I'm sitting in my office now. I probably should be tallying grades or doing something productive because Oh! Productivity! I need you to be mine this week. But no. I'm becoming strangely nostalgic about teaching and so I turn to ye old blog.

My last day to teach is Wednesday. And then little October Baby has me taking a break from the working world for the foreseeable future. I haven't felt a twinge of emotion about my four years of LMU ending until today.

The end of the semester marks the time when my students come in and recite poetry.

This delights me so much I can hardly talk about it. They come in like little poems themselves, tense and nervous, wiping sweaty palms on pant legs. They start in on their fourteen-liners and stutter and falter through the first couple stanzas until they can see the end at which point they start going a little faster and fall more easily into the cadence of the poem. Then they finish. And they smile. And off they go feeling proud. I feel like I've given them something. Something very real.

I will however NOT be feeling nostalgic on Wednesday when I'm grading. Grading is miserable. Period.

We've been busy bees as of late. I've been mostly coming out of pregnancy nausea but dealing with lots of end of semester details which leaves me dead tired. So Jacob is still doing all the housework, and we're watching too much Diego and Super Why.

We traveled to Texas the weekend before last for my little brother's biggest of big days. The wedding was everything that is lovely. 

I watched my brother marry the most beautiful of brides under a giant oak tree, and I couldn't have been happier. Commence photo dumb:

He's 6'5" and she's obviously no shortie. They make SUCH a striking couple.

Be jealous that your nieces won't get that hair.

My little sister reading like a boss.

My almost 93 year old grandmother cutting a rug with my father.

In other and also very good news. My little man has FINALLY become a hugger which has been perhaps my favorite milestone yet.

Encouraging the groom on his big day.

Now to wrap up, I could tell you how a piece of firewood fell over on Jake's foot yesterday and ROYALLY mangled his poor little toddler toe. Or I could tell you how he had a major blow out at my non-parent-friend's dinner party the other night with nary a diaper in sight. OR I could give a slew of other stories that would immortalize my recent less-than-impressive-parenting, and they would all be so at home on this blog.

But I won't. 

Instead I'll tell you to sit tight and pray that I update you tomorrow because guess where I'll be tonight?

I will be at the premier of this show at the Chinese Theater and sitting next to Michael Cera. 

(Fine. That last part is a lie, but the rest is true. True. TRUE! Don't hate me too much, Bluth fans.)

Tuesdays

Tuesdays are the days where I play working mom. 

I wake up at a leisurely 7:30 or so, and lie in bed with Jacob while the JakeRamsay toddler destroys the living room.

We get up, drink tea lattes, and Jacob makes french toast. We try vainly to keep Mr. Mannerless from throwing food on the floor. Sit on the porch and talk about the bees and the squash in the garden. 

At 9:45, Jacob trips off to work because that's how offices in LA roll. It's about this time that I remember that I have to teach and I have exactly 1 hour and 45 minutes to get myself and the greasy little boy packed up and out the door. Then life looks like this:

Scramble together some lunch and (sometimes even) dinner for myself. 

Trick Jake into barricading himself in the pack'n'play.



Shower in peace. 

Wash. 
Dry. 
Coconut oil to the face. 
Coconut oil/Baking Soda/Cornstarch blend to the armpits. (You know it!)

Streak past toddler in pack'n'play

Stare at closet trying to find the magic overlap where shirt-without-holes overlaps with outfit-I-haven't-taught-in-this-semester.

Curse because I never go shopping.
Curse because imprisoned toddler is now - rightfully - throwing a fit. Extricate toddler.

Return to bedroom and land the perfect outfit where professional meets academic meets young enough meets old enough meets you-will-be-safe-when-you-sit-on-your-desk-in-front-of-your-students...meets quit dreaming and put your stupid clothes on so Jake will stop pulling off your underwear and we can all get on with our lives.

Shovel toddler into high chair - again - to force lunch down his throat before he goes to my friend's house.

Fumble through my primping ritual because I'm woefully untrained.
Eye-shadow.
Food in Jake's mouth.
Mascara.
Food in Jake's mouth.
Consider styling my hair.
Food in Jake's mouth. 
Forget about styling my hair. 

Pack the baby's bag and my bag and my lunch. Clothe and shoe the baby. Rapidly pick up the house so it won't look like a warzone when Papa gets home tonight. Sling three bags over my shoulder. Free Jake because he's climbed back into the pack'n'play. Secure him at my hip, and begin the 43 step trek up to the street.

Huff. Huff. Huff. Quads. Quads. Quads. Arrive at the street level. Hair clinging to neck. Toddler clinging to hair. Bag straps gouging into collar bones. Pray that none of the neighbors are out to watch me rock the beast of burden in heels look.

Leave 15 minutes late. Turn on Spanish talk radio and reach back to periodically pinch toddler to keep him awake.

Arrive at friend/babysitter's. Carefully place the note I've written to the Beverly Hills Parking Enforcement on the dashboard since I'm not permitted to park on the street (and tickets run a whopping 93$...hmm...how do I know this...) 

Take Jake up to my friend's apartment as he repeats "Hi Joe Joe." "Hi Joe Joe." over and over. Deposit him on my friend's floor - with Joe Joe. Get an aggressive hand-wave and a loud emphatic "BYE!" as he runs off to fresher and greener toys. (So much for healthy attachment...)

Arrive at school and luckily score a parking spot near the elevators. (This is one of my charisms.) 

Trot to my office and find students waiting at my door. Meet with students. 

Exhale.

Prep. Photocopy. Update Spreadsheets. Answer e-mails. Eat some food.

Walk to class with Wendy. Vent about students.  

Class starts at 4:30. Stupid questions. Bland discussion. Sleepy faces. Mediocre workshop groups.

Eat dinner in between classes at 7:00. Call home to here my child bid me goodnight: "Nynyma" - and then immediately ask to nurse - "Nu?"

Teach second class. Joke around with them because I like these kids more. Meet with student at the break. Meet with student after class. 

10pm begins the long eerie walk across campus in the dark. 

Come home to my lanky husband and some leftovers. Click around the internet. Check next week's grocery deals at Sprouts. 

Borrow Jacob's toothbrush because mine is still in Texas.

Sleep.

Classroom and Baby's Room

 From The Classroom

I have been in a grading hole for the past two weeks. Which means I've been grading student work, sending frantic text messages to Jacob begging him to come home early, and Googling things like "unsupervised activities for toddlers." Productivity be mine.

I realize I only go to work once a week, and thus I should lemonade my lemons or something, but this semester is DOING. ME. IN.

I complain about teaching incessantly, but it has it's moments. And since I've finished my mountain of grading, I'm inclined to share some with you because they've afforded me some gems this semester. Though nothing quite as good as last semester.

One of my students recently asked me if I'd been to "teacher school."

One of them wrote about "conventions" but consistently misspelled it as "convections."

Still another went to a "recession" for her friend's quinceanera.

Then there was this classic: "My coach came over because he could tell that my well-being was bothered...but I kept optimistic thoughts filtering throughout my mind."

Perhaps one needs to have been steeped in grading for days upon days for the above to amusing, but I thought I'd share them just the same.

From the Baby's Room

In babyland we've been welcoming in the new season with a doozy of a cold and feeling mostly like this.

 
And mom is getting to RUIN JAKE'S LIFE!!!!!! every fifteen minutes when she tries to tackle snot river. He is living with a constant film of crusted boogers on his face because I can't stay on top of all the runniness, and once it's dried well...game over....because as far as he's concerned getting his mug cleaned is nothing short of being waterboarded...and I'm a softie.

Other than that I've been letting him have free reign of destruction so I have time for schoolwork.



And we still throw tantrums whenever mom attempts a photo shoot.



I bet you thought when I gave you a real update you'd get something, I don't know...interesting? unusual? Pumpkin patch? Halloween Costume? Sorry. 

But in other and VERY good news, my friend Jessie has finally crossed the bridge from stalker to blogger, and I couldn't be happier about it. So you should definitely click on over.

Don't forget to keep optimistic thoughts filtering throughout your minds! And Happy Hallow's to all of you!

The Classroom and The Baby's Room

Since you've all been dying for more classroom/babyroom posts, I've finally decided to cave.

Yesterday my students turned in their final portfolios for the semester, so all that lies between me and almost four months of summer is a mountain of (my favorite!) grading. 

Ever since Jacob started working again I've been bringing Jake to my office hours. He chews on wires and binder clips, opens every drawer he can reach, takes off down the hallway whenever the door opens, and spreads the contents of his diaper bag everywhere. He only peed on the floor once (sorry Wendy...) When students visit I try to maintain some level of authority as he sucks on my face or pulls down my shirt.

Deceptive innocence

The classroom became the baby's room once when my babysitter bailed and I had to bring him into class strapped on my back. Jake fussed whenever he couldn't see the students, so I taught the entire class facing the side of the room.

Yesterday was full of goodbyes, lots of handshakes, and two hesitant hugs. 

One girl - my sweet little airhead - came in, handed me her work, and said: "Just the portfolio, right?" And I said yes and smiled, but I was thinking: "Yes, just ALL the written work you've done in the course." This is the same girl who once in a sentence accidentally wrote "internally" instead of  "eternally," and when I asked her which she meant, she replied: "Well..which one works better?"

That was one of the more memorable moments of my semester (riveting! I know!) until the following incident. 

One of my baseball players came in extra flustered at the cut off time for portfolio collection. He had been a decent and respectful student all semester, and he had thus almost redeemed college baseball players in my mind despite multiple negative experiences teaching them over the years. He handed in his portfolio and took a deep breath. Slightly concerned, I asked how finals week was going for him, and he said he was stressed out because his girlfriend was in surgery and he was hurrying so he could be there when she got out.  

I expressed an appropriate level of concern.

Then the 19 year old proceeded to plummet from all my good graces as he shrugged his shoulders and, with a bit of a smirk, said: "She's just getting her boobs done."

The awkwardness cannot be overstated really. I managed to raise my eyebrows only a little, keep my face-twitching to a minimum, and say something like "Ah-oh-uh." 

Then there was silence as we watched Jake rip paper. 

He told me how much he loved kids. 

I nodded.

Then I crossed my arms over my chest because I had started letting down...which always happens to my still-lactating-self whenever I get embarrassed.

I Really Like Back Rubs

Just a little of what the Rhodeseses are logging today.

You see, my mother-in-law had us all do a test two Christmases ago to discover our Love Languages. Mine is back rubs. 

No time to waste! I have to go a-grading!!

From the Classroom. From the Baby's Room. #2

From the Classroom

My boss always discourages jokes on the first day of class. This is a bit of a phobia for me now, and I repeat it like a mantra on my first day with any new group of students: "No jokes. No jokes. No jokes." I always make a few anyways, and they typically don't go over well. I'm at the end of my first month of teaching this semester - so not anywhere near day one - but I reflect on this advice today as I'm reeling after teaching 2 lame classes and watching 38 unresponsive students.

I'm not a big jokester. I'm not the funny person at the table. My brother is. But there's something about being in up in front of a clan of droopy-eyed teenagers that calls me to make jokes. Rarely very effectively. When they laugh, they laugh at things I didn't intend to be funny. 

I bet if I were to peruse the "Cracking Jokes in Class" section of a teaching manual I would find that I'd made every mistake I could. 

Mistake #1: Joke arises spontaneously in 8am class and goes over well, and so you try to recreate the conditions for said joke in your 9am. This will almost certainly bust.

Mistake #2: Making a joke in an 8am class to try to wake your students up. This doesn't work either. Every dimwit knows students have to be awake to hear said joke.

Every dimwit except me apparently.

Don't worry. There's a happy ending to this story:

From the Baby's Room:

Jake thinks I'm hysterical:

From the Classroom and From the Baby's Room #1

I've decided to do a weekly installment during the school year where I catalog my students' and my child's "milestones"... I'm hoping that it will help me more thoroughly embrace my current roles as teacher and mother. 

I give you Numero Uno

From the Classroom: 

It's Monday morning and Jake's asleep and I should be seizing the moment to....grade.

Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh.

I really appreciate my job. I enjoy my students (mostly). I don't mind lesson planning. But I hate, loathe, despise, and abominate grading. 

Today I have but to grade some short little weekly writing assignments. I've been trying to start grading them since Thursday afternoon, but all I've managed to do is put them in alphabetical order.

Enough with that rant. Now two weeks into a semester of teaching Intro to Poetry, and overall I'm enjoying myself. I've never had my students write any of their own poetry in this class because it's actually a writing ABOUT literature course. But this semester, to teach my students iambic pentameter, I've been having them write their own.

For my non-poetry buffs:

Iambic pentameter is your basic English poetry fare: a line of verse with 10 syllables and five beats. In straight iambic pentameter the beats will alternate between unstressed and stressed syllables. Here's an example a la Shakespeare (I've bolded the stressed syllables):

That time of year, thou mayst in me behold

When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang.

I'm not a meter nazi, but I want my students to build some awareness of the rhythms of language. Anyhow, their first attempts at iambic pentameter woke me up to how much more explaining I needed to do because they were laughably terrible. But we've been working on it and they're getting better. As evidence of their improvement I give you my two favorite examples:

I wish I had a Justin Bieber doll.

They told me not to eat the yellow snow.

 And there you go.

From the Baby's Room:

Jake's been working tirelessly on one of his alveolar consonants. So our lives have been peppered with:

Da da da da da DA DA da DA da da, etc

AND

He has two teeth. He got them for Christmas...terribly cliche I know.

Best to you and yours.

Why grade when you can...?

Life right now is a box of ungraded student portfolios. It stares at me all day long and makes me do things like

go to the beach

 play with boxes

sing along

wash diapers

and stare into this face all day long.

Yes. Lots of semi-productive procrastination in the Rhodes house these days.

What the Chalkboard Says (and other words)

This week has been a relatively uneventful one in the Rhodes Casa, that is if you discount the mountains of student writing I've been sifting through (and the consequent piles of dishes that I haven't touched). 

Midterms. That word fills me with more fear now than when I was a student.

Pity me pity me. I can't handle my job that takes me from home twice a week from 10-5. 

Jacob just left for some "industry party" where he will "network" and drink free liquor on some rooftop in Santa Monica.

So, I ask you, grand readership. Would you rather spend your evening ...

sipping scotch on some overlook breathing in the ocean air and watching the night twinkling on the waves of the Pacific

or 

blogging at home?

Good. I thought so. The rest of you can just leave.

Now down to the real business of Thursday night: cheap wine, chocolate covered almonds, and pictures. Here's a good one:

Camera: Uncle John's Canon Rebel T2i

Photographer: Me (you can tell because of the implicit narrative and how exquisitely in focus the chair behind the grocery bag is)

Here's some two heads are better than one action:

Still strolling

 

and drooling all over the front of our clothing

 and looking generally (generically?) babyish.

And of course What the Chalkboard Says courtesy of Papa Jacob and A. A. Milne:

Happy Day!

School Shmool and Other Things

Two weeks into the school year and things seem to be off to a pretty smooth start. Jake has been coming to campus with me for Tuesday and Thursday afternoons of teaching and getting babysat by goodfriend babylifesaver Miss Wendy.

Teaching is going well. I have a celebrity's brother in one class, but I'm not allowed to say who because it will probably violate some type of privacy act. But that's exciting, isn't it? He's very quiet and I give him two more weeks before he decides he has better things to do than my class, at which point my short-lived celebrity-teaching days will come to an end. forever. 

Yesterday there was a wasp in class. It caused a hullaballoo until I shoo shooed him out the window to a round of screeches and subsequent applause. 

I curtsied. (not really)

But I did refrain from saying anything about how I'm from Texas and thus totally unafraid of bugs. I also stayed mum about how, when we were little, my brothers and I would swat down wasp nests with tennis rackets and then run like banchies as the little zingers would literally chase us all the way around the outside of the house. I also didn't tell them about how many times I've been stung by a scorpion, actually I did tell them that (4), but that's not the point. the point. is. that there's a lot of things you could say but don't when you have 19 18yearolds wanting you to talk about anything but ethos, pathos, and logos. 

Why not? 

Because you don't want to give them the satisfaction.

In other news, Jake is getting bigger. He has yet to begin mastering any of life's finer skills, but he is getting bigger. Not chubbier really. No. Just long. Sound familiar?

I'm beginning not to feel completely overwhelmed as a mother. Probably because little Jake is becoming less and less overwhelming. For instance right now he has woken up from a nap and is sitting contentedly on my lap as I type. He may continue to do this for 5 or 6 more minutes. This is most certain progress. 

As you all know...I still haven't figured out how to blog with regularity, but I suppose that too will come with time...with time and perhaps some type of elaborate baby bouncer.

Exit.

Cue Photos.

Jake in his Inside the Actor's Studio Onesie.

 

And his new fluffy friend.

Well I suppose I will leave you with the most exciting news of the week.

Jake said his first word loud and clear yesterday morning.

The family was all lying in bed, and Jake was amidst his typical morning gurgles and chortles and furious leg kicks and rapid arm movements, when out it came, loud and clear:

"Boob."

Feeding the BlogMonster

Again. Just trying to keep the little blog breathing.
I sit in my office on this Friday afternoon waiting for Jacob to come pick me up. I meant to go home this afternoon and spend it productively grading reading journals and prepping for my class Monday. Instead, I got distracted talking to my friend and then it was so late I figured I would avoid the late afternoon bus and wait for Jacob to get off work.

Let's see...what to say:

I am officially beginning my third trimester! Huzzah!

I had a hellish first trimester. I lived on our couch with my head half-submerged in a barf bowl. Jacob would get home, and I would recount how many times I had thrown up that day and lament about how "bad at pregnancy" I was. I even played the pregnancy-card with a professor and asked for a paper extension. Those of you who know me know how sick I must have been to get to this oh-so-humbling point. As I sit in this office I remember how my first trimester was eased by how encouraging and supportive people at school were. My friends on campus were and continue to be super gracious. They've given me rides home and made promises to babysit and asked me all the questions that a pregnant woman likes to answer. My boss told me I could even bring the baby into my classes when I teach in the fall. He said: "It can just sleep in the corner and you can feel good knowing that it's safe and really focus on your teaching." I wasn't quite sure I followed his logic, but I still felt very supported.

The second trimester (well...post-nausea...which didn't pass until mid-month 4) was a breeze. I started exercising and drinking lots of veggie juice and just feeling generally on top of things. The kid started moving and gets squirmier every week.(Some appendage is lodging itself in my ribs currently.) I paraded my second trimester belly in DC, visiting college friends. Dear Glencora (whose birthday is tomorrow! Yay!) lamented that my face wasn't fatter. I think she was hoping I looked a little bit more like an infamous picture one of my friends took of me in Greece. I will replicate it here to show how not insecure I am about all the weight I'm gaining...

I made it nice and big for you.

There. Far left = Me. I don't really know how it happened. For the first time in my life I was selected to go up and be the display person on some little show. They put this traditional garb on over my normal clothes, and somehow I ended up looking like that. Among my clan I was affectionately referred to as Fatty McFatFat for the rest of the term. I can't blame them. Those cheeks are impressive.

I won't probably be able to ward off those cheeks for much longer...especially the closer I get to my due date...not to mention my comprehensive exams and paper writing and the corresponding stress induced eating. Fatty McFatFat will reign again.

In commemoration of Glencora's birthday (and the book she should've been reading last weekend in DC instead of playing with me) I would like everyone to reminisce with us about the under-the-sea costume party we went to while living in Italy. Our expatriot selves didn't have much by way of costumes but we made do:

Hail, Queequeg and the Fishing Net.

Happy Weekend! I promise to post another picture of my burgeoning belly soon, those posts seem to get the most reactions :)