarly flooded in to their houses--one student couldn't get out until well into the afternoon.  Campus was also flooded, and I have to admit, while I've had weeks of school cancelled for ice storms, even seen finals postponed....I've never had to wade to get to an exam before.  And wade I did, right across the parking lot, as the English building was pretty much surrounded by water. 

We'd let the landlord know what was going on, and he showed up at our house Wednesday evening, not long after we got home to find that we still had no electricity.  It finally came back on about nine, after AEP Texas dug up the lawn of one of our neighbors to get to something, and fortunately, thanks to a very well-insulated fridge, we lost nothing but the milk. (The same cannot be said for some of the boxes in the garage.)

The landlord came back out Thursday--I'd run to school to give the final makeup exam and to turn in my grades (yay!)--and did some other maintenance work around the house as well, like taking care of part of a fallen tree in the backyard that was too large for DH to get without a chain saw, as well as graciously changing out the chandelier in the front entryway for a light that doesn't hang down and upon which DH cannot continue to concuss himself.  He's dug a small ditch out by the side of the house, which come Friday, and more weather, served very well.

And here is where I would like to say how much I miss Bill Meck, the chief meteorologist from Lexington's WLEX-18.  DH was working graduation on Friday, down at the American Bank Center, and having headed down to the information center, he realized the weather was getting bad and called me, which was good, as I'd fallen asleep on the couch.  They'd issued a tornado watch, not that I would have known, because there was no alert that came through my phone (unlike the EAS flood alert that scared the crap out of me Wednesday morning), and because Corpus Christi apparently doesn't have storm sirens.  So I turned on the TV to one of our local channels and just wanted to bang my head against the wall.  Unlike other times, they didn't go back to regular programming--thank goodness---but still.

So I went and moved stuff around in the pantry so I had room to hide.  There'd already been a funnel cloud over my neighborhood earlier in the week--which again, we never knew about until afterward because there was no siren and, oh, yes, we had no power.   (The NWS office in Corpus Christi really needs to do a better job.)  There was a funnel cloud over the children's hospital downtown--which was right down the street from the arena where DH was, and then they had the hook echo on the radar over our neighborhood.  Two tornadoes were confirmed that day, though neither were in town, and eventually, it all went out to sea.  The street flooded again, but the garage did not!

But all of this has made us determined that we need to get out of this house as soon as possible, so we went to the bank Saturday morning and should be approved for a home loan later this week.  Now we can start looking in some kind of earnest.

I turned my final grades in on Thursday.  The emails about how my students "can't afford to have failed English" started promptly Friday morning.  (That's what happens when you don't complete one of the major assignments, imagine that.)  My grades were not stellar this semester--out of about a hundred students, I gave out five As, three of which were in my sophomore lit course. My composition students did not do well at all, and I was more than a little disappointed.  That said, DH says that the college graduated ~750 students with 900 degrees or certificates on Friday night, and that's not too shabby. 

Summer classes start the day after Memorial Day, so in just a little more than a week.  I'm teaching Mexican-American Literature during Summer I, and I'm more than a little apprehensive about it.  After all, my ethnicity can be described as Extremely Irish, but I can teach students how to read the literature, and that should be the most important thing, I think.

DH has just gotten in from mowing the lawn.  We finally broke down and bought a gas-powered lawnmower last week, which has made DH's life much easier, since he can use it to mow the backyard, which he couldn't before with the manual, since it kept getting stuck in the sand.  That meant he was spending every evening out in the backyard with the weed-eater until the charge ran out, trying to keep the grass down.  He doesn't have to do that anymore, thank goodness.  He's now attempting to cool off, as it's already oppressively hot (and humid) here, even though it's only May.  What August will look like doesn't bear thinking about.

So it has been an eventful week here, to say the least.  But I have the next week off, which I will partly spend prepping for my Summer I course, but also partly vegging out.  I see maternal-fetal medicine tomorrow morning, so I should have new pictures of the little one tomorrow, which I'm very much looking forward to, particularly as I've started to really be able to feel her move about and kick this week.  (She very much disliked the storms, by the way.  Takes after her mommy that way.)

Week 2.15 - Finally

This is really the first chance I've had to sit down and write up my blog this week.  Things have been very, very busy.  This is the last week of classes--finals start Thursday (thank goodness!), but there's been a lot going on. 

Friday, we had our yearly assessment meeting, where we went over papers by a random selection of sophomore lit classes to see how they were stacking up to our program outcomes.  I brought Derby pies to assessment, because I'd discovered that no one down here knew what one was.  They were a hit, which was great.

This weekend and Monday, I worked on formatting our program review.  I'm almost done--we have a few tweaks yet to make, but a document over 200 pages long is almost complete, and thank goodness.  I think we all could throw up the next time we hear the words "program review."  That said, we have some recommendations that are getting passed along up the chain, and hopefully we'll be better off for it.

Naturally, there's also the end of the semester catching up on stuff that I've got to do.  I did cringe a bit earlier this week, though, as my department chair stopped to tell me that even if I wasn't giving a final exam--which was fine, since they do have a final assignment that kind of works as an exam--anyway--I had to have my students come in during the final exam period from now on.  *sigh*  I felt like a grad student again, to be honest.  And I'm not in trouble or anything--I didn't know we were supposed to do that--but it just served to underscore once again that I'm still junior faculty, for all that I've learned over the last year of teaching here. 

In the meantime, Mogo has become very active in the last several days, particularly in the evenings.  I've been drinking iced tea by the gallon, and I have to admit to indulging in the stereotypical pregnant snack--pickles and ice cream.  Shut up, I didn't have them together, just one after another.

I've also been very grateful this week for my kitties!  The bugs are driving me CRAZY.  Flies keep getting in the house, much to my chagrin, though Dear Husband has been going after them with the Bug-A-Salt, which is exactly what it sounds like--a salt gun he shoots at flies.  (I'd much rather clean up the salt than deal with the bugs.)  His cat is also quite the flycatcher.

They'll tell you that everything's bigger in Texas.  This is also true of the bugs.  What's creeped me out has been what is referred to in polite company as a 'palmetto bug.'  What it is, in reality, is a very large, very scary, flying subspecies of cockroach.  Naturally, the assumption is that your house must therefore be nasty and not clean.

Yeah, no.  Palmetto bugs are simply part of living along the coast.  Everyone has them, no matter how clean their house is (though SCRUB SCRUB SCRUB OMG SCRUB EVERYTHING), and everyone hates them.  And what freaked me out was when I noticed that Ding was watching something over my head in the bedroom...and looked up and saw one crawling along the wall.

I shrieked, Ding kept close watch, and DH came and rescued me and flushed the offender down the toilet.  Ding then sat in the bedroom for several hours afterward and watched to make sure it didn't come back, and cuddled up to me--as in the picture to the right--to protect me.

Trust me, I'd *much* rather find the dead one in the floor that they've caught than a live one, and I am telling you, while I know people have been concerned about the cats when the baby comes, the cats are staying, because I am way, way, WAY more worried about the bugs than I am the cats.  WAY more worried.  I feel much better with the deadly hunters on watch.

Sorry, just had a full body shiver.  (A friend of mine who is a recent transplant to Orlando is having the same issues and the same reaction.)

And note that this does not include the mosquitoes!  Mosquito season in Texas goes from April to November, and they're already fogging neighborhoods.  This is ridiculous, and like the palmetto bugs, the mosquitoes here are again, much, much larger than their counterparts in Kentucky or Tennessee.  The kitties have been chasing them too, but we will definitely be investing in a mosquito net for over Mogo's crib. 

It has not all been doom and gloom here, though.  We did go out to the beach on Friday afternoon and spent the afternoon out there, which was undeniably pleasant.  I got a little sun, but not burned, thanks to copious applications of sunblock (see, I'm learning).  We took a little cooler out so we had drinks and a snack, and read on the beach for several hours.  We were expecting the water to be cold, so DH hadn't brought his swim trunks, but it was actually quite warm once you waded out into it, so he will bring them next time.  I don't want to get into the ocean while I'm pregnant, though apparently, the college has an amazing pool, and one of my friends has suggested using it during the summer, as it will be cool and help buoy my weight.

We also took a break Saturday afternoon to go see the new Avengers movie, which did not quite live up to expectations, but was still entertaining, nonetheless. 

We have an end of semester get together for the department this weekend--I'm going to make a key lime pie and some brownies for it.   (Yes, after once again scrupulously scrubbing my kitchen.)  Like I said, finals start Thursday (thank goodness!), and all of my students have their papers due this week, so for finals WEEK, I only really have presentations and a final exam to give, which isn't too bad, though I'll be taking most of the week to grade all of those papers.

And really, the last week has been really good. I've been able to see students really making strides over the last few weeks, and if not academically, then certainly personally.  I've been really proud of some of my students who are working past some really hard times.  There are some who probably need beaten about the head with a reality stick too, but most of them have figured it out.  I'll know more when I get my grades all situated, which is how I can really judge how I'm doing.

And of course, as soon as I'm done, I start putting together syllabi for my summer courses.  Mexican-American Literature and ENGL 1302, here I come.  (But after a couple of weeks break.  Trust me, I need them.)

Week 2.14 - Oh, my head.

I stayed home from work today.  I had a migraine a good portion of yesterday, and it had not abated by this morning--in fact, it had gotten worse and was continuing to do so.  Dear Husband took one look at me this morning and told me to call in and go back to bed, which I did.

So I slept for a while this morning, got up, ate something, graded, then went back to bed.  The migraine is doing its lurking thing now, but I hope that it will go away soon.  Usually, when weather comes through, the headache disappears, but since we seem to be the only part of Texas that didn't get inundated with severe weather last night, I still have it.  Better a migraine than a tornado, though. 

Most of the time, I'll suck it up and go to work anyway--of course, those are the days that I can medicate with a couple of Excedrin Migraine and a pot of coffee (and Advil if necessary)--not really an option right now, when a couple of Tylenol and one Ale-8 is all I dare do.  It got worse because this one settled in behind my eyes, which made things look weird.  I definitely had no business driving.  I thought for a while this afternoon that I was going to also lose everything I'd eaten today, but it all stayed down.

But like I said, it has gone back to lurking.  One loud noise would bring it back, so the TV has stayed off.  Proof that I've not felt well--my furry children have not left me unattended all day. 

But I did manage to finish off giving feedback for my student papers--I'd already done most of it this weekend, and I only had a bit to do today, so I got that finished.  Also got an email from the dean to let me know that my plagiarism appeal student had abandoned the appeal process--which I'd guessed when I'd gotten the email from DH's office that said student had dropped the course (which rendered all of this a moot point).   I suppose discretion (or dropping the course) is the better part of valor and/or not getting a more severe punishment handed down by the college.  That is at least one thing off my plate for this week--thank goodness!

Last week was more of the same slog through the end of the semester, but we're getting there.  I was mistaken about getting an ultrasound--I probably won't have another with my regular OB for a month or so, but I should have another one at maternal/fetal medicine in about three or four weeks.  My appointment went well.  She told me to try to stay hydrated and not get over-heated, as that's been partly to blame for the light-headedness and dizziness, and no, don't stand up for long periods of time if that's what causes it.  In other interesting news, I've also lost weight--I actually weigh less now than I did before I got pregnant.  This was concerning DH and I a bit, but she says that as long as I'm not spilling ketones (which would indicate that my body was cannibalizing muscle tissue) and that the weight loss is not rapid (which it is not), then she wasn't worried about it.  Apparently, some women do this and end up weighing less after they give birth than they did when they started.

(The cats are changing shifts.  Cat has left the couch for the chair, and Bergie is taking up his post.)

Eczema has been driving me nuts, admittedly, but there's not a lot that can be done about that, other than using plenty of lotion and staying hydrated, which I'm trying to do.  It's coming up on my fingers again, which is irritating in the extreme.  Again, normal pregnancy stuff.  Apparently, I look gigantic, though, for only five months, but Mom said that she went through the same thing when she was pregnant with me--at five months, people were assuming she was due any day.  (I had a lady at church say the same thing to me yesterday.  When she found out I was due in September, I could see her cringe.)  I'm going to be enormous by the time September rolls around.

But I am feeling the little one move more and more.  She started moving about in church yesterday again--once that organ starts, so does she.  A couple of times, I feel like I'm taking a foot to an internal organ.  One of my students, who's dual-credit and in high school, and so about sixteen, asked me a few weeks ago, "Dr. Stewart?  Is it, like, weird being pregnant and having something inside you?"  I laughed and said "Yes.  Yes, it's very weird."

(My father is sending me text messages with bad crossword puzzle puns.  I got this one - "Navel buildup?" Answer: Lint.  He said to give Dusty a drink of Ale-8 for a reward.)

I picked up another class for summer--a two-night a week night class at the Northwest Center.  It's not very far from actual campus, and having a bit of extra money will come in handy with the baby on the way.  That will run from the beginning of July through the second week of August, and then school starts again two weeks later, I think.  So I'll have lots to do this summer and lots to keep me busy.

But for right now, I'm waiting for this semester to be over.  Two more weeks of classes and one of finals, and then I am happily, blissfully off work for three weeks.  Just got to get there.

Week 2.13...the week that would never end. (But did so pretty happily.)

Guys, I've got news for you.  Last week was kind of rough.

It was rough in the way that a day spent outside in mosquito country is rough.  A hundred little things that all line up to make you miserable. 

Sunday: We'd just gotten back from San Antonio, where we'd had a blast.  We went to bed, only to be woken a few hours later by what was perhaps the single most frightening (non-tornadic) thunderstorm I've ever been in.  The lightning was incredibly intense, and the wind just buffeted the house.  Dear Husband got up, unplugged the computers, came back to bed, rolled over, and went back to sleep.  I, on the other hand, laid there awake for an hour while it stormed.

Monday: I got to my office to an email from one of my students.  This student has had a very, very difficult time this semester, and is one of the ones that I've been constantly remembering in my prayers.  Life just got a bit more difficult for her.  Say a prayer for her. 

I went to see maternal-fetal medicine, and the doctor was incredibly...un-reassuring?  Certainly, he was not someone whose bedside manner was one that I appreciated it, and I was very grateful that he, at least, will not be delivering this baby! 
But I got to see Mogo, which was awesome.  This was the anatomy scans, so I got to watch her for almost forty-five minutes while they took almost a hundred pictures.  She kept her little hands in front of her face most of the time, but I could see them flex (and count all five fingers), and she already has big feet.  (That's Mommy's girl.)

Tuesday: I had to confront a student over a plagiarism case.   This is the second instance with this particular student, and said student was quite angry with me for the zero I gave the paper.  After all, unlike the first time, there was no copy/pasted material from elsewhere.  However, there were no in-text citations, and given that this was the second time? 

Tuesday also saw an email to the entire faculty list-serv from a disgruntled (former) student that I would really, really, love to parse down for you, but which I really can't.  Suffice it to say that I feel jaws were dropping all over campus, and it's possible someone may end up getting sued for libel.

Furthermore, Tuesday had another horrible storm that morning.  This flooded the garage again, despite the "fix" of a gutter that the landlord installed on the back of the house.  That's how hard it was raining, but it also managed to be raining sideways.  I ended up excusing absences for all of my students who couldn't make it to class, as the weather was that bad in spots (and I had students emailing me that they were flooded in, complete with picture documentation.)

Also, Tuesday let me know that we were going to have to register the Jeep in Texas...and therefore pay taxes on it.   Again.

Tuesday also saw me with another student who is having some issues.  I spent more than two hours with him in my office, in retention, and in counseling.  It was difficult.

Wednesday: We discovered that the garage had flooded.  I also had a terrible batch of papers turned in and many of them did not pass, which is always disheartening--but most of those that didn't pass didn't pass because they didn't follow the instructions.  (Thursday, I was informed by one of my students that he never gets on Canvas for anything.  I wanted to bang my head against the wall.)

Thursday: Plagiarism student informs me that he is intending to appeal his grade, and then spends the rest of the week pestering me for information about how to do so.  *pulls hair out*  Student has until tomorrow to get it in, as five business days are the limit. 

I also had a meeting Thursday afternoon, which went just fine, but I've come to the conclusion that people do not need to state the obvious.  Yes, I'm getting more and more pregnant by the day.  That does not mean that you need to draw attention to my expanding waistline in a room full of my colleagues.  

A new teaser for the new Star Wars movie dropped Thursday, which made me feel better.

Friday: I slept in.  I just gave up and slept, which believe me, I needed.  I finally dragged my butt out of bed about eleven-thirty, and that was when my week *really* got better.  I'd just finished eating something when my Gran called me to tell me that she and Bud were in San Antonio and would be in Corpus in about three hours.  (She said she'd called then to surprise me to make sure I wouldn't rush about doing things to get ready for them.  I ended up just managing to do all of that in a shorter amount of time.)

So Gran and Bud came by, which was the highlight of the week.  They've been on one of their adventures across the country, so they came in, Bud played with the kitties, they got some grapefruit off the tree.  The neighbor came over--because I know he just couldn't stand it that someone was over here and he didn't know who they were--and mistook Bud for my daddy.  Also, Mama, I've sent your Alamo magnets home with Gran. 

Gran and Bud had also brought six cartons of Ale-8, just in case they made it down here (they weren't sure that they would), so I now have 144 cans of Ale-8 left, as of today.  That ought--with any luck--run me through to the end of my pregnancy.  We went out to eat at Harrison's Landing, which had been recommended to me by a student, and is right by the Corpus Christi Yacht Club out in the marina.  It was very nice!  I had a summer salad that was to *die* for--I've never had feta that was that good.  DH had amberjack fish, which was interesting.  It was pretty firm, which I like better than a flaky fish.  (And Gran and Bud were there, so there's proof that I tried it.)  Gran had shrimp.  There were four on the plate, and that was all you needed.  These shrimp were almost the size of salad plates.  And Bud had fish and chips (only with onion rings)--fried catfish, which he said was also good.

They managed to get out of Corpus before the storms came through.  We spent part of that evening with a tornado watch down here and some nasty storms.  There were some weak tornadoes, but they all either went north of us, right between Corpus and Victoria, which was where they were staying, and one south of us.  They had to evacuate the Fiesta de la Flor festival downtown - this was a big festival celebrating the life and music of Selena, the pop star.  She was from Corpus Christi and was murdered here as well.

Saturday, DH spent the day cleaning out the Saturn, in preparation for selling it. He and his boss are taking it to the mechanic tomorrow to get it checked out.  Trust me, cleaning out that car was going above and beyond the call of duty. 

Sunday, we overslept and didn't make it to church, and given the week we'd had, I don't know that you can blame us!  But Sunday was also my parents' 31st wedding anniversary.

And today, I had so much to do, I didn't get this blog entry out in the morning.  But I can say that I am, for about five minutes, caught up with my grading, and I have a journal interested in an article I'm working on, so I have until July 15th to send it in.  I imagine that this is going to end up with me spending a day at TAMUCC using their library, since Del Mar doesn't have a lot of library resources (we're tiny---comparatively speaking--and you don't have a lot of really serious research going on here). 

So that has been the past week.  I'm really hoping that it calms down this week.  I see my regular OB tomorrow (and I should have even more new baby pictures, as they told me at the beginning that I would have a 20 week ultrasound--with video!--and believe it or not--I'm 19 weeks along.)  I have two and a half weeks of school left before I finally get a break, and believe me....after this week, I could use one.

Week 2.11 - An actual update

The baby wants pineapple again.

This is problematic only because I have to pace myself.  I love pineapple, but if I eat too much of it, I'll give myself mouth sores.  But I'll let you guess what I just had as an afternoon snack.

(Also, sausage balls may be the perfect food.  Protein, dairy, and carbs, all wrapped up into one.  And so delicious.)

Anyway, in what has actually happened this week, versus a post that is me complaining about my neighbor.  I finished conferences with my 1301 students last week, so conferencing is finally done this semester (yay!)  I have no idea what I'm going to do about conferences for next semester, except perhaps have them when I get back to catch up with my students. 

My Brit Lit students have done Milton the last few class sessions, which has been great fun and in which I've been able to show off a bit.  We're getting into the realm of literature that is my expertise.  This class runs through the long 18th century, which is one of my areas, so from here on out, I should be able to do a lot with the material.  Certainly, I won't have to prep so much.  (Though we're doing Dryden tomorrow, and that I will have to bone up on a little.)

Mogo did her jumping about thing in church again Sunday, though more so, and I suspect it had something to do with the brass quintet we had for Easter.  I think the organ, and the brass (and her daddy's voice) resonate at a frequency that she can hear, and she gets very excited.  Of course, that meant I was once again trying not to laugh through the homily.  But Easter service was very nice--the church was packed, and I hope our priests took a well-deserved post-Holy Week day off yesterday.

Of other interest has been a continuing argument that's been going on on the Victoria listserv, centering around a manifesto put forth by something known as the V21 Collective.  If any members of the V21 Collective are on the listserv, they've been curiously quiet as their manifesto has been--well, not torn to shreds...Victorians seem to absorb some of the manners of the era...but certainly debated strenuously.  With the exception of a email at the beginning of the argument (which I really didn't say much in), I've stayed out of it and just watched as scholars far more important than myself have been debating this for the last two weeks.  It's been quite an eye-opener, and it is very interesting that not many are jumping to defend this manifesto. 

I've also sent a paper abstract out to a journal with an eye for their special issue.  Wish me luck.

I've mentioned that I'm on the program review committee for the department, and that has continued to be an enlightening experience.  My section is fairly easy, as it deals with curriculum mobility and integration--basically, how do our classes fit in to other programs at the college and across the state and can people transfer to a 4-year university easily and with minimal loss of credit (the answer is yes, as Texas has a state-mandated core curriculum, and all but one of our classes have been approved as core courses.)  My other colleagues have been dealing with trickier issues, like cost-effectiveness and personnel management.  It's been interesting to hear their reports about how our program is running--which it's running just fine--but it really gives you an inside look at how the nuts and bolts of this stuff really work.  Most faculty, I don't think, ever give much consideration to the actual dispersal of funds and where they go (other than to perhaps complain about funds going places we think they ought not go).  So learning how the finances of not just the department but the college itself has been very enlightening.  I'm not sure I ever want to be an administrator, but it's good to know these things.  The more knowledge the better, and certainly, the more the faculty knows about these sort of things, the better we can support our faculty administrators (like department chairs).

(I just realized how very academic-sounding that last sentence was.)

I have an appointment with maternal fetal medicine on Monday to do the anatomy scan for the baby, so say a prayer that everything continues as it has gone--just fine.  I have been feeling dizzy and weak here and there--standing for too long can really make the room swim--so it's something I want to discuss, but my reading says that it's not uncommon for that to happen in the second trimester, particularly for women who have low blood pressure (which I always have), because your blood pressure actually lowers in pregnancy (because you have to make more and sometimes it doesn't keep up, etc.).  Anyway, I'm now trying to keep a snack and some water with me at all times, so if it's a blood sugar thing, I can spike it back up, and if it's a dehydration thing, I'm combating that constantly--and that's all I can do.  But I should have new pictures of Mogo on Monday.

There was also no joy in Mudville this week--or I should say, couches were set on fire in Lexington when my Wildcats lost, and we were quite upset here.  (Duke winning the championship only added insult to injury, though Dear Husband said that if we had to lose, better to Wisconsin than Duke, and I think he's right.)  In any case, it's now baseball season, and my Reds won their first game yesterday, and I get MLB at Bat free through T-Mobile, so I can listen to all the games--and listen to them from WLW, so I'm getting Marty and Jeff (and listening to the same commentary that my daddy is).  And baseball is so calming after the excitement of basketball season.  (Some would say boring, but they don't know what they're talking about.)

So now you see why yesterday's post was cut in two.  It hasn't seemed eventful, but looking back, a lot seems to have happened.  But since it's Tuesday when I'm writing this, maybe next week's will be shorter?  (I doubt it.)

Week 2.10: Spring into Summer

Much to the chagrin of family and friends who are living where it is still snowing, we went to the beach yesterday. It was still a bit brisk (I took a hoodie), but it was otherwise quite pleasant.  After church today, we sat out by the bay, which was even nicer.  While there was no sand, it was warmer because the breeze doesn't come off the bay as strongly as it does the gulf.

I'm writing this as I wait for the dryer to buzz.  The house has hit its mid-semester mess, and frankly, we have a lot of work to do in our living room to make it liveable again. Dear Husband is doing all the heavy lifting (both literally and figuratively), and frankly, I feel a bit useless.  I get a little dizzy if I stand for too long--my classes are beginning to get used to me teaching sitting down most of the time--so he's certainly doing things like washing dishes, and he mopped all the downstairs this week too.  He's a good husband.

Last night, UK played Notre Dame in a real nail biter.  He watched about two minutes and went upstairs, and I watched until the end of the first half, at which point, I couldn't deal with it any longer, and figuring that no pregnant woman needed to be that stressed about a basketball game, turned it off.  DH actually went to Walmart not long before the end of the game so he wouldn't be obsessively checking the score.

I had conferences with all my 1302 students this week, and while I've said this on my Facebook this week, if you have even thirty seconds, pray for one of my students who is having a very, very rough time right now.  Conferences with 1301 students takes place this week, and I have some midterms to return to my British Lit class (they turned in papers last week too, and they were also very nice.  I was pleased).

But we're getting closer and closer to the end of the semester.  My 1302 students turn in their annotated bibliographies on Monday, and I, personally, am crossing my fingers that none of them forget a major component to it, as they don't get to revise and turn things back in after they've been graded anymore, so failing the assignment would be a big blow to a grade if they forget something.  I've been trying to stress reading the instructions, but I don't know how much of that is actually going in.  I told them that if they needed me to look at an entry, I would, but I've not had a single email, which isn't particularly encouraging.  On the other hand, maybe they've all figured this out perfectly and aren't having the least bit of trouble with it!  (I just checked, and only one has been turned in thus far.  Nope, not encouraging at all.)

In other news, I had two committee meetings on Friday--the program review committee, which meets every week now until the end of the semester, and the department development committee.  The program review is going very well, I think--what we're learning is that, yeah, we're just as awesome as we thought.  :)  In all seriousness, while the department is doing a good job, I think we're going to have some recommendations that will mean that we do an even better job moving forward, and the department development committee came up with a lot of great ideas for colloquia and things that we can discuss together as a faculty to also better serve our students.  I find this awesome, too, because it's nice for us to know that we have a plan to continue improving, and that's really helpful.

I had a check up for Mogo this week, and all is looking good.  Her little heart is just beating away, and I am starting to feel her move a little bit.  This morning, we made it to church for the first time in a while (and isn't it a lot easier to have Palm Sunday in a place where there are actually palm trees, rather than snow!), and one of the first things the priest said was that "Now we'll have a Baby Jesus for the Christmas pageant!" I also felt Mogo kick the hardest I've felt--there was no denying that it was, in fact, a kick--when the organ started up this morning.  I laughed.  I couldn't help it, because right after that first note, wham!  Apparently, she likes church.

The last bit of news is that it's time for Camp NaNoWriMo.  To keep people writing throughout the year, National Novel Writing Month (November), gets a boost during April and July (I think it's July), where people can set their own word counts and go from there.  I've signed up with a daily word count of 500 words, and we'll see if I can make it.

I've just heard the dryer buzz, so it must be time to end this post.  We're hitting the busy point of the semester, and this may be the last day I have without grading piled up on my desk, so I'm going to enjoy it.

Week 2.9 - Post-Spring Break

No, I didn't have a blog last week--I was having too much fun at home over spring break.  Today's is late because we got back about 7:30 last night, and then I got up and went to work this morning and went non-stop from the time my feet hit the floor until I got home. 

It's certainly not because nothing happened last week.  On Friday, while we were stuck in traffic in Houston, we discovered that Mogo is actually a Mogette!  We are, in fact, having a little girl, which has filled everyone with delight and has convinced Dear Husband that he is doomed to be wrapped around her little finger.  I, for one, am rather looking forward to watching this. 

What's also neat is that April 1st, we should find out if we are having a niece or nephew!  Middle Brother and his wife, Mouse, are also having a baby, and she is due two days after I am.  Youngest Brother shook his head and wondered why MB and I always have to do things at the same time--go to college, get married, and now have babies.  Naturally, my parents are thrilled.

We kept getting asked if we saw bluebonnets on our drive, and we didn't, though there were tons of Indian paintbrushes, particularly on the way back.  But when we got home, there was one small patch of bluebonnets by the big concrete ditch that drains out to the laguna.  I was thrilled, and hoped to get a good look at them this afternoon--only to find when I got home that some un-poetic soul had mowed them over!

We spent half the week with my mom and dad and half the week with DH's mom and dad, and had fun all the way around.  I got to see all of my brothers, and we got to see all of DH's family, and a good time was had by all, I think.  BIL's birthday is this week, so it was nice that we were able to see them in person for that, too.  My MIL made me some maternity clothes while we were there, too, and I have a feeling I'm going to need them sooner rather than later, because Thursday, I think, Mogo decided that she was done hiding, and my belly POPPED.  I am suddenly very clearly pregnant.

What's even more exciting is that I'm pretty sure I'm feeling her move around some.  It's a little early (though not outside the realm of possibility, according to my books), but I keep feeling something inside that feels a bit like a cat very gently touching your arm to try to get your attention.  I usually feel it when I'm hunched over something, too, so I don't think she has as much space in there, and that's why I feel it.

On the agenda this week is an appointment with the OB/GYN tomorrow afternoon, finishing student conferences, and Friday meetings, including one over our program review, which I worked on some this afternoon.  I've been flipping back and forth through our Big Book O'Data from Institutional Research and have been reminded why I barely passed statistics and why I am so definitely not a math person.  (There's a reason my class grades are based on 1000 points, and it is purely because it makes the math easier for me.)

The kitties were glad to see us when we got home, and when I got home this afternoon, Cat curled up with me.  I'm not sure if she's purring or snoring, but whichever it is, she's doing it very loudly so everyone knows just how pleased she is that I'm home.  Bergie had drowned his catnip toys in the water dish again, but that wasn't out of the ordinary at all.  Nothing was broken this time around (at least nothing that we've found yet), and the house hadn't flooded, which we were very grateful for, particularly since the Coastal Bend had so much rain while we were gone, so all is well in our little world.  The high was 80 today, so things were quite pleasant. 

In South Texas, at least, spring has sprung and the grass has riz.  I wonders where the birdies is?

Week 2.7: The Hurrier I Go, the Behinder I Get.

I realize my blog entry is late this week, but that's partly because I usually write my blog entry on Sundays, and we were without power for a good bit of yesterday, for no discernible reason.  It was the second time this week we'd been without power--the first during a gale that blew in Tuesday (?) night.  Then the power blinked again last night, just long enough to wake me up so I couldn't go back to sleep.  

By the way, Daylight Savings Time is a joke. 

In any case, I was already sick and grumpy this morning when I left the house, and then I was late to work because of an accident that occurred likely because of the rain (we're getting some 3" through tonight), and then a fog with 1/4 mile visibility.  I was not the only one late to work, though--I got here seconds before my department chair did.  Everyone was late today.

Then I got a load of this week's to-do list, and all I want to do is curl up and go back to bed--not just because of the lack of sleep last night, but because I have so much to do.  (Naturally, instead, I'm writing up a blog post.)

On the agenda this week:

Finish grading summary and response essays
Regrade some of the food narrative essaysWrite a draft of my section of the department program reviewComplete my faculty self-evaluation formOrder my books for summer and fallGrade food problem essaysGrade revised reviews
Give and grade a Brit Lit midterm exam
There is one other benefit to going straight back to work--I don't lose a semester towards tenure.  After this year, I have three years before I go up for tenure, but if I take leave for a semester, that time extends, because I haven't taught or done any college service during that time.  This phenomenon is part of the reason that women with children lag behind every other group in academia.  For example, this article from The Atlantic explains: "In academia, for example, married women have a 12 percent lower probability of obtaining a tenure-track position that married men and a 22 percent lower probability than childless women."  The myth that The Atlantic debunks is that married women with children don't work as hard as others.  This article from The Chronicle of Higher Education describes some of what I'm in for. 

Grade assorted homework this week

That's all that's come up so far. Naturally, things will get added to this list as the week goes on.  In the meantime, in spite of the meds the doc gave me, morning sickness returned with a vengeance this morning before I even got downstairs.  

I think it's pretty much decided that I'm going to go back to work about a month after Baby comes along.  I had a discussion with my assistant chair this morning, and it's not too much of an effort to get me a substitute for while I'm gone.  It will let us keep most of my income through the fall--which we'll need with a new addition.  I'll just put together all of my lesson plans in advance and hand them over to the adjunct to teach while I'm out.  

My MIL has graciously offered to come and stay with us to help take care of Baby during those first few months, and I'm very grateful.  It means we don't have to put a newborn in daycare, and it helps alleviate another concern of mine as well.  When you've got a mental illness already, the possibility of post-partum depression looms very, very large over you.  Going back to work sooner rather than later might help keep me from that, and I feel like having my MIL around is an extra layer of security.

Not that I'm still not conflicted by this.  I'd love to be able to stay home with Baby all semester, but I just don't see it being possible--we haven't built our savings back up after having bought the car (which, frankly, with Baby coming along, was a very wise investment, especially as I don't want to put a baby in my tiny little Saturn or DH's Focus).  I find it incredibly batty that we are the richest country in the world, yet the United States is one of only three--count them, three--countries that don't offer paid maternity leave.  It's unconscionable.  And what's interesting is that I read an article last week about the company Vodafone, who is now voluntarily offering paid maternity leave to its employees, and says that they'll actually save money doing it, because it means they don't have to spend money on recruiting and training workers to replace those who leave their jobs after having a baby.  

Fortunately, unlike the author of that article, I have a very supportive spouse and plenty of family to help.  That doesn't mean it's going to be any easier.  At this moment, I think I'm the only female faculty member here who will have a child this young.  And while the college allows up to 24 weeks of maternity leave--twice that required by federal law--it's still unpaid.  

There's so much that I'm confused about right now, and I know that this isn't anything that any other woman hasn't ever had to face before, and it is helpful to know that I'm not alone.  And in anticipation of possibly having to go back to work sooner rather than later, I did manage to make my schedule next semester be either mornings only or afternoons only, so I'll be home as much as possible.  Still, I feel like I'm going to be a bad mom for going back to work this early--and yes, I know that is societal expectation talking--either you're a bad mom for going back to work, or you're a horrible drain on society if you stay home. (Screw patriarchy.)  Doesn't mean I don't still feel bad.  

In any case, it's time for me to get back to work in the here and now.  Only this week stands between me and spring break, and with any luck, my next blog entry will be written in Kentucky.

Week 2.6 (or 12): The Mommy Track

As nearly everyone knows by now, we're having a baby!   I am twelve weeks along-finally past the first trimester. That  said, I am still having some morning sickness though the doctor has given me some medicine that has helped immensely.

 We're not been to church in awhile, because of the morning sickness. l finally felt well enough to go this morning. but realized that I didn't have anything to wear! I've been wearing jeans to work, because none of my good pants fit I and it's too cold, even here, to wear a shirt, so Dear Husband took me out this morning to buy my first piece of maternity clothing; we got some black leggings that I can wear under my dresses that do still fit.

 We don't know whether it's a boy or a girl yet, but we should find out in a couple of weeks. Someone wouldn't keep still during the twelve week ultrasound, so they are doing a blood test to check for a few things, and the test has the happy side effect of telling us the gender. In the meantime, we're referring to Baby as Mogo. For those curious, it's a Green Lantern joke.

So things have certainly been in a whirl at our house!  My dad has called me Rabbit my whole life, so he has decided that his name for Baby is going to be Dustbunny, which tickles me no end.

The plan is for me to take maternity leave in the fall.  I'd thought about trying to take a month off and getting people to sub for me, but really, that presents quite a few problems.   It's not good for my students to have something like that happen, and honestly, I can't even imagine putting a newborn into a daycare, particularly when there are so many people who aren't vaccinating their children!  (Ours will be fully vaccinated, let me assure you.)  So I want to hold off until I go back to work in the spring, and hopefully, I'll be able to coordinate my schedule so I'm home as much as possible.  I have a lot more flexibility in my schedule than DH does.  One of my colleagues suggested trying to teach night classes, if possible--then I could trade the baby off with DH when he gets off work in the evenings. 

We should be home for spring break in two weeks, which is very exciting.  We're driving up, which has turned out to be a fantastic idea, as that will mean that I can bring more Ale-8 back.  Naturally, I brought back four cartons of regular and eight of diet, and of course, I shouldn't have the diet!  The thing is, Ale-8 has really helped my morning sickness, and I simply cannot abide another regular ginger ale.  (I feel the same way about peanut butter sandwiches right now, too!)  Food aversions haven't been too bad--though DH had to stop cooking sausage in the morning and switch to bacon.  Also, this child really likes pineapple!  I also find myself seeing pictures of food--a friend had a picture of her homemade Chex mix on Facebook yesterday--and my mouth started watering.  Naturally, did I get the stuff to make it?  Of course not.  (To be fair, DH is on his diet, and I would rather not have it in the house and make him feel bad, either.  He would not begrudge me it in the slightest, but his carb cravings have started, and I feel like it would just be mean.)  (Although cereal sounds good.  Dammit, there I go again!)

As far as school goes, things are going well.  I'm on the program review committee, which is a slightly more involved task than I thought it would be, and it's something I've never done before.  I'm responsible for writing part of the report--we have to have this finished by the end of the semester--and it helps us decide how to move forward with the program, discover our strengths and weaknesses, etc.  My job is to look at curriculum mobility--how are our classes helping students in other fields, and are our students able to transfer to other schools, etc. 

My British Lit class has been a delight this week.  We read Christopher Marlowe's version of Faustus this week, and honestly, I could have just sat back and never said a word and watched the class teach itself!  They were so in to the reading, and they argued over interpretations--it was truly fantastic.  We start Hamlet this week.  (Next week is time to work on their papers and their midterm exam.)

So that's what's going on at our house! 

Week 2.something. Whatever

This week has been...interesting, partly in ways that I can't discuss, but suffice it to say, I was very glad when this weekend rolled around.

But let's see.  Monday, my new computer came!  We bought a new Surface Pro 3 for me to use, and it's already been really helpful, particularly with grading, and I've been able to do things with it that I wasn't able to do anymore on my laptop, which has been really wonderful. 

Tuesday, we got a call from H&R Block that said the IRS had rejected our return, and would we come back in this weekend?  Cue mild panic, though everything I read online said that this usually happened because of a small clerical error.  Fortunately, that was the case for us--it was because our tax preparer had not done the ACA paperwork correctly in our taxes, but that may be what happens when you have a 900 year old woman prepare your taxes.  However, all is well, the IRS has accepted it, and we are, in fact, getting money back--not as much as we might have, since we did have to pay back some of our ACA subsidy from when we bought insurance on the exchange (and then subsequently found new jobs that pay a lot better than the old ones), but we are getting money back, and we didn't have to pay through the nose for health insurance last year, so life is pretty good there.

Wednesday, my British Lit class asked me why Margery Kempe cried so much (I had no answer for them on that one).  That afternoon, I lost my temper with my 1302 classes, because neither section came prepared, and even those who were prepared weren't going to talk. So both sections got sent home early, but in order to ensure that getting out of class was not a treat, they all got extra homework assigned.  That said, Thursday, my 1301 classes did their summary and response peer review, and they did fantastically.  I thought that my 1301 classes might not be the most engaged ones, but last week, they were certainly doing better than the 1302 classes.  I'm rather looking forward to a discussion of rhetoric and advertising with my 1301 classes on Tuesday, as I think that will be fun.

Saturday night, Dear Husband brought me home flowers.  :)  He's a sweetheart. 

I'll be honest and admit that I've spent quite a bit of time this weekend playing around with my new computer (including reloading Minecraft on it, which it runs exceedingly well).  Not that I don't have other things that I can (or probably should) be doing, but why not?  (If I've also beaten all the Sudoku and Mahjong challenges on my computer for February thus far, that's also my business.)

There's really not much else to tell.  Keep an eye on this space, though--next week, I should have some exciting news to share. 

Week 2.4 - Happy Valentine's Day!

So, yeah, Valentine's Day was yesterday, but I'm rather still celebrating because this should be the last blog entry I write on this laptop, which is continuing to slowly fall apart.  My new Surface Pro 3 should be here this week.  We finally decided to go ahead and get it, as things are really getting desperate in the computer department here.  I'm not entirely certain that I'll be able to get a full post out, to be real honest.  Even my travel mouse, which I've been using since the trackpad broke, is starting to die on me.  In comparison, I feel like the steak that I bought my husband doesn't really compare, though he did seem awfully happy with it last night.

In true romantic fashion, we spent our day yesterday running errands (which was a mistake, traffic was awful).  We stopped in at the Corpus flea market and I was at least comforted by the knowledge that no matter where you go, white trash is always the same.  The flea market itself was disappointing.  Then in an incredible gesture of romantic feeling, we went and got our taxes done.  Because our income went up, we had to pay back a small amount of our subsidy for the health insurance we purchased on the exchange last year, but that was completely okay, and we still ended up with some money back!  What's more, we are officially no longer under the poverty line, and that feels pretty darn good.

I had a horrible experience Thursday afternoon with the insurance company.  I had some tests done that got sent to a lab that was out of my network--which I had no idea, the doctor's office had their own lab.  Naturally, I got the explanation of benefits, and freaked out when I thought we were going to be on the hook for some $8000!!  What followed was a series of calls to the insurance company--I talked to a very kind woman who sent them back requesting a renegotiation--then to the doctor's office, who gave me the phone number of the lab's financial services.  Then I talked to a very nice woman there who assured me not to worry--those prices were just what they charged the insurance company.  When they got the final numbers back from the insurance company, they would send me a bill that was adjusted and charged me just $25 per test.  That was a huge relief.

School has been relatively humdrum.  We're entering into the slog of the semester, but unlike the fall, we will have a nice break in it with spring break in about a month, which Dear Husband and I are looking forward to quite a bit, as we plan on coming back to Kentucky for a visit.  My British Lit class have decided that they rather dislike Chaucer--they've had a horrible time trying to work through Middle English, and I have a feeling that next week is not going to be much better, as we're doing more Middle English, but then we'll transition into Early Modern English literature, and things ought to get a bit easier for them.  My 1302 students turned in their food narratives, which I really should be grading this weekend, but without a working mouse, that's going to be difficult.  They turned them in last Wednesday, and I try to have things back to my students within a week of receiving them, so I will still have a few days this week to grade at work and get them back to my students.  Then my 1301 students have assignments due on Tuesday, so this week is likely to be grading all the way through.

It's rather warm here--we went out to the beach yesterday.  Naturally, this week is supposed to be the first time in years that Middle Tennessee gets any significant amount of snow.  This offends me greatly, but I blame what DH refers to as his "winter weather shield."  (It's not entirely effective--we've gotten snowed in when we were in Kentucky before.)

I don't think we have any plans for today.  I'd meant to grade, but again, I'm slightly surprised that I've been able to get through this blog post.  So--

I hear the ice cream truck.  It is February.  This is an affront to nature.  I give up.

Week 2.3 - Siiiiiick

This week has been problematic at times.  I ended up getting sick Monday afternoon and having to go home early.  Tuesday morning, I was still feeling bad, but I got up, intending to go, teach my classes, cancel my office hours and come home.

Naturally, that was when I locked myself out of the house.

I had to wait half an hour for Dear Husband to make it back across town to let me in, all while standing out in the cold and the wet.  By the time he got there, there was no way I was going to make it to class on time.  So I called the office and cancelled my classes on Tuesday.

By Wednesday, I felt pretty good, but Thursday afternoon, the ick came back, and I've been dealing with it ever since.  It's not been pleasant.  You can always tell when someone is feeling bad at my house too, because Ding, who normally doesn't give anyone the time of day, decides she needs to mother you.  The left is Sunday night-I was sick then too--and right is yesterday.

Being sick has made me a bit of a grump.  I've been cranky and forgetful and downright pitiful.

Despite having to cancel classes this week, things have gone pretty well at school.  My British Lit class is amazing--we were having a discussion about Sir Gawain and the Green Knight on Wednesday morning, and one of my students asked a question.  I opened my mouth to answer, when one of my other students began bouncing up and down.  "Oh, I know this!  I read about it yesterday."  Not only is my British Lit class actually enjoying their reading--they're doing their own research to learn more about it!  I'm just astonished.  I know I certainly didn't do that as an undergraduate.  And they got excited about Beowulf!  (I can hear my mother wondering what's wrong with them.)  No one gets excited about Beowulf except medievalists, and even then, I think it can be hit or miss.

We're doing Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales this week.  I told them to read what was in the book, but to also try to find a modern-day English version to go along with it.  Middle English is hard for me to read too, and I know that's probably going to get me kicked out of the English club or something, but most of my students aren't English majors, for one thing, so I don't see a whole lot of reason to make them slog through Middle English.  Those that are English majors are almost assuredly going to have another chance to take a whack at Chaucer, and as I've been working with them on understanding the changes between Old English, Middle English, and Modern English, I think that I'm hitting the high points they really need to know.  I'll be more comfortable with my teaching when we get up to Milton and beyond, as the long 18th century is one of my specialties.

Meanwhile, my 1302 students did their peer review over their food narratives.  I have enjoyed that so much.  They read quite a few examples of food narratives--basically, essays that told the story of a food that was important in the life of the author--and they're trying out writing these kinds of essays themselves.  Peer review went fantastically.  It's so amazing how even just talking about food can get people to come together.  My 1302 classes are really meshing together, and what I've seen of the food narratives have been really wonderful.  Some of them have been downright hysterical.

My 1301 classes, on the other hand, are definitely going to be the challenges this semester.  A few classroom management problems have cropped up that I'm trying to nip in the bud, and I've not been thrilled with the quality of work I've seen thus far.  Time to go back to my lesson plans and figure out what I can do to make them a little more accessible.

I've also been doing a fair amount of stressing this week over my computer.  My laptop has already been having problems--DH had to replace the power something or other in it several weeks ago, which was a horrible ordeal.  Now the mouse touchpad has stopped working.  Meanwhile, DH discovered that the plastic holding one of the lid hinges together is cracked, so I'm having to be very careful opening and shutting it.

At the same time, my desktop is six years old and still running Windows XP, which Microsoft no longer even supports.  So in looking at everything, it's probably time for me to get a new computer.

Naturally, I'm hesitant.  I'm always hesitant when it comes to the possibility of spending a lot of money on something, but even more so at the moment, as we know we have some unavoidable expenses coming up before much longer.  My laptop will hold out for a bit longer--though I'm not sure how long.  We've been looking at some replacement options, and have started trying to figure out if I just need a stopgap for the time being, or if we should go ahead and make the investment and get something that will replace both my laptop and desktop at the same time.  It's a conundrum.

Also adding to my frustration this week has been the fact that I've been trying to find a primary care physician for the last two weeks.  I don't know what it is about doctor's offices in Corpus Christi, but they really don't seem to care to 1) answer the phone or 2) call you back.  Heaven forbid you had an emergency.  I don't know how you'd get in.  I gave the two offices I called until Friday, and when I didn't get a call from them, I'm now just going to start going through the list of primary care physicians provided by my insurance and hoping one of them will answer the phone.

I should also point out that I have the greatest BFF ever.  I'd ordered a couple of things with my Amazon gift certificate for Christmas, blithely using my account, and not Shane's, which we usually use because he has the Amazon Prime account, and waited for it to arrive.

Only it didn't.  And after several days, I finally got online to discover...I'd had it all shipped to our old house in Murfreesboro.  *facepalm*  Fortunately, Snarky Writer went over there, the new people who live there still had the package, and they gave it to her and she sent it on here.  It had some new crochet afghan books--well, new might be stretching it.  They're some crochet afghan books that I'd had before but lost during the 2010 flood, and one in particular, I'd really wanted to replace.

I think that's all the news this week.  DH is upstairs still asleep.  He was having insomnia problems last night, so he's sleeping late this morning, but I think I hear him beginning to stir.  The fact that he's slept through a morning of Bergie announcing his conquering of the catnip mouse is kind of astonishing in and of itself.  Hopefully, we can get out a bit today.  It's in the low 70s in South Texas today, and while that means it's probably a little too cool out at the beach, it's too pretty to waste a day like today inside.