Student Involvement

If you have ever taught, then you know that your students try to get themselves involved in every aspect of your life. Before Eli and I got married, they were always asking questions about my dating life. When Eli and I got engaged, the majority of my class asked to be invited. I even had a student come back the following year asking why I didn't send her an invitation.

Naturally, after marriage comes the baby carriage, right? Every year my students ask me if I have kids or if I am ever going to have them or why I don't have any yet. This year's class is no different. I had one girl make me pinky promise to tell her first if I got pregnant.

It was super easy to keep it from them for the first 6 weeks because I didn't know the first month and I had virtually no symptoms. However, I hit week 8 and I was dealing with major morning sickness and I was tired all the time. I had to come up with excuses to run out of the room. I finally had to tell the VP because I was leaving my class so much. He would go in and check up on them or send in an aide to be with them.

The kids started freaking out because I would come back to class red faced and red eyed. I told them I had food poisoning, I ate a pickle from a jar that I didn't refrigerate after opening, and that I thought I was coming down with the flu. The same girl who made me pinky promise her advised me to start paying attention to what I was eating because I was getting sick too much.

On top of all of that, I fell asleep at school. I know. I had taken my students to the library and the librarian took them to the kiva for a book preview. The lights were low and she had such a soothing voice and it was the end of the day. I closed my eyes and next thing I knew I was sitting in the dark alone. I freaked. I went back to class because my students weren't in the library. Turns out the librarian sent them back to class and they were starting on their work (I have them trained well). The next day I had a student say, "I told my mom how you've been sick and how you fell asleep. She says you're pregnant." Ack! I denied it all.

The following week I had my appointment with my doctor. We were having our first ultrasound and were getting to the safe zone of pregnancy. I wasn't just going to tell them,

So much fun! The first girl who solved the puzzle nearly hyperventilated. I have to give her credit though, she didn't blurt out the message. She just asked to go to the restroom because she was so hot and needed to get out of the room! The students were so excited and several of them shouted out that they totally knew the whole time. Ha ha!

Before my 20 week ultrasound, the students wanted to weigh in. Before they cast their votes they made sure they had all the background information. How many brothers and sisters did I have? How many did Mr. Adams have? What about our nieces and nephews?

Out of the 27 students who voted, 81% said the coconut was going to be a boy. I think what did most of them in was the fact that Eli is the youngest of 4 boys and the majority of my nieces and nephews are girls. It was time to add another boy to the mix.