Preggers Update

I can only see the tips of my toes if I bend forward a tad.  

I’m 24 weeks.

I’ve gained 3lbs.

I've eaten a fair amount of chocolate pudding.

Cat Scratch Fever

Setting: common lounge, Sunday night/the day everyone has returned from April break. Girl in story has been home since noon. It is now 9pm.

Girl: Ms. McCannell, I’m very worried. Last night my friend’s cat bit me. It just jumped on the bed while I was on my laptop and it scratched me. I think I have rabies.

Me: Did you wash the cut when it happened?

Girl: No, because it didn’t bleed. I didn’t think it was too bad, but now look.

She holds her hand up to me and I search for the cut. After ten seconds, she points it out to me. This picture looks like a fatal wound compared to what her hand looked like.

 

Me: Girl, I’m sure you are completely fine. To be safe, you should go see the nurse first thing tomorrow morning and she can look at it.

Girl: I think I need to go to the doctor. I need to get that shot.

Me: The nurse can make you an appointment.

Girl: How long will it take to get one? I could die before then.

Me: They have morning walk-in times every day. You will not die. I promise you.

Girl: I’m very worried. I don't want rabies.

Me: I can tell. Girl, I know you will be okay. We will get you taken care. Nurse. First thing. (I nod my head for emphasis) Are you feeling okay otherwise? Any other symptoms?

Girl: I’ve been sneezing a lot.

Me: I’m sure it’s unrelated.

Cheesy Ode to Books

Last week was our April break. The dorms closed on Saturday at noon and reopened today at noon. I wanted to spend the week on a beach in Mexico, drinking cold drinks, reapplying sunscreen and reading in between sun-soaked naps. That sort of happened. Except, instead of Mexico it was Maine and instead of a beach it was the woods or the dorm. But I did nap and read a lot. I finished six books this week. I forgot how much I love reading. I know, how could I forget this? I’d read five books in March and I’m up to nine in April. This feels luxurious. Indulgent. I’m a better person when I’m reading.

Henry’s loved reading since he was born. Even without a book, we’d recite stories to him like lullabies. He finds solutions in books. Stomachache? Eat a nice green leaf. Dinosaurs chasing you? Blow a dinosaur horn. He memorizes quotes to make his trains say later: “Honk, honk, comin’ through. I’ve big important things to do.” His new favorite reading material is Ladybug magazine and he loves even the poems. The other day he told me he was going to have a “red day” and asked to wear his red t-shirt. He’ll rediscover books from his bookshelf and climb into my lap during the day. And we always read three books before his nap and another three at night. Go Dog, Go! and Are you my Mother? just snuck back into the rotation. Sometimes, we just make up funny voices for the characters.

There are some girls here who are required to go to the cafeteria during study hall because of low grades. No electronics allowed. They complain they can’t do anything without their computers. Read a book, I tell them. This is never a popular suggestion. I try to remember if I read in high school. My favorite teacher, Ms. Eagan, from 3^rd grade used to read us Roald Dahl books, made a million times more exciting with her Irish accent. Then she’d give us an hour of free reading time every day where we could sit anywhere and read anything and I huddled under my desk (because, why not?) and inhaled Babysitter’s Club books and later, RL Stine. Somewhere around freshman year of high school I discovered Barbara Kingsolver and words changed.

I hope Henry finds his Kingsolver. I hope every one of the girls finds hers. Whether that’s 50 Shades of Grey or To Kill a Mockingbird. Some author that makes them reread a sentence five times because they can’t believe how accurate and simple and tender it is. An author who cradles nuance and leads you through a more stunning version of every day. Because a week of reading is no beach in Mexico, but the escape is just as entrancing.

La Luna

I’ve started seven blogs since my last posting. All half-thoughts about celebrating Lunar New Year; getting a girl to break-up with her jealous, unhealthy boyfriend only to write another one about their reunion less than a week later; my Sunday in the ER; baby thoughts; Henry’s new surge of energy; and my dad coming to town. Obviously, none of these made the final stages of internet posting.

Then, the other day, Henry said the most amazing thing to me. And maybe it’s my new lack of sleep that makes it so incredible. Maybe it’s because I’m his mother that I find it insightful and brilliant. But it hasn’t left my head since he said it.

He was being his crazy self, getting into exactly what I’d told him not to and I told him we don’t do whatever it was he was doing.

“Why?” he asked.

“Those are the rules.” I answered, completely uncreatively.

He put his still baby chubby hand on my arm.

“You follow the rules, Momma. I follow the moon.”

Henry has had a fascination with the moon for as long as I can remember. When we took walks in San Diego, three times around our neighborhood park every night, he’d point to it. Here, with the clear Maine sky, stars like salt on black velvet, his finger finds it: “La luna,” he says, reverently.

We read a book about it recently. A boy, his father and his grandfather row their boat (“La Luna”) out to sea and when the moon comes out; they hoist up their ladder and climb to the moon to sweep the fallen stars off its surface.

After a semi-sleepless evening of nightmares and scary shadows, I headed to the store to pick out a new night-light for his room. I found one he can push and it fills his ceiling with moon and stars. “Ooooohhh,” he said when I first turned it on. “I like it.”

So when he’s driving me nutso, pushing all the buttons, I try to remember he lives by the rules of the moon. And when I’m not feeling very creative or sane or more tired than there is a word for, I try to remember that I made a son with lunar connections.