My Mommy is a Teacher!

Explaining what I do is a little complicated. I don't teach courses anymore; instead, I work more in an administrative role with our Biological and Biomedical graduate students at UNC. I still teach workshops from time to time, but for the most part I work one-on-one with graduate students enrolled in our program that need to improve their critical analysis, or their writing and oral presentation skills - skills that are important for becoming a successful research scientist. I like my job at lot - unlike teaching 200 students, I get to know my students very well and I'm really proud of their accomplishments as they improve throughout their time working with me.

Anyway, I had never really had a conversation with Peyton about what I do, but I guess in a sense I would still consider myself a "teacher". That seems to be the simplest way to explain it to him, as opposed to the 100 words or so it usually takes me to describe what I do. He has come down with strep throat (poor little guy), which means Patrick and I have to juggle our schedules so that one of us can be at home with him. Today I happened to be teaching a couple of workshops to our incoming graduate students, as this is orientation week, one of our busiest times. So, I went to work in the morning to teach the workshops and came home at lunch so that Patrick could go to work. When I came home, Peyton asked me "Where you went?" I told him I had been at work. "What you do at work?" was his next question (I'm always prepared for a series of them). Hmmm...."Well, I'm a teacher". "A Teacher?! NO way! .....Daddy, is Mommy a teacher?" Yes. "Whoa!" Suddenly, I had become really cool in the eyes of my three year old. "Well, what you did at school today, Mommy?" Funny, I ask him this question everyday. His usual reply is, "I don't know". Again, wanting to keep it simple, I told him that I taught some students some math. "You taught your friends?" "No, students" "You mean friends?" "Yes, yes, that's what I meant." I guess in his mind, friends are the people that go to school and sometimes its just easier to agree than to explain. "Did you go outside to play, Mommy?" This was my favorite question. Ahhhh....to be 3 again where I could just go outside to play for awhile as a necessary and integral part of my day. I didn't have the heart to break the news to him that he will eventually outgrow the recess part of his day.

The strep throat came on pretty quickly, starting with severe stomach pains and eventually progressing into a fever and sore throat. We caught it relatively early and got him started on antibiotics. He's feeling a lot better already, and claimed the ice cream that Mrs. Lauren and Amelia brought him to help him feel better (aren't they sweet?!) made his throat feel better and made all of the germs go away.

Someone Wants to Say Hi!

We have hopefully made the rounds in announcing our big news to mostly everyone. But for those of you that may have missed it: We're preggars!

We're very excited, and are happy to have made it through the first trimester. Things have been going well so far, and all the memories of being pregnant with Peyton are coming back.
Things like:
I find Patrick's jokes way more funny when I'm pregnant. (Why? I have no idea.)
My emotions have the ability to swing one way or the other at a moment's notice. And they swing big.
Food is a very central component of my day. All day. Every day.

I had forgotten a thing or two about being pregnant. I have been very, very, very tired during the first trimester. I really don't remember being this tired with Peyton. Patrick says he remembers that I was. And apparently, my labor wasn't so fun. I obviously don't remember it being all that bad because I've signed up to do it again.

I do remember that I had a large baby. Indications so far point to another big baby. I started getting a belly at 5 weeks and quickly had to abandon my normal clothes. Hiding it until I was ready to tell people was a challenge. Not to mention that the ultrasound tech told me yesterday that the baby is measuring a full week bigger than it should be at this point. Yep, sounds about right.

We haven't explained the situation to Peyton yet. No need for him to worry for 28 more weeks about all of the attention he will be deprived of with the addition of a new baby in the house. Patrick did teach him to tell me that I have a big fat belly, so perhaps he will start questioning the reason behind my enlarged abdomen soon. So far, he's content to just laugh along with his daddy.

As I mentioned, I had an ultrasound done yesterday. This was part of a screening they do for trisomy defects when you're around 12 weeks. It was a little too soon to tell the gender, but here are some pictures that were taken. The baby waved several times and the tech was able to get some great shots.

The head is on the right here and the baby is on its stomach:




He/she flipped onto its back:


A good closeup of the arm:


He/She looked at the camera and waved!


The heartbeat. A solid 165bpm (For those of you keeping score, I looked up Peyton's heartrate around this time period and it was 178bpm). These days, no one believes there is a correlation between heart rate and gender.