Big Mouths

Even though I am starting to show a little bit, I was trying to keep my pregnancy on the down low at school until I passed the 12 week mark (which is today), so that I knew that I was pretty much in the clear. I didn't do that with Ethan, but after talking to a teacher this summer about how she had told her class when she was almost 12 weeks and the next day, she miscarried, I didn't want to put my little munchkins or myself through that. I had told some of the teachers and my boss over the summer, to give them a heads up about my upcoming absence, but no one else. It is quite amazing how quick things like that spread!!! By the first day of workshops last week, 80% of the staff knew and then I started getting phone calls, e-mails, and questions at the grocery store about it from school parents about it. "How did you find out?" I'd ask them. "Well, I heard it from Rebecca, who heard it from Kirsten who heard it from..." Yikes! And as I said in a previous post, I had a parent tell me at Kindergarten Orientation, "Jessica, I think everyone pretty much already knows." So I knew a lot of parents knew, but how about the kids???

I didn't have to wait long to find out the answer. While sharing my "All About Me" poster and pictures with the kids, one of my students (who is brand new to our school) says, "My mommy told me you have a baby in your tummy!" And here we go! I was floored, considering I don't even know this little girl or her family (though she knows someone who knows one of the teachers who heard it from another teacher who heard it from me). I decided honesty would be best. "Yes, I am going to have a baby. It's really small now, but will be born in March, right around Easter." The questions coming were equally funny/puzzling: "Who's going to be our teacher?" (Answer: Who knows? They probably won't even tell ME that until the week before.) "Is it a boy baby or a girl baby?" (Answer: I won't know that for awhile yet, and even if I do, who's to say I'm sharing that information at school AT ALL this time.), but my favorite/least favorite was more of a comment-"I thought your tummy looked a little big!" Ahhh...gotta love it! After all, out of the mouths of babes...