Add this to the list of things that scare me

Librarians and libraries do so much more than provide books for students. We're a safe place for the "weird kids" to come during lunches. We're a tutor for students who didn't quite get it in class (that ones always a little tough in the math department but I do it). We're a support for the teachers in the lesson planning and teaching. We're a meeting place for many groups. Personally, I am a ray of sunshine sent to antagonize students who want to be left alone but who would probably go an entire day without someone talking to them if I didn't do it (see above: weird kids). It's frightening to think that a whole bunch of someones think it will be just fine for 19,000 students to function without a school library and all that it provides.

http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6686591.html?nid=3245

California School District Closes All 28 Libraries

By Rocco Staino -- School Library Journal, 8/31/2009

First California’s Folsom Cordova Unified Schools got rid of all its certified media specialists—and now it’s axing its support staff and closing its doors. As of today, all 28 K-12 libraries in California’s will shutter, leaving 19,000 students with limited access to their media centers.

This marks yet another blow to the district’s libraries. Due to severe budget cuts six years ago, five certified librarians were eliminated and the district replaced them with technicians and assistants.

Now, even the support staff is getting the boot.

School library staffers became a bargaining chip in negotiations between the district and the California School Employees Association, the largest union for school employees. As a result, library technicians, assistants, and clerks have joined a total of 59 classified employees whose jobs have been eliminated to help close the district’s $14.7 million budget shortfall.

The district has urged the union to ask employees to take an ongoing three-day furlough in exchange for the restoration of 16 classified positions, some of which include library staff. But union leaders have rebuffed the offer, demanding that all positions be restored.

In the meantime, students will only be allowed access to the library when accompanied by a teacher, and they will not be allowed to check out any materials.

School superintendent Pat Godwin has suggested that teachers take “bucket of books’ to the classroom and circulate them at their discretion.

Officials of the Folsom Cordova Unified School District have not responded to SLJ’s phone calls or emails.

Pink slips were mailed in mid-July, and the library closures came three weeks after the start of the school year because the district was required to give its employees 45-days notice of their termination.

This blow to the library program comes six years after the district reassigned middle and high school librarians and halted subscription databases due to a lack of funds.

The district, located 20 miles east of Sacramento, recently invested $100,000 in Follett’s Destiny Textbook Manager program to help librarians automate textbook circulation, but the future of the program is now in doubt.

Linda Rodriguez, a library tech at Folsom High School for the last 18 years, was surprised that the district chose to reinstate freshmen athletics instead of saving the libraries. "What a nightmare," she told the local Sacramento Bee. “There is no accountability, and things are going to be cannibalized."

Superintendent Godwin has suggested that students use the Internet, the public library, or resources at home to complete their classroom and research assignments.

In the past, when Folsom elementary libraries were closed, the Folsom Public Library saw an increase in use. Katy Curl, director of the Folsom Public Library, is expecting the same to happen this time. “The community has a history of backing school libraries,” she says. “Things are incredibly tough, but I am hopeful that some of the positions will be reinstated within the month.”

So I had this dream. . .

It was a week or so ago and it was just a snippet of a dream in which I heard someone say, "It's a boy. His name is Max. He weighs 7 lbs. 15 oz. just like his mama did."

Hmmm. . . . Let's evaluate this--

1. Baby's name will most definitely not be Max. I like the name but it's Donna's cat's name. That's just not happening.

2. I did weigh 7 lbs. 15 oz. when I was born (Paul was 8 lbs. 8 oz.). Max, aka The Big Fat Cat, has not weigh 7 lbs. 15 oz. in many years so I'm fairly certain my dream was not in reference to him.

3. My gut reaction since finding out I was pregnant has been to refer to Baby as "he." Amy said with Abigail, she referred to Baby as "she" so she thinks I'm having a boy.

We will be finding out the gender of the baby. I'm too much of a planner to not do so. That news will be coming in 5-6 weeks. As for Baby's weight, I guess we'll just have to wait 27 weeks to find out that one.

More about my delicate state

Several years ago, someone asked me if I purchased baby things "just in case" we had a baby. I didn't for a variety of reasons--we weren't sure we were going to have children, it seemed to be tempting the fates if we did decide to have children and then had fertility issues, and I just don't have much room to store stuff like that in my little house. I've got a variety of children's books at the house but most of those have been purchased to have on hand for baby gifts.

There was one thing I just couldn't stop myself from purchasing when I saw it a couple of years ago. I always thought that if we weren't/couldn't have children, I'd give it to one of my friends with the books I give for Baby but until then, I stored it away for myself.
A wee little onesie that just seemed too perfect for a librarian's kid (purchased at Uncommon Goods which is easily one of my favorite online places to purchase gifts).

I keep thinking I need to start taking pictures of the pregnancy belly since I'm 13 weeks along but it seems rather anti-climatic at this point in time. Mostly, I look (and feel) like I just need to lay off the french fries a bit. I've not gained much weight--only a couple of pounds so far. My belly pooch is just big enough that most of my clothes are uncomfortable, even with the rubber band trick. I remedied that a bit by buying some pants that are a size or so bigger than I normally wear. Tops are still fitting fine, especially since the trend the past couple of years has been for the blousier cut that has made every woman look like she might be possibly be pregnant.

My OB/GYN told me that unless it was unreasonable (gaining or not gaining), he wouldn't say a word to me about my weight but to remember that every pound I gain is a pound I have to take off. Be smart with the eating, expect to gain 25-35 pounds, and don't worry about what the scale says. And then he asked my 6'3" husband how much he weighs (between 185 and 190 currently) and commented to me, "Yeah. You could be within 10 lbs. of him." Huh! That's not the reassurance I need right now, Doc. I'm really working to accept the numbers on the scale that I've never seen before. It's hard since I spend so much time fighting those numbers to just enjoy this one bit of freedom I have with the scale. Not that I've been going crazy with the eating--trying to stick our mostly-healthy eating habits and just adding in a couple of snacks during the day (peanut butter! or some extra fruit). One of my big aversions so far as been chocolates/sweets so I've definitely not overindulged in that department. I also figured out that tomato sauce like on pasta or pizza has been a culprit behind my queasiness so I'm avoiding those for a bit longer as well.

I promise not to make this place only about The Most Miraculous Pregnancy in 2000 Years. I'm sure there will be other things to discuss along the way. Like preparations for the birth of The Most Miraculous Child EVER. Um, yeah. This child is really going to need a sense of humor to survive his/her parents.

June 30, 2009

Intuition or just a feeling that I knew before that day but that was the official day that confirmed I'm pregnant. That is the day that I think both Paul and I will point to as a changing point in our marriage. Like at that point, at 7:30 in the morning when I showed him the stick with a plus sign, we had to grow up and stop playing at being grown ups. Even if this thing didn't stick, some fundamental part of our marriage--of us--was changed with that little piece of plastic.

I've never missed a period in 21+ years and while my cycle varies from 30-33 days, it's always been there. I actually warned Paul prior to day 30 that something was different--I didn't feel "normal." I kept waiting to actually take the pregnancy test--it was several days late for even a 33 day cycle. I kept telling myself that I'd wait until Tuesday, or Wednesday, or hey, July is right around the corner. We agreed that I needed to do it before we left for the cruise on July 3, just because it would be good knowledge to have before I knocked back a Mai Tai or two or twelve on the ship.

But June 30, I finally screwed up the courage to pull a pregnancy test out of the bathroom cabinet. I'm not even sure how I ended up with it or when it was purchased. Even with no recollection of when the test was actually purchased, it wasn't past it's expiration date. I've taken a few pregnancy tests in the past 9 years, I think mostly for kicks and grins. Typically the results went like this--pee on the stick, wait two minutes, throw stick in trash, continue with life. Who knew that you don't actually have to wait two minutes when you're going to pass the test? That thing pretty much goes nuclear before you've had a chance to flush.

I showed Paul and he who studied out the test and instructions like one of his schematics. We stared at each other for a bit. We both said, "Huh." And that was that.

I'm pregnant. I'm due March 1, 2010.

I called the gynecologist's office just to chat with someone about the do's and don'ts (and get some basic reassurance) before we left on vacation. Paul and I agreed that because it was so early, we weren't going to say anything to the family on the cruise (WORST. SECRET. EVER.). We screwed up our courage against the fact that there was a 20-25% chance it wouldn't stick and started doing what will probably pretty much be the motto for the rest of our lives--we'll take this one day at a time.

And yeah, the reason we HAD to get home from Quebec was the doctor's appointment ( I couldn't reschedule with our two trips in July) that confirmed I was, in fact, 8 weeks and 5 days pregnant with a singleton. Baby had a strong heartbeat and the wee-ist nubbins of arms and legs that were kicked and waved around during the sonogram. Looks like it stuck.

Since I was chastised today

It has been a good month since I updated this little spot. I was swamped with classwork from one of my summer classes. After spending 4-8 hours working on the computer for class, I wasn't too involved in goofing off on the Internet. I finished the classwork on Monday last week and teachers reported for work on Wednesday. So, I've been a bit distracted. I promise to get things caught up around here though.

When last I wrote, we were in Quebec City. It was a nice trip although I think 8 days is too long for the city. It would have been nice to be able to spend some time in Montreal as well, maybe split the trip between the two places. But since there was a specific reason for being there (Paul's conference), it wasn't possible to do that.

Getting home was an adventure of epic proportions. We had to be at the airport at 4:00 a.m. on Sunday for our 6:00 a.m. flight to Newark so we got up at 3:00 (1:00 a.m. NM time). Our flight was delayed about 20 minutes in Quebec because some genius forgot to fuel the plane. We already had a tight connection in Newark between customs and security and this wasn't helping. We landed in Newark, ran through customs, and then waited about 20 minutes for our bags. So far, we were OK but then we did the worst thing possible. We actually listened to someone at security. The first security person told us to go to the next gate because it was closer to our gate; at that gate, the security person sent us back to the first gate where once we got in line, they closed one of the lanes so that only one line was open for security. We knew at that point we were screwed. We managed to beg our way through security and grabbed a cart. We got to the gate 10 minutes before the door closed but after they'd given away our seats.

We were confirmed on the next available flight--at 6:30 the next evening. It was 8:30 in the morning. The lady at customer service kept telling us "We've done all that we're required to do" when we asked about other possible flights. We even asked about getting us to Denver, thinking that at least that was within driving distance of home. No such luck, "We've done all that we're required to do." Whatever. I told Continental customer service here that I would have been less frustrated by the whole thing if she'd even offered us a piece of paper that had been copied 700 times and was barely legible with local hotel, shuttle, and restaurant information on it. Instead, Paul asked the other person at the counter if there was WiFi (we both had our laptops) and we set off on the task of finding another flight home.

This is where we messed up. I wish we'd taken about 10 minutes to just gather our thoughts. We were still so frustrated and had gotten hung up on getting to Denver that we didn't even think to look for other flights to ABQ. There was a Delta flight from Newark to Denver leaving at 11:30 and so we set off to find the Delta counter which was at another terminal and involved leaving security and taking the airport train over to it. We got the flight and through security with no problems. About midway through the flight between Newark and Minneapolis, I asked Paul why we hadn't booked a flight to ABQ. As soon as we landed in Minneapolis, we started calling Delta to get on a flight to ABQ but we couldn't change our flight without going to customer service and we didn't know if we'd have time.

So, we boarded the flight to Denver hoping we could get on a Southwest flight to ABQ but knowing we could drive is nothing else. We knew we didn't have seats together on this flight but had just planned on asking the flight attendant to change seats or just not sit together for 2 hours. As we were boarding, the gate agent told us we'd had a seat change--"and these are better"-- and handed us our new boarding passes. I was so tired and out of it that it didn't even dawn on me that seats 1 A and 1 B are in first class. I asked the flight attendant is numbering started over in coach. :) It doesn't and it would have been great to enjoy the seats if we knew what we were doing in Denver.

In Denver, I frantically finished the midterm exam that was due that afternoon (a mix of procrastination and it taking longer than I thought to complete) after we checked with Southwest. There was only 1 seat available on the flight to ABQ. So, as I was working, Paul was calling every rental car company about getting a car, telling our sob story to all of them. They didn't care but we were finally able to find one company that would let us drop off in ABQ (for a pretty fee). We finally set off for ABQ about 4:00. We finally got to ABQ about 1:30 a.m. Monday morning which if you do the math means we were up for over 24 hours. To say we were exhausted is an understatement.

All of this was because 1) we wanted to get home and 2) I had a doctor's appointment at 8:30 on Monday morning that we didn't want to cancel/change. More on that later. After the doctor's appointment, we returned the car and retrieved our luggage. I went to customer service to get the credit for our flights--explaining our sob story to them. They apologized but I don't know. I guess I would think they would want to do something to keep us happy customers. Then again, they also know that there are two other butts that would fill those seats. In the meantime, we've got some flight credits on Continental that will only cost us $150 to use.

So, that is how we got home from Quebec. And happy to be home we are.