growing, growing...20 weeks!

Mommyhood

So I'm 20 weeks and three days along with the little one, and feeling oh-so-good. Minus the usual meltdown at something ridiculously sappy or otherwise moving. It's true, I've been way emotional, but physically the only difference is that I'm carrying a basketball on my front, and I get tired and sore a little earlier in the day. But I feel curvy and healthy, not quite like a whale yet. Although, if this is how big I am at 4 1/2 months, I'm not even going to try imagining my last week of being pregnant before delivering.

Last week I received an awesome care package from a good friend. I love love love getting fun stuff in the mail! She sent up some tea and two books: "Pregnancy Sucks: What to Do When Your Miracle Makes You Miserable," and "Porn for New Moms". Dirty as the latter sounds, it's actually a cute book of cute guys playing with babies, saying things like, "and in 8 hours, we can wake up Mommy!" and "Oh goody, spit up! I have this new organic cleaner I've been dying to try!" :) Thank you, darlin'!

I can't believe we're already halfway. It seems just like yesterday that we were looking at the test with looks of stunned disbelief and amazement. "Pregnant". Amazing how one word can completely turn your life upside down. So far it's been in a good way. It's led to new friendships, the strengthening of old ones, new realizations about life and love. It's made me love something more than I ever have in my life. And it's made me realize that this love is what is going to power the rest of my time here on Earth. I'm just now coming to understand the enormity of what is to come.

Farm School

We had our last day of Farm School on Friday. It was my last day teaching for a program that I've been teaching for since the very, very beginning, back in August 2008; 1 1/2 years of an incredible learning experience has brought me to such an awesome place with my education. We had a great last day, complete with outdoor games, tours of our classroom for the parents, an award ceremony, and finally a yummy potluck. I woke up feeling more ambivalent about the day than I thought I would...With the pressure of everything else I looked at it from the perspective of having one less thing on my plate. So I got dolled up, wore mascara in complete confidence that I wouldn't shed tears over this.

Yeah right. Miss Kate says goodbye to her little ones, who she loves dearly, and doesn't expect to cry. Holy underestimation of the power of preggo hormones.

Anyway, I gave out 8 of the 9 awards without getting weepy, but then I had saved someone very, very dear til the very end (way to go) and I ended up being too choked up to give him his award, so I had Jaimee, my assistant, do it. :') And THEN, after going through a bunch of Kleenex for that, the kids and parents gave me and Sierra the most beautiful presents: each of us got a scrapbook of our years of teaching Farm School, with pictures drawn by the kids, cards, photos of each session we've taught...What an incredible gift. So sweet. Bright also gave me a stuffed orca (long story), and Connor bestowed upon me a T-Rex (he gave Jaimee a bitchin' monster truck) :). They may not have any idea of how much they have changed my life, but I hope they always remember how much I love them. damn it! Tears!

We've had a fun Spring session. From making cottonwood bud balm to hunting the ever-elusive macroinvertebrates, we covered concepts in hydrology, ecology, geology...and kid-ology. I let my lessons be a little less structured, and instead built in more time for teachable moments, games, and more inquiry-driven classroom learning. The kids really seemed to like the change, and it took the pressure off of me to make sure each minute of our teaching day was accounted for.

Making cottonwood balm: lard, cottonwood tree buds, lavender oil, and vitamin E.

Practicum Amazingness

Another fun aspect of life here in AK is my practicum at the West Coast and Alaska Tsunami Warning Center. Last week Thursday one of my co-workers came in and asked if anyone wanted to learn how to test absolute gravity, which was taking place at the seismic vault down the street. Of course I volunteered, and so Michael and I drove down and hiked up the hill to the PMR (Palmer) seismic station. Seismometers are kept there on a post in the vault going all the way down through the glacial till layer to the bedrock, and the vault is kept at a constant temperature to keep the machines running smoothly. We walked in and there was a man there who taught us the relevance of knowing absolute gravity and how to do it...I wished I hadn't slept through so many physics classes!

The components making up the gravimeter were the vacuum-sealed metal chamber, the 4000v ion pump, the super spring it sits on, lasers, a turbo pump to suck the air and molecules out of the chamber, an atomic clock, and a glass block that drops within a casing. The turbo pump sucks the air out, the ion pump charges all the particles inside so they stick to a metal plate, and then the glass block free falls after someone hits the trigger and is caught by the casing; the speed is measured by the laser beams. All the data is relayed into a computer and processed. They did 100 drops and got the measurement within a billionth of a microgal, which is the unit in which gravity is measured. Awesome!

Hanging with Friends

I've made it a point this semester to spend more time with my friends new and old up here, which has increased my quality of life tenfold. In recent days my friend Bethany came to spend the weekend with me, and we packed up 160lbs. of my stuff and sent it home...MN is receiving all my books, outdoor gear, winter clothes, and other sundries. She was so much fun to spend time with, and we packed, drank tea, watched way too many YouTube videos, and were very productive altogether. That took a lot of the stress off for the rest of what I need to pack, and I'll be able to finish up smoothly in the last week that I'm in AK.

We also have gotten the cobb oven going at the farm! I'm not sure of its absolute construction method, but it's a clay oven that can bake a pizza in about two minutes. Amazing. So we all got together for a 'build your own pizza' night, and had fun baking them all out in the garden where the oven's located. Mine was a decadent concoction of whole-wheat crust brushed with pesto, marinara, broccoli, spinach, bell peppers, balsamic vinegar, avocado, and sprinkled with shredded cheese. Everyone else had yummy combinations too, and it was such a nice time spent out on the farm. I am going to miss that place, and its incredible people.

And finally, The Weather

It snowed last week.