Settling In Gently by R.A.Davis

A lovely woman from Kamehameha Schools came to chat with me and my coworkers about literacy in Hawaiian education. She reminded me of my college professors in the schools of education: chunky jewelry, clean shoes, briefcase, steady theoretical competence. "Literacy is simple!" she says calmly, and shows us a beautiful portfolio full of functional literacy items from her own life: thank you cards, passport forms, christmas letters... I was lucky enough to have really stellar professors in my Brigham Young University English Teacher program-- especially Sirpa Grierson with her early-adoption of web-based technologies for literature instruction, and Deborah Dean, who has been a real pioneer in the field of genre based literacy. So the little PD at school this week didn't really touch on anything novel, but still. It was an interesting reminder to take a step back (as if you were someone who wore nice shoes and carried a briefcase and got to think calmly about education ins...

I'm about 5 weeks away from giving birth-- really a month and a day from my due date, but you never want to hex it by shaving days off your full 40 week sentence. My belly is profound, my bosom is bounteous. I groan and creak when I stand up or resettle in my chair. I require a phalanx of pillows to sleep (in the small of my back, under my neck but not touching my shoulders, under my left armpit and between my knees, no blanket but yes a sheet, but not covering my feet or arms) and even then I wake up to pee, to drink, to fret, to check facebook, to restart the soporific audiobook, to drink water, to swat mosquitos... My belly is moon-round and lightly marbled with new stretchmarks-- pearly little striations. I rub them daily with coconutty lotion. My girls sniff at me and grimace-- you smell like baby belly! This pregnancy-- I want to capture it before it's over. The baby bumps and rolls and stretches up under my ribcage-- sometimes jabs a sharp ankle or heel outward and...