No joke

It just took me four times to log in and create this new blog post...why do you ask? Well I'm having mommy brain. Lack of sleep plus a stomach bug running rampant through the household has left me utterly brain dead. It's a wonder I could even remember that today is my birthday. Yup, 33 years young. And how may you ask am I celebrating? Well I'm not celebrating....today because it's crap outside. The sky may be falling down soon as Chicken Little would say. However, tomorrow, I fully intend to escape from the confines of my living room, drag my @ss off the couch, and get my toenails painted by someone other than myself (even though I can reach them as I no longer have a baby bump) and get my forest filled eyebrows waxed. Yup, I'm torturing myself for my birthday. Hey, better that I torture myself than anyone else, right?
Well yesterday was a fun day of taking the kiddos to the doctor's office. They both managed to make it in and out alive and didn't scream too much. There we learned that The El Porker Bambino is a whopping 13 pounds 1 ounce and the toddler is 26 pounds. It's funny because at 2 months old, my toddler weighed 14 pounds himself. I wonder if the RSV truly slowed down El Porker Bambino's weight gain because of the lack of eating due to congestion. Could he have beaten the set record and have been an even bigger chunk than his older brother? Well I guess we will never know and I'm not one to compare kiddos.
Today my mind keeps wondering to my boobs. Earlier I read about a high school student who was soon to return to school and her school would not accommodate her desire to breastfeed her child. They had every excuse under the sun about how other students would pick on her, the nurse's refrigerator was for medicine, the pump would be too loud, blah, blah, and blah some more. It made me think back to the first time I informed my employer about my desires to breastfeed. My concocted plan involved me leaving my inclusion classroom while the special education teacher was in there for 15 minutes of spelling instruction. (Yes, we still teach spelling even if there is spell check). My principal informed me that that was not going to happen. Her reasoning was that "We needed to do what was best for our students." I thought that the teacher should be comfortable or we would not be able to deliver instruction that was best for our students. She in turn called the school board's lawyer and their plan was that I would pump during my planning period. Well back then, planning was at 1:40 PM. Could you imagine that I would feed or pump at 5:30 AM and then go till 1:40 PM and be able to fully function with Dolly Partin sized boobsicles? Uhmmmm, heck no. So she agreed that I could start at my first proposed time period and they would have someone watch my students for a fifteen minute later increment each day till I was comfortable pumping at 1:40PM. Can we say I fought that and threatened to quit and talk to the media about how unaccommodating that idea was? It was then that I sent out a mass email to my fellow employees to see if someone could come be in my classroom for that 15 minute block of time and teach spelling for me. Yup, there you have it, teach spelling. Now you know that there need not be two teachers in there for a 15 minute block of spelling, but if I was allowed to be out of my classroom, then that was what I was going to do. I received many nice responses from fellow teachers and was truly blessed with the ability to pump in another teacher's office and she would be in my classroom. The reason for that story is, I'm going back to work in 33 days and I'm so not looking forward to another fight. Breast is best and in education, we have so many cutbacks in budget that there are not many assistants or helpers to share the education and relieve an engorged mama from her duty for a whole 15 minutes. Now is the time, that I need to start formulating a plan. I'm going back to school with an earlier planning period of 12:55 and even lunch is at 12:10 PM, so I can probably pump then. However, I need to find someone to cover for me and watch my class as that is obviously my responsibility. Like I said, I'm not looking forward to this. In addition, many things like meetings, planning sessions, informational meetings, and professional development sessions often occur during our 40 minute planning block. I'm not looking forward to the response that I will get when I let people know that I will constantly be late for such because of my pumping plans. What is often sad is that we women take on so much responsibility to do what is right for our children and this causes distress in the work place. When my mind ventures to this, it makes me wish that I lived in Canada where mothers get a year of paid maternity leave. Here, we get twelve weeks and it is unpaid (unless you have sick/personal days accrued-who the heck has those accrued when you have kids??). So if you are a mom or going to be a mom, start planning for your new home in the cold northern regions!! :)