So much fail

Today's weigh-in (clothed): 229.2 Things just are not going as I had hoped. We've been in school for 2 1/2 weeks, and I'm really not enjoying it this year. Instead of teaching just English, as I have done for the eight+ years I was in my own classroom, I am "teaching" four periods of a class called Academic Success. It's pretty much a glorified study hall. The kids who are doing poorly in their other, academic classes end up taking the class. It's a chance for them to get assignments done at school. They are expected to bring their assignments and books with them and work the whole period, and they are awarded points for doing so. They also must keep in regular contact with their teachers, especially those whose classes are not going so well for them. And each grading period they get points for their grades in their other classes. It seems like a great idea, but the "teacher" of such a class has to be kind of a hard-ass, which I am not. I am not good at, nor do I enjoy, riding kids to force them to do their work. I have always looked at it as, it's their choice to do it or not do it. That isn't a good attitude for me to take. I need to be a lot tougher with the kids, which I hate doing. I always felt like I motivated kids in my classes to do their work because they enjoyed the class. There really isn't anything to enjoy in the Academic Success class, and I'm certainly not teaching. Then, in the one English class I have, I'm not bonding with the kids. As a matter of fact, I don't really like many of them. The girls are OK, and a few of the boys, but there are a lot of obnoxious boys in there. I think I was spoiled by my single-sex classroom. I haven't lost any weight; I haven't been able to motivate myself to work out. I just don't have the energy to get up and go. I need thinks to change, and soon.

It's been a while...

Amazing how I don't have much time to blog these days, and not much to blog about. The only thing new with kid #2 is colic, which kid #1 didn't have much trouble with. That definitely takes up a lot of my day, trying to figure out ways to get kid #2 to stop crying. It's frustrating, to say the least. Now that I'm 8 weeks out from my c section, I am ready (and desperate) to start losing weight. Since I'm not breastfeeding this time around, I'm not getting any weight loss from it. I've lost not quite 20 lbs from my heaviest pregnancy weight, and I'm about 10 lbs below my heaviest non-pregnancy weight. I've decided to go for a pretty easy (so I say) goal: to lose 20 lbs by the end of the school year (May 31). It's essentially 2 lbs each month for 10 months. It should be easily accomplished, but I notoriously suck at weight loss, exercise, and sensible eating. I'm hoping that bribing myself with $20 per lb lost might help. Cross your fingers

No way to cover it all...

So, just a tiny, brief little post... Had our second child two weeks ago today. Just trying to get the hang of things. Brendan is almost 20 months old (tomorrow), and he's definitely entered the Terrible Twos. It's pretty frustrating. He kicks the dog, drops to the floor to avoid being picked up if he doesn't want it, smacks his little brother on the head, and throws tantrums. Annoying. I just hope it wears off quickly. I do have a full time job again for the fall. This time, it's my own position, instead of a long-term sub job. Unfortunately, it isn't entirely English--only one teacher retired at the end of the year, and another teacher who had been at the school for a while had designs on that position, so I'm moving into the position she had. It'll be mostly a study hall type class, for kids who are academically...distressed. Plus at least one class for kids who are also emotionally troubled. Hopefully I'll have an English class as well; that was the plan of my department head. Keep your fingers crossed. Well, that's really all I have time for. The baby is starting to fuss, which means it's almost time for him to eat again. And I need to get the dishes out of the dishwasher and the laundry folded before big brother comes home from the sitter's house. Balancing all this is not nearly as easy as it could be...

So, Happy New Year! Here we are, 2012. Less than a year from when the world is supposed to end, if you listen to those darned Mayans, anyway. I suspect they either ran out of room on the calendar or got tired of chiseling and said, "Hey, surely someone will add on to this later."

Anyway, just an update on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

First of all, weight: 217.4 as of this morning. This is a little surprising to be because, second of all, I'm three months pregnant. Yep, having kidlet #2 in mid June. So the weight thing is surprising, because the 20 lbs I've lost have been since I found out I was pregnant. Just haven't felt like eating much. Haven't necessarily been morning sick, just not hungry and nothing sounds good. I wasn't surprised to see weight loss in the first weeks, but now that I'm into my 16th week of pregnancy, I really would have thought that the weight loss would have stopped. Don't know if it's a problem. Anyway, I have my first appointment with my OB in two weeks, so I'll discuss it with her if things haven't changed by then. I really hope everything is going OK. This pregnancy seems much more of an "afterthought" than the last one did, and I just haven't paid as much attention to it. We'll just have to wait and see.

Work is plodding along. I really haven't bonded with the kids this year, not like I have in previous years at St. Agnes. There are a few I'm fond of, but there are a lot more that I am ambivalent towards, and more than a few that I would be happy to never see in my classroom again. I've never experienced such a dislike for any of my students before. It makes me very disappointed in myself, because I'm sure it has to do with me and whatever impractical expectations I may have had for these students at the beginning of the year. In any case, we've got two weeks left of the semester, and then I won't have most of them second semester. Sadly, a few of the ones I most wish I wouldn't have again I will have, and the ones I like best (my sophomores) I won't have at all because I'm teaching juniors second semester. It should be fun, science fiction literature, but at the same time I'll miss the sophomores. They have been a bright spot in my day on most days.

Brendan is a wild and crazy 14-month-old. He had a great time at Christmas. This Christmas wasn't his first, of course, but it was the first one he could participate in since he was so little last time. He helped open some presents and played with all of his toys (and some of his cousins'). He loved all the attention he got from the whole family. We didn't decorate much this year because it is so hard to keep Brendan out of things--he's very curious and extremely determined. Next year will be better; he'll be old enough to understand that he needs to not touch things, and the baby will be little enough that he or she won't be getting into anything yet.

Anyway, that's the state of things currently. We're just preparing ourselves for the new little bundle o' joy in June, by going through all of Brendan's things to see what we can reuse and what will need to be replaced and by planning the completion of our basement. Half of it is finished, a family room type space, but the two other rooms and the bathroom are unfinished. Both of our kids will be housed upstairs with us, so any guests who visit will need a place to sleep. One room down there will be a guest bedroom, while the other will be an office with the potential to be used as a guest room. We have two queen beds to deal with, one in one room and I guess the other will go in the office unless we figure out something else to do with it. We'll move our office furniture and computer in there, and we'd like to build some kind of storage unit along one wall. Then we can use the space freed up in the family room to put Brendan's toys and turn it into a play area. But we really can't use the spaces for any of that until we get the bathroom down there finished. Otherwise it's a long walk to the bathroom upstairs.

So cross your fingers that things continue to go well and that we can get our basement finished off. It will make things so much easier!