dream a little dream of me

I might be the only one who feels this way, but I dread the mornings when Nick rolls over and says, "I had the weirdest dream last night." To his credit, Nick sometimes has very interesting dreams and usually they feature him as the hero: saving me, or saving his family. One of his dreams was him and Robert DeNiro fighting dragons so me and my friend Teeg could escape.

But no matter how interesting HE thinks they are, they are still someone else's dreams. And most of the time, other people's dreams don't make a damn bit of sense to anyone but the person who dreamed them! And it only gets worse when they try to explain them, despite the huge gaping plot holes: "We ended up at your house, but I don't remember how and it wasn't really your house because it was two stories..." Ughhhh. So boring. And I am as guilty as anyone about wanting to share them. Because sometimes dreams seem SO REAL, someone else HAS to know about it!

This morning we were enjoying our Saturday morning ritual, cuddling in bed and checking our iPhones and Nick muttered those words, "I had such a weird dream last night." Here we go. I said, "Oh yeah? A short one, I hope?" He rolled his eyes and said a bit defensively, "YES."

Here's what he said.

"I was still dating ------- (a girl from his past) but she was always so mean to me (in the dream, not in real life) and I was getting so sick of her. I went to the airport to pick her up after a long trip to Africa. When I saw her getting off the plane, I waved to her and said, "Hey!" to which she snarled at me, "I thought you'd have the car right outside!" And then I responded, "I'm so sick of your shit! I'm leaving!" And I left her standing there. When I got outside I saw a very pregnant lady struggling with her luggage and I hurried over to help her. And when I got there, I saw that it was you. And I knew instantly that I loved you and I loved this baby."

Swoon.

why i hate working in the schools sometimes

Mean Librarians.

Today, I went to a school to visit with a kid. We meet in the library. We have a deal where we visit for most of the session and then we read aloud from Diary of a Wimpy Kid (which is amazing). Before our session started, he asked me if he could check out a book to take home and read. Of course I said yes and we wandered through the aisles together and he picked out a fairly large hardback book with a picture of a dragon on it. I believe it was one of the Eragon series. He brought it to the Mean Librarian and pushed the book back at him and then sneered at him, "Go back and pick out a book you CAN read."

My client was so embarrassed and upset. He insisted he could read it and she opened it up at random and made him read one of the sentences inside and when he had trouble with one of the NAMES, not words, she made him return to the stacks and pick something else.

By this time I was giving her an incredulous look, mixed with fury and she started back peddling and then tried to insist that he should look for another book about dragons that's not so advanced if that's what he was interested in. He just grabbed a book off the shelf and set it down in front of her. I could tell he had no interest in reading it.

Another potential book lover bites the dust.

We sat down and talked for awhile and then read our book. During the time when he was reading out loud, I could hear the Mean Librarian yelling at every kid who came in.

Here's a lovely exchange with a SECOND grader who was at the card catalog computer:
"William, what are you looking for?"
Three full seconds of silence from William.
"Excuse me, are there any other Williams in this library?"
William sadly shakes his head.
"Do you have some kind of hearing problem?"
Shakes his head again.
"Then why would you pretend like you can't hear me when I asked you a question?"
He shrugs, looks terrified.
"Get over here and pick out a book and go back to class."

Another with a girl who looked like she was in fourth grade who had just returned a book.
"Jennifer did you really read this whole book?"
"Yes."
"Well, I'm not counting it for your reading points because I don't believe you. I know you couldn't have finished it. Pick out something else from this shelf only and I'll let you check it out."

What a peach she is. She also did that awesomely, condescending thing where she had discussions with the teacher about how misbehaved the children were like the children weren't even there. Grrrrr.

Why do people think it's okay to speak to children that way? I understand it's not easy to deal with kids all day (God knows teachers complain about it 24/7), but that's what they signed on for! And in my opinion, librarians have NO excuse. They are in a big empty room surrounded by books most of the time!

Sadly, most kids don't even realize that they are being mistreated by this horrible woman because they are spoken to like this by most people in their lives. Have you ever walked down a hallway while classrooms are lined up, going to lunch? All they hear is what they're doing wrong; and you'd think teachers would have clued into the fact that if you ramble on enough, KIDS STOP LISTENING TO YOU. So, instead of yelling instructions at them all day like, "Face forward. Stop talking. Hands to yourself. Get in line. Don't look in their classroom. Hurry up," they'd start giving attention to the ones who ARE doing what they are supposed to because most kids would cut off their right arm for positive attention.

This whole rant has me seriously considering homeschooling my kid. Kidding.

behold good sir, your future child

(I have decided that every post related to the pregnancy, which let's face it, most of the future posts will be, I will title them with a quote from Juno - one of my favorite pregnancy movies.)

Today, Nick and I went to the midwife for our second appointment. In the last few days, I had been having a lot of anxiety about the baby. In our last appointment, I was only 8 weeks along and LeAnna (the midwife) didn't think we would be able to see the baby that early and she was right, but it still bummed me out.

So for our appointment today, I was worried there wouldn't be a heartbeat. I know, it's morbid. I don't know why I even thought of that, but I just wanted to be prepared for anything. I warned Nick going in that it was a possibility, but he was sure everything was alright.

At the beginning of the appointment, we chatted for a bit with LeAnna and she said, "Well, let's take a look." She gets out the doppler and rubs it around on my belly for awhile and all we hear is static. I start feeling really uncomfortable and nervous. Then she says, "Okay. Let's see if we can get a look at it." She gets the ultrasound machine out and has Nick come over and stand by me so we can look at the screen together. I was too freaked out to look at the screen right away so I looked at Nick until she said, "Okay, there it is!" I whipped my head around and as soon as I made out the baby on the screen, it jumped a mile! It didn't stop moving the whole time we looked at it. We saw the heartbeat fluttering a mile a minute. Nick was so sweet the whole time. I love, love, love seeing him excited about the baby. Last week he brought home a stroller!

I made a comment about being so relieved that we could see the baby and the nurse said, "Yeah, you looked really worried earlier!"

She printed out three pictures of the peanut and we set the date for the BIG ultrasound. March 23rd! How will I be able to wait?!

Here's the little guy/girl with its head down and feet up!
(I never thought I would be one of "those" women who post ultrasound pictures that no one can figure out. I imagine in the next few months I'll be doing alot of things I never thought I would. Isn't that what motherhood is all about?)