Happy Halloween!

Halloween is not one of my favorite holidays, but being a teacher makes it a lot more fun because the kids are so into it.  Many of the teachers get into it, too.  As a staff we brought spooky treats to share.  I made Rice Krispie pumpkins (thanks, Nicole, for the idea!).  We also let the first graders wear costumes if they want to and this year our team dressed up as baristas from Starbucks.  It was a fun day!

Yummy pumpkin treats

First grade teachers

Third Trimester

This past week we recognized we were three months from our due date.  That sounds like kind of a long time, but thinking in terms of already being in the third trimester makes it seem like it's coming fast.  Someone recently asked me if we are ready and that's a hard question to answer...

Mentally, we have been ready since we got pregnant.  If you know Jake and me at all you know that we are planners and, consistent with our personalities, we planned ahead to be prepared for a new little addition to our family.

Emotionally, we are getting more and more ready each day.  As far as pregnancies go, mine has been pretty simple and I really can't complain.  In fact, I think I will actually miss this stage of our baby's life.  We are at a really fun part where baby moves all the time and we can make connections will our little bundle and witness his or her growth through feeling (and now seeing!) the little kicks and somersaults.  We love "snuggling" with the little peanut and it is nice that Jake can be a part of this as well.

Physically, we are getting there.  After a minor fiasco ordering the crib and changing table, they arrived last week and we were able to get those set up.  We still have a lot that we need in order to actually be prepared for baby, but it is coming together slowly and has been really fun to get everything ready.  I am also growing physically as the little one continues to grow.  Here are pictures from weeks 26 and 27...

We plan to enjoy the next 13 weeks and anticipate the third trimester will be just as enjoyable, exciting, and quick as the first two!

Something in the Water

My school is a baby factory this year.  There are five of us who are pregnant (yes, 5!), one teacher leaving in a few weeks to adopt a baby girl from the Marshall Islands, and two more teachers who shared photos of their brand new grandbabies over the past week.  While it is definitely a bit of a distraction from work it has truly been a blessing to have such a great support system.  We celebrate the joys of pregnancy, giggle about the less pleasant parts, and share special moments, new insights, and questions.  Every pregnant woman should have such great friends to share in their experience! 

Westwood Mommies-to-be

Sara (1st grade) - due March, Kristen (1st grade) - due March, Kristin (1st grade) - due January, Kathy (4th grade) - due December, Keri (art) - due any day now!

The Bump

Before getting pregnant, I always imagined that I would be one of those on-the-ball moms who took a picture each week or at least each month in order to track the baby's growth and would then make a beautiful collage detailing the joy of pregnancy.  Then reality hit and there wasn't much change at first and then we were busy and it always slipped my mind to stop and take a picture. 

Well, now it's week 25 and we have the first official "bump" picture.  While we can't go back in time to get pictures at each stage, we still have great memories!  Cross your fingers that this will jump start a third trimester chronicle of baby's growth... these will probably be the most fun pictures anyway :) 

Conferences

Conferences are exhausting.  There is no other way to put it from the teacher's perspective.  It is always a challenge to teach all day and then talk to parents until 8:30 in the evening, but even more so being pregnant.  Regardless of the long days, though, it is such a blessing to have this opportunity to check in with families about how the year is going and to build strong partnerships to help support the students.  One of the other benefits is seeing old families around the building.  After working all year to build relationships, it is hard when families move on and I no longer connect with them anymore.  So, conferences are also an opportunity to say hello and check in with them.

This year, that was especially nice because many of them were noticing the baby bump and commenting about that.  I received several hugs and had to share one conversation...  A sweet Vietnamese mom whose son I had last year in kindergarten was congratulating me and asking about the pregnancy.  She asked if I was eating well.  I assumed she was wondering if I was eating healthy so I told her I was trying and then she said, "From behind, you don't look pregnant!  You need to start eating more!  Eat anything you want."  I told her she is welcome to come visit my classroom any time :)

Toothless Wonder

While that is probably an okay name for the baby-in-progress, this post is actually about my first graders.  One of the best things about switching grade levels and having a full day to teach is the extra time I get to read aloud.  It is the calmest part of the day and it is pure joy to expose students to hearing and responding to good literature.  Right now we are in the middle of Junie B., First Grader: Toothless Wonder by Barbara Park.  (Maybe I was a little loose with the term "good literature", but we just love Junie B.!)

In this story, an older student tells first grader, Junie B. Jones that there is no such thing as the tooth fairy and that it is actually a tooth witch who leaves money for the teeth so she can eat them.  Well, this makes sense to Junie B. because why would the tooth fairy leave money if she wasn't going to use the teeth for anything?  This leads to a "stumper" in which she and her friend Herb try to figure out why the tooth fairy would leave money for teeth.

After reading this section of the book, I asked my first graders if they knew why the tooth fairy leaves money for teeth and I could not resist sharing their priceless responses:

- "Maybe she takes them and remakes them for new babies."
- "She probably collects them."
- "Well, the tooth fairy has a boss who tells her to go get the teeth."
- "I think she turns them into grown-up teeth that grow in later."
- "Maybe she uses them to make her castle home."
- "Her boss actually doesn't have any teeth so she collects them to fill his mouth."

I think first grade might be even better than kindergarten with the creative little thinkers I have in my class this year!

What's in a name?

Yesterday one of my first graders (who I also taught last year in kindergarten and have known for almost a year) told me, "Mrs. Schulz, at home my family calls me by my middle name."  What?!  That was quite the shock after calling him by his first name for so long.  Well, we're working on changing what we call him at school and it's an easy enough fix, but it got me and a colleague talking about funny name stories with former students and I jokingly told her I don't want to name the baby.

While we clearly are going to give our little one a name and we think we have some pretty good ones picked out, it is a bit of a stressful process.  As a teacher, so many names remind me of a particular child I have known and I have experienced some interesting nicknames.  It's also hard and overwhelming to think about what will fit our child for their entire life.  How do people do this??

Well, we have also had some help.  One of the baby's dedicated aunts provided us with a long list of suggestions.  Bless her heart for researching unique names and including the meaning behind each one. 

Who knows what we'll end up with, but you can be sure that baby's teacher will know what to call him or her on the first day of school!