Baby Names and other fun

We don't know if Baby H is a boy or a girl yet - though we find out in just 23 days, not that we're counting - but we've been tossing around baby names since the day we learned we were expecting.  Our plan is to keep the name a secret (something has to be a secret!) until the baby is born, but I wanted to share some of the more interesting suggestions.

1. I told Ryan yesterday that I was going to close my eyes, flip to a random page in the baby name book, and whatever my finger landed on would be the name - no matter boy or girl.  It landed on Paz, an Arabic name meaning "the golden one." Get excited - little Paz will be arriving in just five and a half short months.
2. Suggestions from a few students in my homeroom class, who made a list while bored - Tyrome, Barack O'H---, Tiger Woods, and many others. They also said it would be acceptable if we just named the baby after them.
3. From Butler fans: Bradley Stevens H---, Matthew Howard H---, Shelvin Mack H---, Brandon Polk H---, Tony Hinkle H---.
4. From my nieces: Sally, Sophia, Sleeping Beauty (or any of the princesses, really), Doody, PeePee, and Stinky. I especially like the last three.

Now that everyone knows that we're expecting, I have found myself a new member of the Pregnant Ladies Club. It includes any woman that is pregnant, has ever been pregnant, or is thinking of becoming pregnant in the near future.  So far, I haven't gotten any terrible advice (rumor has it that this is coming any minute, along with unwanted belly touching and dumb questions), and I've been glad to have these other women around who understand what it's like to be two-in-one.  Our discussions have ranged from how to fasten one's pants while too big for regular clothes and too small for maternity clothes, prenatal vitamins (who knew these could be so complicated?), dealing with morning sickness, what it feels like to be suddenly upset in the middle of the night that someday your husband might want to move to the country when you can't stand bugs and being more than 2 miles from a shopping center, and what it's like to not be able to look at, think about, or smell meat.  Some members who are also teachers have shared that they, too, felt that it was impossible to choose a name, because somewhere along the line there was a not-so-favorite student by the same name.  Nothing in my life has ever been this consuming of my time or energy, so it's nice to know that I'm not the only one.

In other news, I survived the first week of school and only cried once - the night before school started after convincing myself that I was not possibly capable of being both pregnant and a 9th grade English teacher.  All things considered, though, it went pretty well, although I'm not very good at supervising the hallways, as I eat and go to the bathroom between almost every class.  I even had one sweetheart (whose older sister I had in class a few years ago) say that she couldn't wait to find out if the baby was a girl or a boy, because she wanted to crochet it a little hat or something. (See, teenagers aren't so bad after all.)  Nonetheless, by Friday afternoon, I was exhausted. I must have looked like I'd been hit by a train while walking out of school on Friday, because everyone I saw on the way out gently suggested that I take my little body home and have a nap.

Without further adieu, I've included a (much-requested) picture of "the bump."