My Side of the Crack-head's Story

I always like the rewrites of famous children's books like the one where they told the story of the Three Little Pigs through the POV of the wolf. I have one of those re-writes. As you can see from this link: http://cheyneyandryan.blogspot.com/2008/06/my-first-bike-ride.html, my friend tells a story of success and victory, but I have a tale of crack-headedness at its finest. I give you the story of "Cheyney the Strung-out Bike Addict":

So there I was sleeping in after a strenuous day of massages and swimming when my doorbell rang. Assuming (as Cheyney describes) that it was the neglected Children of the Corn from down the street who are obsessed with playing with my dogs, I tried to ignore the door. The knocks continued until I headed for the door ready to turn those children back in the direction of their mother who must be designing an underground railroad since she is always to busy for them.

Instead of two little faces looking in the window beside my door, I saw the frantic look of Cheyney. Since I do like her and since she didn't come to play with the dogs, I let her in. It seems that she had ridden her bike 21.3 MILES that is right MILES to my house with no cellphone, wallet, or list of top-ten list of favorite SNL moments.

This is not 21.3 miles of curving country roads, this is 21.3 miles of mostly HIGHWAY. My one consolation in life and death is that Cheyney's husband is a social worker at the much-acclaimed Dorthea Dix (home of some of the best mental healthcare in the city of Raleigh) and if such behavior continues, I am assured that he will step in.

To further assess her mental state, I agreed to swim with her -- but only for more observation. The cool perfect water had nothing whatsoever to do with my choice! Friends make those kinds of sacrifices for friends... even crackheaded ones.

The Most Delicious Day

Today, in honor of Cheyney's job making her work an obscene 40 hours/week soon (not sure, but I think slavery was abolished a couple of years ago -- you might want to check into that), Cheyney and I had a lovely afternoon of acting like we don't have jobs. While she put in a few hours at work, I slept in then headed into Raleigh where we met at Wal*Mart. We picked up a few things, then got ready for the pool.

We set up shop and enjoyed the sun and perfect temperatured water (and, of course, our own sparkling conversation) for a couple of hours then we went up to take a shower to get ready for the next part of our perfect day: massages.

Cheyney has been talking about this place and it really is cool. Very minimal and clean inside which is calm to begin with. I had the first pre-natal massage of my life which was similar to a regular one with some positional differences.

Not really sure of what could have happened that could have possibly made a day of sleeping in, pooling, and massages with a fun girl better. Three cheers for Cheyney's fun event planning.

1/2 of the DNA

I found this picture of Luis from back when he was an exchange student. Total trouble back then but oh so cute.

I have loved what this baby has done to him so far and now that he knows that everything is great with how the baby is growing and what the baby is exactly (gender-wise) he is even cuter than usual. Funny what babies bring out in people.

So, here's raising a glass of DHA Omega-3 enriched organic milk to my cute husband and his even cuter reaction to being my babydaddy.

It's a BOY!!

Totally surprising me, the baby is a boy. The kids in my class have been sure it was a girl and have been calling it "she" and "her", but as it was clear to all to see today, it is really a "HE".

In total Luis style, he was mooning us as soon as she put the ultrasound on my belly so that even if we had not wanted to know we could not have missed his "business".

He made no pretense of modesty -- gotta love his dad's genes for that. He was also resting like we both do with one hand under his head.

There is a great view of his spine that I'm sure was a shout-out to his girl Cheyney. He's already smooth with the ladies!

Pregnancy does not preclude wifely duty

We went to the air show at Cherry Point Marine base (I think that's the official name) and aside from the airplanes it was HOT. I went because I knew that Luis wanted to see the Blue Angels (who, of course, didn't fly until 3:30 even though we were there by 10:30) and I always think it's cute that he gets excited about seeing different aviation-related things I've never heard of. Plus, I knew it would be a great chance to get out of town together.

Um, yeah about that. "Together" is such a strong word when half of the pair keeps running up to the fence to take pictures of planes "doing what planes can't do" (that's what the announcer said so I guess it must be true).

There were some high points like the Shock Wave which is a jet-engined truck that drove faster than a plane -- I could sure use one of those for my drives to Raleigh for work.

Then there was the RUDE lady who stood in front of me for too long and didn't even ask if she was in my way. I think she was fair game for the fine shot I took of her.

It was hot as could be, but we survived and we both came out of it glad we went (me for brattier reasons like the above lady). Props to me for doing my wifely duty and being a good sport. I smell a chick flick in the theatre coming up in Luis's future!

Pregnancy-related symptom

With Carol's comment in mind, I am writing today about a pregnancy related symptom that has been slowly creeping up on me. It's nothing awful like throwing up, but this is what I have to offer:

During the night, I've been waking up to find my wedding rings TIGHT and to get relief I've put my hands in cold water and that has taken care of it. Well, today (my last day of work for the 2007-2008 school year, amen) I was repeatedly bothered by the discomfort caused by my too tight rings.

When I told Kathryn (my glorious TA who has an anecdote for everything), she told me about how she went to Walmart to buy a cheap band when pregnancy swelling made her put her rings away.

I don't know how many of you remember those janky Walmart commercials where people bragged about the good deals they got on their wedding rings at Walmart, but I do know that Luis and I mercilessly made fun of the cheesiness of the commericals. We still can't walk by the jewelry counter at Walmart without ragging on those commericals. Time out to say that this is not a commentary on the actual jewelry there and if you did get you symbolic jewelry there, more power to you, I'm sure you probably paid the most reasonable price -- but really, those commercials?!

Well, Kathryn and I went to the Walmart to look for storage bins for the school's new handwriting program and we decided to glance at the bands... $15! The lady who was working the counter was a pure hoot and was a good sport for us. So here is my silver band. I later called Luis to inform him that he had been a "single" man for about 35 minutes (while my rings were carefully put away so we could eat lunch and drive to Walmart) -- but that he could breathe easy knowing that no one would be judging me for being an unwed momma anymore.

So there you are. Isn't that the way life goes? You make fun of something, and you almost always end up doing just what you made fun of. I am morphing into more and more of a dork!

Beautiful Bathtub -- the end of an era.

A pioneer in the education field was laid to retirement today. This is not a very flattering image of our our beloved class bathtub, but it is reality as of today.

Since we are 1) switching a kindergarten room that happens to by mine with a first grade room and 2) actually changing rooms every so often during the year like real year-rounders, the beautiful majestic bathtub that was painted with love by my class had to leave Leesville Road Elementary.

A while ago, I posted a picture of the bathtub in all of its splender in the classroom where it served as a mighty behavior motivator -- only the best kids could take off their shoes and read in it. Right up until today, kids were vying for a place in the tub.

My darling and cute and tolerant husband came to school and loaded it into his work van and then lugged it out and placed it in its final resting place (at least until baby Velasquez gets big enough to enjoy such a fun thing).

I was ready to toss it out (yeah right, like toss is the right verb for a 250 pound bathtub) but I think I'll be glad that Luis wanted to go through the hassle of bringing it home. That way when our kid's Kindergarten teacher thinks she's hot stuff for bringing a bathtub to the classroom our kid can boredly reply "I have one in my room!". Actually he/she better not ever boredly reply to anything a teacher does for him/her after all the effort I know teachers put into making the day fun.

Oh, and as an added bonus here is a nice eye-candy picture of my husband representing in his Colombia shirt (it is amazing how much Colombia-wear he has from the last 2 trips).