I'm actually okay once I find a style (surprisingly there is a maidenform style that really works for me and it's cheapish to boot).

But ugh.

My other ish is pants. After having a c-section, my entire midsection is fucked up, yo. Nothing fits right.

Basically I look like shit.

We finished Grace's nursing training this morning. Dear god, changing the g-tube is NOT what I like to do. But giving her meds is so much easier than it was for Noah. Put it in the tube. Add water. Done.

This afternoon, for the first time ever, I felt like a mom of twins. Noah was in Grace's crib. She is doing this headbanging thing that I don't love. And Noah looked at her and started doing it. She is laughing like crazy at him. I'm trying to get them both to stop. One would look at me, stop, and then look at the sibling, start laughing and do it again. Neither would listen.

Then when we were walking, Noah was holding Grace's hand and she headbutt him and started laughing.

The two of them together are starting to be a handful.

I'm currently a 34 band size, and a cup size that leaves me with a choice of about two styles of bra. I'm pretty sure that, when I lose a little more weight, I'll be a 32 band, which will leave me with approximately one bra.

I read that article and I am not sure what it means.

But it might explain why no bra is comfortable. And why underwires move too much and stab me

Ah, Noah and Grace, tagteaming mom...Love that they are interacting, though. Touch less headbanging would be good.

Headbanging is, sadly, sort of fun when you're two.

The Noah and Grace duo is adorable, though.

In case I forget tomorrow morning--ita and Dana, I hope you both have awesome first days, and end up loving the jobs.

Yeah. I have a lot of students. And they do a lot of writing. The grading isn't horrific though as I have pledged this year to not work harder than my students. Also, some of the best writing gurus have lately been coming down on having less feedback (especially in terms of corrections) and more on focusing on one area to fix.

Given both of those, I'm not letting grading take over my life this year. I have two sets of essays each week that I grade and I grade them the way the EPT at the CSUs grade and or the way an AP scorer grades, which is to say 30 seconds per. Then I figure out one or two questions and one area that I liked a lot. Then I teach minilessons about big repeating problems. It's what I did last year too and it seems effective for my students.

And I've also given myself permission to not grade everything they write (especially sonnets/villanelles/sestinas) and to give full credit if things sit longer than a week. It's remarkably liberating!

And all of my grading is done for the night and my grades have been submitted for this quarter AND I wrote my syllabus for the new course they gave me on Thursday....lots of true crime, some Barry Glassner, a piece on Juvenile Justice and to start, a miniunit on Surrogacy.... all topics I care about! I forgot how much I love expository writing classes... so off to bed for me. I've been more efficient than I anticipated.

sounds like a plan -- I might have learned more quickly if one major error was pointed out -- instead of everything. Especially if it was an error I repeated a lot. By the time I fixed one -- then something else would show up. By the end of a year I'd be aware of my most common writing errors.

I like it. If I knew that was going on -- less fear of errors, more attention on weak areas, and in the end a better writer.

Given both of those, I'm not letting grading take over my life this year. I have two sets of essays each week that I grade and I grade them the way the EPT at the CSUs grade and or the way an AP scorer grades, which is to say 30 seconds per. Then I figure out one or two questions and one area that I liked a lot. Then I teach minilessons about big repeating problems. It's what I did last year too and it seems effective for my students.

I need you to teach me how to do this.

I mean, I don't do the whole "editing for them" thing, but I really need to learn how to speed up.

The two of them together are starting to be a handful.

Ah ha ha ha ha! Luckily they are still absurdly cute, I bet even when they are tag teaming you.

WRT grading, I would have nightmares if I had as many essays to grade as you do, Kat. You are a hero. I have been trying to get better at giving less corrections, more holistic feedback, but sometimes that's just not feasible with my really weak writers. I am lucky if I finish 3 paper sets in a week, it's usually 2.