Jennifer’s

So, this little corner of my life has been neglected of late.¬† It’s quite odd, really.¬† I have plenty of things to write¬†about: Isabella continues to amaze us each and every waking moment with her humor, intelligence, and sweetness, there’s work to rant about, there’s the awkward social moment my husband got me into, there’s the new baby/second pregnancy thing, and of course, all the lovely, lovely fashions I mourn I will not be able to wear in the upcoming months.¬† And yet, even with a two hour prep in the middle of the work day, I find myself using that time for what it was intended so as not to linger after school or to drag anything home.

1) My school schedule is cake this year, have I mentioned that here?¬† I teach a Fashion Design class, a Life Facs class (common sense life skills that apparently most parents no longer feel essential to teach their children so the state does in hopes that all those bottom feeders will at least know how to sign those welfare checks), and honors English.¬† My fashion class is not really even work to me; I enjoy planning, teaching, and grading the student work.¬† Life Facs is such a joke that I generally leave the grading to my TA and the planning is done by another teacher who has taught the class several times.¬† She passes along what she’s doing the following week, I copy it, give it a glance, and then just b.s. my way through the lessons.¬† English is something I’ve taught since day one, honors now for eight years, so I could never plan and be just fine.¬† So far, the most I’ve had to do at home is read a couple chapters or go over my teaching notes for a class!¬†

You would think this would make me enjoy my job more.¬† And I suppose I have to admit it is far less stessful than years past, but it doesn’t mean that I enjoy shaping shapeless minds and dealing with parents who must overcompensate for everything any more than I have the last decade.¬†

2)¬† I am 3 1/2 months pregnant.¬† I never experienced morning sickness or crippling exhaustion.¬† The worse I’ve suffered, so far, is a nagging cold/sinus funk that never leaves.¬†¬† It has presented itself in coughs, runny nose, sore throat, and gunky eyes but this is all preferable to hacking up at that mere thought of food.

I am, however, suffering from extreme jealousy.  Why you ask?  For a very, very silly reason.  I am ready to train for another marathon, but obviously my body is preparing itself for an endurance event of another sort.  I have several friends who are in the midst of training and while I really hope all goes well, I cannot help but wish I was joining them.  Which is just crazy because hello: new life in May and the rest of my life to train for a marathon.

3)  A few weeks ago I received an email from Gap with regards to their maternity line.  It emphasized that their current line was designed with pregnant women in mind: the need for casual comfort.  I looked at the clothes and immediately got fired up.  For the record, I do think Gap has some great, comfortable maternity wear; I may or may not have dropped a few dollars on some stuff during the recent Friends and Family event.  However, what I was taken back by was that fact that Gap, like most maternity lines, assumes that comfort means t-shirts, cotton pants, which are glorified sweat pants, and a general lack of uniqueness or styling.

It’s no secret that I love clothes, perhaps to a fault and somewhat vainly.¬† I love feminine detailing, ruffles, unique design/construction, and pieces that aren’t just run of the mill, picked this up at Old Navy.¬† Being pregnant throws that part of my personality for a loop.¬† Right now all is good because I can still wear my normal clothes with the exception of a few shirts or dresses that are more tailored.¬† However, the end draws nigh, I know, and then I will be stuck with the shapeless maternity wear that every store, that I can afford anyway, calls fashionable…Oh, J.Crew, why don’t you do maternity wear?¬† I feel like you and Jenna could get this right.

Where is the materntiy version of this:

or this:

4) Two weekends ago we moved Isabella’s big kid bed into her room, which means currently her bedroom is more of a storage area and less of a bedroom.¬† To give you a little perspective: her crib is shoved against one wall, the big kid bed (a twin with a trundle) is in the middle of the room- we’ve pulled the trundle out so it is between the bed and the crib in the event the little monkey rolls over a little too much-, and her changing table/dresser and the big kid dresser (a tall, five drawer beast) are against the other wall.

Isabella is beyond thrilled about the bed.¬† When we settle in for the night she says, “Do you see my big kid bed?¬† It’s so pretty; I like it so much.”¬† The most thrilling part, however, is that now she can just get up as she pleases.¬† This is partly our fault because we had been doing naps in the big kid bed to get her used to sleeping in there and had never really talked about not getting up when you awake because a two hour nap is acceptable.¬† However, she now assumes that this means it is okay to climb out of bed, pad down the hallway, stand by my side of the bed, holding Gloria (a stuffed hippo), and announce, “Hi, Charlie!”¬† (I am Charlie; she is Lola from the hit series Charlie and Lola.)¬† The good news is that even though she has somehow managed to climb out of the bed (in a super dark room), walk down the hallway, and awake me from a deep slumber she is, in fact, still sleepy herself.¬† I just scoop her up, whisper in her ear that I love her, but it isn’t okay to get out of bed in the middle of the night, tuck her back in, and within a few minutes she is out again.

We are going on eight nights in the big kid bed.  So far she has slept a couple of nights all the way through without suddenly appearing by my side of the bed, a couple nights it has happened once, and a couple nights it has happened twice.  Is this a learning curve?  I can remember getting up in the middle of the night to awaken my parents or to crawl into bed with them, but in my mind, anyway, that was generally associated with an illness or fright.  Isabella is simply getting up because she can.

I’ve heard of people locking their kids in at night or putting a baby gate across the door to prevent the kid from exiting if they get up.¬† I don’t know that I’ve reached that state yet.¬† Right now it’s no big deal to pick her up, tuck her in, and go back to sleep; however, I don’t want to create a monster and I do want her to learn to stay in bed.

Any suggestions?

This entry was posted on Monday, November 23rd, 2009 at 5:04 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.