Fret

When the baby decides to come out and play, I will get a substitute teacher for the next five days. It'll be kind of like spring break, only it's not spring and it won't be a break. So I guess it won't be like spring break, unless you consider that spring break is awesome and this will be too.

I'm trying to wrap my head around a couple things. One, I want my students to have a reasonably meaningful experience even though I won't be there. This will depend on the quality of my sub plans and the quality of my sub. I can't control my sub, so I'm letting that one go. The plans, though, I do control. The problem is not knowing exactly when the five days will begin. I don't think it's feasible to leave five days of plans on my desk every day; I have decided to punt and see how it goes.

My colleagues tell me not to worry about it. Even if chaos reigns for those days, it's not like the kids will necessarily mind. Plus, my students are really cool, so it's not like they'll organize a 9:00 textbook drop like I did in the 5th grade. Man, that was loud.

The other thing I'm trying to imagine is what those days will look like at home. Certainly, sleep will be a secondary concern. But during the day itself, I imagine I will look at the baby a lot and change a lot of diapers. As my breasts have not begun to lactate, I will have other responsibilities then such as...gosh, I don't know. Encouraging the latch? Making lunch? Yeah, I'll do whatever she tells me to do.

Julie's mom will also stay with us that week, and I'm sure we'll have other visitors. It'll be nice to have an experienced mom around to correct us when we do stupid things. "Um, are you sure you want to feed her steak? She doesn't have teeth yet." And so on.

I hope I don't become too territorial, though. I'm sure certain parts of parenting an infant will become somewhat tedious after awhile, but it'll all be new those first days. I'll have to apologize in advance if in my sleepless stupor I snap at Julie's mom for anything. "No, I want to change the diaper!" Mental note to let that go since there will be more to change later.

We're ready for this kid to come already, though. It's too tough for Julie to sit around most of the weekend because she doesn't have the energy to do much else. And it's too tough for me to fret about these things that'll just end up working themselves out anyway.