first baby #2 purchases

This poor babe. If it's a girl, she'll have endless hand-me-downs from Alexandra. If it's a boy, endless hand-me-downs from all my girlfriends here in NYC who ALL have boys. I guess I'll have to buy him/her something new, right? I found it:




Can't decide which one I like more, so I might have to go with both. Beware all friends pregnant with #2--you'll probably get one, too!

Aren't you glad you're not teaching? NO.

Now that y'all know I'm pregnant, I can post about all those pregnancy things.

I have had so many folks say to me, "Aren't you glad you're not teaching while you're pregnant?" (FYI, I'm on sabbatical to write my dissertation this semester) and, surprisingly, my answer is a resounding NO. I LOVED teaching while pregnant. I was treated like a goddess in my school. Kids rubbed my belly, never tired of asking me questions about my pregnancy, and were so unbelievably kind to me it was pure heaven. My co-workers were awesome, too, but it was the complete compassionate treatment from even the craziest and most thugged-out of students that really made it an amazing experience.

Once, as I was walking down a crowded hall (our school was built in 1890 as an elementary school so when passing occurs the halls are way too crowded due to the size of our huge high school kids), a notorious gang-banger (whom I barely knew) saw me struggling to squeeze through the students and hollered, "Yo! Move out! The pregnant teacher is tryin' to get through!" and he parted the students like Moses parting the Red Sea. No lie.

One of the many reasons I was so bummed to be pregnant now is that I'd never experience that kindness and curiosity from the students again. Granted, I'll go back to work the last week in August and teach until my due date on September 21 (no maternity leave in the Department of Education--those bastards), so I'll get a few weeks of preferential treatment, but I'll miss the many teachable moments that came from being in the classroom while growing (like clarifying that babies don't have gills like fish).

Photo: My AP class in February 2007, me five months pregnant.

Clear eyes. Full hearts. Can't lose.

I have another confession: I am completely, utterly, embarrassingly addicted to the television show "Friday Night Lights" (FNL).

It all started with our friends Amy and James, who became parents/couch potatoes right as we did. We swap stories of what we are watching, and at our latest dinner playdate they told us that we HAD to start watching FNL. Let me tell you that Amy and James are super-intellectual. They're Ivy-leaguers. They read voraciously and have incredible vocabularies. Their other friends are so smart, they're intimidating.

Then we saw a commercial for FNL and we almost died laughing. THAT'S what they were into? Some dumb Southern high school football show? Sheesh. We figured it was because James grew up in Manhattan and that whole experience was foreign to him. We thoroughly enjoyed teasing them about it for a bit. Shame on us.

A few weeks later, our other friends Diane and Rio told us, "You guys have to start watching FNL." Adam and I were thrown. Them, too? We politely declined their suggestion. They challenged us: If we could watch the first few episodes and NOT fall in love, they'd buy us dinner. It was on. Adam and I were sure we wouldn't like it, rented a dvds, and a mutiny occurred in this apartment. We watched TEN episodes total this weekend alone. We had to institute a television rule that we could only watch FNL on Fridays and Saturdays because we couldn't control ourselves, but then we watch nine hours of it in one weekend. We have problems.

Our Russian guy at the video store understands our addiction. When Adam ran up to get a second dvd in one night, Adam said to him, "What is it about this show?!" and Dimitri replied, "It's good. It's so good, I watch FOOTBALL now. I follow the Giants..." (imagine this said with a thick Russian accent).

A powerful show, indeed. Maybe, as my friend Jason said, it can help unite the Blue and Red states...or a least of few of us in them.

Take Two

I think I didn't post as much in January because I was harbouring a secret from the world. If you know me, you know secrets are not my forte. If you have a REAL secret, I can keep it. But other than that, I just can't. I love sharing information; I think a lot of us benefit from each others' stories, experiences, sorrows, joys...I don't share with the world at large (blog, facebook), but I'll tell a few friends who I feel will really connect with whatever you said. And they do (connect, that is). At least I have good judgment in that respect.

So, when I peed on the stick on day 34 of my cycle and it unexpectedly produced a positive, after I ran to Adam in the shower sobbing (for various reasons), I just wanted to tell my close girlfriends b/c I knew they could talk me off the ledge--and they did. By the end of the day, I was feeling much more grounded, after a day of space-y teaching in which many times my students had to ask, "Miss, are you okay?"and I mumbled that I was fine, that the baby was just up half the night (which she was) and I was tired (which I was). Not lies, but not the real truth, either.

With my circle of friends in the know, I then somewhat guarded the information. After our miscarriage in May 06, I have been more reserved about to whom I reveal pregnancy information. You can't even believe the stupid shit people said to me after we miscarried--things like, "Well, now you won't have a baby with two heads!" or "It probably would have been retarded" and the list goes on. They had good intentions, I believe, but I wanted to punch them...or hand them a card that said: THAT IS NOT WHAT YOU SHOULD SAY TO A WOMAN WHO JUST MISCARRIED.

And I kinda thought that after having had a successful pregnancy, and after getting pregnant on total accident, that I'd be able to float through this pregnancy worry-free. Nope. There is something about miscarrying that continues to haunt me. And even though I didn't want to be pregnant now, the last thing I want now is not to be pregnant. I have had nightmares--the whole works.

But we had our ultrasound yesterday where we saw our tiny dancer doing a jig on the screen, little limbs flailing around, alien head bopping, placenta, cord, heartbeat = check. I am 9 weeks along, and now the chance of miscarriage is down to less than 5%, so I figured I could take a gamble and post.

We have NO plans for more than two kids (and are currently investigating better birth control options!), so I'm really trying to embrace/enjoy this as much as possible.

Feels good to get that information out into the world. Now I can start blogging about what I'm really thinking about...

(ps: Sorry for the pee-stained pregnancy test photo. I kept that test on my desk for WEEKS trying to convince myself I was really pregnant, and by the time I took a photo of it, it was, well, aged!)

What mama's say...

My friend Susannah forwarded this to me today from her friend in Philly and I had to share:

This morning I had an early meeting at work. After racing around like a madwoman, running back in the house twice for various forgotten items, and finally getting L in the car on the way to daycare, she announced:

"When I turn into a mama, I will say fuck."

Union Square Vegetable Peeler Passes Away

I was just blog-surfing when I came across a post that the Union Square Vegetable Peeler guy, whose name was Joe, passed away at the age of 75 this week.

When I moved to New York almost ten years ago, I loved the vastness of this city. I remember riding the subway and thinking, "NOBODY here knows me...they don't know that I don't wear bright red lipstick...I could wear bright red lipstick!" It sounds ridiculous, but that idea of re-inventing myself after coming from the teeny, tiny college town of Chapel Hill where everyone knew your business before you did was truly liberating.

Regardless of the 8 million people who live here, you do find a familiar set of faces, especially because we tread a repetitive path most days. I remember Joe from my years of practicing yoga religiously. I'd travel into Manhattan from my high school in Brooklyn, get off at the F stop on 14th street, and walk over towards Union Square where I'd go to a class either at OM or The Shala. I must have passed Joe a million times, and I was always tempted to buy his vegetable peeler--it looked so convincing as he sat surrounded by the skins of many veggies--but I was always rushing to get my om on.

As big as this town is, it's the familiar faces like Joe's that give it consistency and provide a common thread of conversation for all of us. These individuals seem trivial, but I think they ground a lot of us in a subtle way.

Whatever Joe believed in, I hope he's at peace wherever he is now.

kittens (inspired by kittens)

you gotta love the creative genius of kids sometimes.
this post is for lisa, who reigns supreme in cat craziness.
her son will be doing this someday!