Six and a half weeks

So, my son is growing up. He's gained close to half his original body weight, and he's cuter and more interactive all the time. He's been standing for quite some time: if he's supported he'll push down on his legs and hold himself us. It creates something of a surfer look--he bobs and weaves to keep his balance, but he does it for quite a long time. It's about his favorite posture.

Besides taking care of my extremely cute son, I've auditioned for two plays this summer. I'm in Footloose as the cranky principal/apprentice stage manager, and I just auditioned for The Buddy Holly Story tonight. I'm pretty sure I'll have a part in that one, though I don't think it'll be the part I was really trying for, Ritchie Valens. Honestly, any part in that play will be a lot of fun because the music is so great, and even the small parts get to be really involved. I'm really excited about it.

Fun!

The most amazing feeling in the world

is falling asleep holding my three-hour-old son's hand.

Cheating for Charity and Eggplant for dinner

So, last night Steph and I ate out at Italian so we could both get eggplant. We both ordered the dish with Eggplant and I contented myself with the angel hair and spinach-stuffed shells, while feeding Steph my Eggplant. It's supposed to induce labor.

Then I discovered, thanks to my friend Ashlee, this cool charity website. If you answer vocab questions right, the sponsors donate rice to starving people. Since it was a charity, I thought I'd better get as many right as possible, so I cheated with dictionary.com. No scruples when it's for the impoverished! But I did know what a Wyvern and a Claque were thanks to Shakespeare and Old English poetry. Anyway, for good vocab building, charity fun, go to www.freerice.com

My son, the Turtle and a good game of Othello

So, I know the general time for kids to be formed in the womb is the "nine month midnight," but Henry's more on the 9.5-10 month plan. Steph's been kinda in labor for three days, but it's not REAL labor (aka stage two or active labor) and could go on forever. So in celebration of the three weeks I've churned out and then used up sub plans, I went out and bought my son some shorts. They have a turtle on them. They're cute and appropriate.

While waiting a million years for Henry to make his debut, Steph and I played a game of Othello to pass the time on Friday afternoon. If you're unfamiliar with the game, it's like a checkerboard without the colors, and the pieces are small double sided disks with a white side and a black side. It's a military strategy game in which you flank your opponent in order to capture and turn over his or her pieces to your color (or whatever the proper word is for the black-white dichotomy--tone? race? I guess you can kinda get the picture if you've read Othello). Well, as Stephanie was playing rather abysmally, and I was doing better than normal, I decided to see if it was possible to completely black out the board. It is. I took a picture just for the record. You can't win this game better than I did.

Fortunately, Steph was playing for the good company and not the competition.

Almost Easter

So, it's almost Easter. And I'm this close to having a son (holding up thumb and forefinger really close together). Now that we're finally on break, I can breathe and sit back and wait. Well, actually, by sit back, I mean run around like crazy, but at least somewhat less crazily than last week. Last week almost killed me.

Steph will be off from school probably for the rest of the school year. I'm off for a week, and then I'll be off and on after the baby comes until I use up most of my sick days. I can't wait for this summer. Three months of delightfulness! I can't wait to walk Henry around in the stroller. My sister got us this awesome stroller that has speakers on it and a way to plug up an mp3 player. How cool is that? I've been mentally sorting my music collection to see which songs would be appropriate to play. I've made a lullaby collection of sorts, and I bought the They Might Be Giants new children's CD, Here come the 123's. I also found these awesome lullaby cds of great rock band hits turned into lullabies. I got the Eagles, so Henry and I can jam to a really soft version of "Hotel California." I'd like to get the Beatles, U2, and a few others.

Aside from the fun tunes in the stroller, I've also been planning which books we're going to read together. I've received (and bought) a decent starter collection of Dr. Seuss, as well as a handful of other books, including Goodnight Gorilla, a cool book about a Gorilla who sneaks home from the zoo to the zookeeper's house to snuggle in his bed. But of course, first we have to read Shakespeare's Henry V together. I plan on reading him the complete works of Shakespeare by the time he turns two. I haven't entirely decided which the second one will be. Any suggestions?

Alright, well, it was fun chatting, but I've got to get back to work. Have a great day!

Waiting on the Printer...Flower talk

Well, it's pushing one am, and I'm still waiting on my printer to finish printing 200 programs for tomorrow's National Honor Society Induction Ceremony. I think I'd be more excited about this great experience for the talented, service-minded young people at school if I didn't feel like it has eaten up every bit of my wife's and my life for the past few weeks. It was kinda surprise-sprung on us, and you know Steph--gotta get it right. Well, it'll be done right, but I'm pretty tired. I finished all of my grading to speak of this weekend, a feat of which I'm rather proud. I suppose I can go a few more days without sleeping; I've got Good Friday off and then the next week is our break.

The flowers are coming up in my lawn. I'm so glad. Last year they were so beautiful and surprising. Experiencing the first spring in our house allowed us to be surprised every time something new, which we had been unable to previously identify suddenly burst into bloom. Unfortunately, an untimely late frost last year not only knocked out our flowers, but even one of our trees. And then the awful hot weather finished off a few more. Add all that to the fact that I don't care for foliage well, and you get a pretty dead landscaping job. However, several plants are bursting into bloom again: our daffodils, these purply blue flowers, some long stemmed purple flowers... and of course the dandelions.

I love the dandelions. It's nice that they come back no matter how you try to eradicate them. I never try though. They're always sunny and smell like candy corn and childhood. Also, when I was younger I heard a legend that if you have someone you love far away, you can blow your love to them on the dandelion, and the little seed fliers will carry the message. Being a particular romantic, I've taken that to heart and always wish my love to all the people in my life who are too far away or who are gone forever. And so I never mow them down; I let them grow wherever they like.

The Rosemary bush is also symbolic. It represents love, sorrow, and loneliness. It's my favorite, even more than the dandelions. Steph always thinks I let it grow too big, but I can't bear to cut it back. It seems like the sort of bush that can really sympathize when you're having a bad day.

Hm. I'm looking forward to sitting outside over break. I hope the weather's nice. Ah, one side of the programs finished. Only another hour and a half to go. Goodnight everyone!

Overworked but rather blessed

I have too much to do. I wish I could spend some time just sitting in my library reading a book (or writing one). I wish I could ignore the countless hours of stuff I need to do that isn't going to get done anyway. I wonder what it would be like to have a job that didn't come home with me (several hours after I should have gone home), eat dinner with me, spend the evening with me, go to bed with me and then get up four to six hours later with me to go back to my "official" place of work. I have meetings this week in the evenings. Grades are also due for progress reports. I've had to miss poetry night two weeks in a row. And I have piles of grading which I cannot even imagine finishing. Why is this so normal? I've quoted Tennyson's "The Lotus Eaters" so often it's beginning to feel tiresome: "Why are we weighed upon with heaviness/and utterly consumed with sharp distress/while all things else have rest from weariness?" I still don't know.

But the parents of my kids have been awesome and ever so encouraging. I'm glad of that; I don't think I could handle discouragement right now. And I've got great friends who are praying for me. And best of all, I'm going to have a little baby boy in mere weeks, which will not only be a joy added to all of this chaos, but it also means that Steph will be off the rest of the year, and I won't have to worry about her overworking herself anymore. He'll also give me an excuse to blow off the million things I have to do and just play. I already know which Shakespeare play we're going to read together first. (Henry the Fifth, of course!)

Well, until then, I'll keep working. Take care everyone!