Babies, pictures, and mottos

Lexi told me that we are getting a baby girl this summer. She said she told Miss Heidi at the daycare. Great. Now someone is going to ask me when my baby is due and I'm going to cry. I asked her where we would get this baby girl, and she giggled and said at the grocery store. As much as I'd love a baby girl, I have neither the money, time, patience, energy, or uterus necessary for a baby.

Random pictures:

Miss Court


Josh and Britt


The Holy Terror of Primary Children's Hospital


Eric and his awesome train birthday cake made by his awesome mom


My mottos for the week:

"It takes as much energy to go positive as it does to go negative, and I would much rather drive myself positive." -- Bret Michaels

"I shoot for the moon
But I'm too busy gazin' at stars
I feel amazing and
I'm not afraid" -- Eminem "Not Afraid"

I love feminist poetry and complaining about life

I've been thinking a lot, for a long time, about what I contribute to the world, and the concept that where much is given, much is required. Thinking about my duties as a Christian and as a human. I came across a few interesting articles in the blogernacle the last week or so on the Relief Society and how much more good it should possibly be doing in the world, rather than the current mission to make homewoven handicrafts and make people feel guilty about not being better at being perfect. It's something that, as I've said, I've thought a lot about, except not so much the Relief Society part. On Feminist Mormon Housewives, Joanna Brooks posted this quote from Audre Lorde, a poet whom I just love, and it really struck me.

“Because I am a woman, because I am Black, because I am a lesbian, because I am myself — a Black woman warrior poet doing my work – [I have] come to ask you, are you doing yours?”

The work that she was talking about for herself had to do with enlightening people and making change. And the answer for me has to be, no, I am not doing my work. At least not in full. Not as I'd like to be or as I need to be. I am not doing enough to ease the burdens of others or to make a positive difference in the world. But I am doing all I can. I think. I'm tired. I'm so exhausted. Everything feels so hard right now. I don't think I can do anymore, but someday. Someday.

Friday afternoon I was asking myself why I bother with some of the things I spend so much of my time and energies on. Students just want it to be easy. Parents just want me to figure out why their student is failing and fix it. Thursday one of my former students walked by me at the assembly and then stopped to say "hey" and give me a hug. Friday a former student stuck his head in and said he wanted to come to my class that day because he always learned something every day in my class. It feels good, but only for a few moments, because soon enough students are complaining that everything is too hard, that what I'm asking is too impossible, a parent is e-mailing or calling wanting me to take responsbility for things that are not mine to take. I had a discussion with 6th period that took a turn into contraception and how the morning after pill works. I gave them some info that frankly could possibly get me in trouble, told them that we probably shouldn't delve too far into that topic, told them all not to have sex, and then changed the subject, but I overheard one girl say to the boy next to her, "Where else am I going to learn this stuff. My mom sure doesn't teach it to me." It's frustrating and draining and I love it, but this week I don't feel qualified or equipped or energized enough to do it. I led class discussions on Thursday and Friday, and it drained me. There were a few tears over topics that hit close to home for a few students, we had passionate argument. Passion and connection are essential to education... and then I got a phone call that, among other things, someone's delicate little flower skipped class because those types of things are just too scary for her shy little self. What the hell am I supposed to do, then? Cater my lesson plans to your child? Ensure that she never has to do anything that would be uncomfortable for her or require stepping out of her comfort zone for 20 seconds of her day? I've got parents that think I have 180 students, but somehow I have time to monitor theirs one-on-one at all times to make sure she's doing her work, no one is bothering her, oh and by the way she's too shy and won't come ask for help so you always have to go to her and make sure she understands. Even though when you do, she'll just say "yes," but you should know that she really doesn't and somehow intuit what she might need help with. It was a crappy week. I have a bad attitude.

Lexi had a bad night Friday night. I don't like it when she gets low and starts throwing up. It's scary. We were giving her 15 minutes and then we'd have to take her in, and luckily she started to feel better and be able to eat enough to get her sugar out of the 50s. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't dare to leave her with anyone else. I may end up giving away my Bon Jovi ticket. We'll see how it goes.

OK, so this is an excerpt from one of my favorite Audre Lorde poems, called "Stations":

Some women wait for themselves
Around the next corner
And call the empty spot peace
But the opposite of living
Is only not living
And the stars do not care.

Some women wait for something
To change and nothing
Does change
So they change

Themselves.

It means something different to me each time I read it, and I love it.

We're rich!

We won $200 on the Super Bowl yesterday! :::Happy dance::: Sean got so nervous/excited as the quarter wound down and we had the money numbers... I was laughing so hard at him. And they kept stopping the clock, putting time back on the clock, there was a challenge on a play... I thought he was going to have a heart attack. So I immediately started spending our winnings mentally on fun things, and Sean says, "Well, I need to do some work on the car and the truck." Major buzzkill there, buddy.

This whole diabetes thing is kinda crazy, but mostly it's going OK. She's had a few low moments that scared us, but hopefully we'll work it out. Sometimes she throws up kinda randomly, like she's not really sick or anything, and that's just hard on blood glucose and then you have to worry about ketones and blah. I'm still learning so much, I don't even know everything I have to worry about yet. Just taking it a little at a time. We're supposed to go to a 3 hour class this week, but Sean's going to have to go alone. For me to be out in Salt Lake for that time period I have to take a whole day off of work and get a sub, and the daycare isn't trained to handle it yet without me anyway. Just not worth the extra stress at this point.

Every year we talk about going to Disneyland, and every year when I start to add up how expensive it is, I say, "Why? Why would I spend that much money to go there?" It's so ridiculous. I've spent a good chunk of time looking up hotel packages, and the park tickets alone are like $1000. That's absolutely ridiculous. How does anyone afford to do this? For a family of 6 it's gotta be a $2500 vacation without even breaking a sweat.

I can't believe it's midterm already! That means only 1.5 terms left in the whole school year. That seems unreal. I have Parent-Teacher Conferences on Valentine's Day. Not expecting a huge turnout, but maybe I'll be surprised.

My life lately

Man, who writes this blog? It needs some work. Some new music, some links added, some links to blogs I don't read taken off... That would take time and effort, though. Two things in short supply.

First, I must say that I try not to swear. Very often. I like swearing, actually. I am a fan of the well-placed curse word. But, I feel like it is lazy. It's easy to use a swear word rather than think of something else to say, and I like to set an example for my kids. I try, anyway. But sometimes... I just gotta swear.

Speaking of that... this cold weather makes me want to swear. When I step outside in the morning and it's 10 degrees I just want to let loose a really big one. A stream of big, bad words. But I refrain.

So. Life is weird. Whenever things start feeling too easy, I get worried. I start looking to the sky and wondering what great cosmic shit storm might be heading my way. I've been praying for the last while... Lord, I know that my life has been kinda too easy lately, but please, pllleeeeaaaassssse, let it stay that way awhile? I really can't deal with anything else right now. But the universe had other plans for us, and that's OK.

So last Thursday I decided to call the doctor and see if they would just test Lexi's blood sugar since she'd been having uncharacteristic bathroom accidents and was so thirsty for the last few weeks. My pediatrician is awesome and he ordered the labs and had them sent to the main lab with a runner and done immediately for us, even though it was the end of the day and everyone was going home. I really wasn't that surprised when it came back Type 1 diabetes. Stunned, numb, scared, but not surprised. So he sent us on up to Primary Children's Hospital immediately, and we spent a few days there over the weekend learning about how to manage Type 1 diabetes. It was overwhelming at first, but it doesn't take too long to get the hang of it all. It's a whole new set of issues, though, that's for sure. I'm just glad she got it now, rather than earlier or later. This really isn't a bad time if she has to have it.

So I've had Josh with me off and on while he's heen off track. Courtney takes him some of the time and he goes with Sean's mom one day a week, and then there were a few days we were out of school. He does really well hanging out with me for the most part, but I'm very excited for him to be back on track next week. He's made all of my paperclips into chains. He played games that he found on the internet, and in the process he changed my home page, default search engine, and tool bar and I had to figure out how to change them all back. He sometimes sits in a desk and raises his hand when I ask questions and takes the handouts that I pass around. My students think he is the cutest thing ever. On Monday when I walked up and started writing on the board, Front Row Joe said, "Mrs. Chamberlain it appears that you have a sticky note on your back, and I think it says 'I am stupid.'" So I peeled it off, and sure enough, in Josh's handwriting it said "I am stupod." I was like, "JOSH! What the heck?" And he's all acting innocent, all "Wha? Who, me?" back behind my desk, trying to deny it. And my students thought it was funny. Me, not so much.

I took Brittney to get her permit on Monday. She's pretty excited about that. Now we just need to get her out driving so she can get practice hours in.

Tonight was incoming sophomore night at school, but I didn't have to do anything so I got 1.5 hours of work time in my room. It was so needed and so nice.

OK, so January goals:
I lost absolutely no weight whatsoever.
I have not been to bed before 11:00 since I think sometime in 2009.
I stuck to my grocery budget so-so.
I did make a year financial plan.
We tried to have family fun night with my family, but a few of us ended up in the hospital instead.

February goals:
Stick to my budget.
Don't drag my feet and dread doing things that need to be done (taxes, chores, errands, doctors appointments)... just do it and don't analyze how I feel about it. I tend to get all, "But I don't feeeeeeeel like it," in my head, and then I just make myself feel miserable instead of just doing it and not thinking about it, so I'm trying to stop it. So far I'm already doing better.