Hair Did

I really need to find a place to get my hair cut. In New York, I had a beautiful little place I would go to with my mother. It was a little cottage in a little village, where you walk in and everyone knows your name. Kind of like Cheers. Here, the same lady cut my hair since I was a young child.

Since moving out here, I have been the definition of a fly by night. I go to any place I can get my hair cut at the spur of the moment. Mostly making bad choices and choosing places that specialize in braiding and weaves if you know what I mean.

So, this past weekend, I was super careful when choosing a place. I drove a big to the east, away from the diversity of the city, looking for someone who specializes in straight to moderately wavy hair. Hair that has to be washed daily. The place I chose looked like a good match on the outside and even the inside.

The girl who cut my hair, sweet as could be, was more of a bob and weave girl. She did a good job and that is all that should matter. I liked her, and I like her for more than just the nice job she did on my hair. I like her because of her interesting conversation and attire. 

As I'm sitting in the chair, completely subject to whatever this girl wants to do to me, I couldn't help but laugh every time I caught a glimpse of her "Let's do a shot" t-shirt in the mirror. 

Not the kind of shirt the girl who used to do my hair in the little village wore. 

And the conversation. It wasn't the wholesome, how's your family, mine is wonderful talk that took place in the village either. It was more based around robberies, selling stolen merchandise, and the police. Where she lives, she told me, you only answer the door at three in the morning if it is the police. You know it is the police because they bang on the door really loud and yell, "POLICE, POLICE!" 

This experience left me with two things. One: a good haircut. Two: the realization that either I did not drive far enough east, or this girl travels even further east to go to work everyday. 

A Strong Sneeze

I sneezed today. No, that is nothing new, but what ensued is. I have always been a strong sneezer. Today, when I let out my strong sneeze, I peed myself a little. Apparently this is acceptable because I am pregnant....

Breaker

I should have known from the get go. I should have realized when I looked down and saw my feet nestled in my beach-saavy Brazil flip-flops. I was in for a rough day!

Minus the footwear, the day started like many others at work. I was in the school gym shooting some baskets with the students who arrive at school early. It's not part of my duties, but, sometimes, I put in that extra time and care to do things like play basketball with the lovely children. 

The kids were standing under the basket rebounding my ball as I shot from all corners of the miniature sized gym. The boy standing directly under the basket, Grant we will call him, was taking bets on the long shot I was about to take. As I let it fly, somebody called out his name. Grant immediately turned to see who was calling him. The ball snapped through the net and straight into Grant's nose. 

                                                                                                                          Now, I won't lie and say that blood game rushing out of Grant's nose, but it definitely slowly trickled out. He claimed it didn't hurt through the endless stream of tears falling from his eyes. I brought him to the nurse and brought myself to the assistant principal's office to let him know what I had done. He thought it was hilarious and said it would certainly be a funny story for Grant to tell in years to come. He will always remember the day he got a bloody nose from his pregnant teacher. 

Later in the day, I continued my awful day. Since it is a movie week at lunch time, one of the kids brought in Alice in Wonderland to watch. Not the corny Alice in Wonderland you are thinking of, the one with Johnny Depp as the freakish Mad Hatter. One girl non-chalantly wondered what you should do if you don't like the movie. I told her I wasn't a big fan of it either so I just don't pay attention to it. 

She acted like that was a good answer, but apparently it was not. For as soon as Johnny Depp's demon-like face showed up on the screen, she ran up to me hysterically crying, begging if she could go eat lunch in the office. 

Awesome, for the second time today, I was sending a sobbing child to the office. She did not make it clear that she did not like the movie because she was deathly afraid of it. 

Today, I did far more than break the dress code with my little flip-flops. I broke the hopes, noses, and good dreams of my students. I feel lucky to still be employed as I head to bed tonight!

Poop Water

At about 2 a.m. the Big Guy started whining in the hallway. After a few minutes of this, I went to see what was wrong with him, but he wouldn't tell me and made no attempt to get up. I laid down with him for a few minutes before heading back to bed. As soon as my head hit the pillow, the whining started up again.

Jeff offered to get him this time and took him out to pee. When 5:30 rolled around and it was time for our morning run, I found myself waiting downstairs by myself; the Big Guy nowhere to be found. Shea eventually dragged himself down the stairs and out to the front lawn. He had no interest in going any further. He plopped himself down and rolled onto his back.

The only time he got up from that position was to throw up. Three times, but who is counting.

It bothered me all day. I wondered what could have made my boy sick. Then, I got to thinking. We spent all day Saturday at Bow Wow Beach, the most fabulous dog park/beach in existence (really, it's ranked 3rd nationally, so pretty darn close to the best in existence). 

My mind flashed to Shea, swimming in the water, and then taking a break to drop a deuce, right there in the middle of the lake. It was no big deal, I just pretended he wasn't my dog for about three minutes and then it was forgotten. I, in fact, saw three other dogs deuce in the water while we were there.

So, you are probably thinking, gross, Shea was swimming in poop-infested water. Well, even worse, he was drinking poop-infested water. I think I would throw up after a day or two of other dog's poop traveling through my system. 

I am happy to report that Shea is feeling much better this evening. Maybe he has learned his lesson and will not drink that kind of water anymore. My guess is no, but it's a nice thought!

Speedy

Shea and I were running along today at an amazing clip. The last few days, while out and about, I have seen a number of police officers, mostly multiple ones at once. That is never good news.

Today, I saw another, all by his lonesome. I noticed him across a busy road. A busy road that Shea and I needed to cross. Misjudging which intersection I was at, I thought it would be safe to cross as I mistook the one I was actually at for a four-way stop. As I stepped off of the sidewalk, it suddenly hit me where I was, as the car approaching was not really slowing down. I screeched to a stop, pulling Shea back, and waiting our turn.

Once we were able to run across safely, I got a better look at this police officer. He wasn't as interesting as the previous one's I had seen, as he was simply trying to catch speeders. It was blatantly obvious as he was hanging out the window with his radar gun.

The only thing sketchy about this was that there were no cars in sight at the time. The gun was pointed directly at me. So, I asked that nice officer how fast I was going. 

Since I was going so fast, he said, he was unable to clock me in! 

Down, Out, and Unsanitary

Computer is currently down and out....check back soon as the Apple geniuses fix the problem.

In the mean time, please enjoy this photo of Shea. You may notice he has something in his mouth. It is a used pad he found on the sidewalk. Yup, that's right, a sanitary napkin. Unfortunately, not so sanitary after being used and sitting on the sidewalk. Thank God it was wrapped and he decided to drop it after a quick minute!

Achievers

Every week at school we do something called "school achievers." It is a time that teachers can recognize students who have been working hard, achieving goals, or who have just been caught doing something nice for someone else. A lovely boy in my class came up with an idea to reverse the roles. He went to the principal and got that idea approved. They fittingly saved it for teacher appreciation week.

So, this past week, on "student achiever" day, six students, led by the boy in my class, presented "teacher achievers," in the exact manner that we do it every week.

It was quite cute. They did a great job speaking in front of the school and recognizing some people who aren't always recognized. For example, one student gave a "teacher achiever" to the janitor for keeping our school nice and clean. A good thing to recognize. Then, it came to my only student present in front of the assembly.

"My teacher achiever for coming to school everyday and being caring and teaching us," he began. "She is doing all of this while carrying a baby, and she is not even grumpy!"

Apparently moody pregnant women are even the norm to young children.