Life in my class has taken a terrifying turn.

Blame the swine flu, but all of the sudden I am noticing my inability to isolate myself from dirty children's bodily fluids. I took a bunch of pictures of my class the other day and after I got done gushing about how cute they all were, Curtis commented, "I can't believe how snotty all of their noses are." Its true. Every single one of them is constantly dripping. There is drool, snot, wet pants, and... worse. What is a pregnant lady to do? I have taken to washing my hands obsessively (scrub with soap while singing "Happy Birthday to You" twice through, dry- being careful not to touch the dirty tap, and then douse in hand sanitizer, wait five minutes, repeat) while at school, but I am still feeling a little freaked all while trying to stay very zen so as not to upset my tenant. It is a scary time to be pregnant, living in this part of Texas, and working with small children. There was a kid in Pre-K at a school close to mine who has been diagnosed with swine flu, and they have shut down that school until May 11th. Meanwhile, we are carrying on with life as usual (with the addition of OCD-type hand washing on my part)... here is one of my guys with some of the regular Pre-K kids we work with every day.


Other news- I am getting a new student on Monday. That brings me to 9, which may not sound like a lot, but believe me, it is. I met my new little one today and said a small prayer that my class does not eat him alive. He seems very delicate and my boys are not. At all. We started our childbirth classes last weekend, and we are both feeling very excited. We are in the home stretch! I can hardly believe it. We are taking Bradley method classes, which advocates husband (or partner) coached natural childbirth and I think Curtis will be a stellar coach. We have even watched some birth videos and he didn't didn't cringe or feel freaked out. I've been very impressed. Walter is officially mange free- did I already mention that? Its a good thing that dog is so charming because I swear, I have never owned a higher maintenance pet. Here he is lookin' all proud and happy. After this little jaunt in the creek, we discovered that for future water wallerin' we will need to get him little rubber booties (no joke) because he kicks up pebbles along the bottom of the creek and scrapes his paws raw. See what I mean? He is a delicate flower.