Today, while on my lunch break from work, I got into my car and drove to a tattoo parlor. I laid down forty bucks, bared my stomach to a man with so many piercings I wondered how long it would take him to get through airport security (and who was also quite possibly extremely stoned), and got my belly-button re-pierced.

I first got it pierced over ten years ago, when I was at the tender young age of 17. I kept it in all through the years, until I got pregnant. I planned to keep it in the entire time, but the ultrasound tech worried it would scratch up the wand thingy during my ultrasound, and at the time I was all, “Fine. Whatever. Just tell me the sex of my precious child!”, so I took it out.

When I tried to put it back in after I had my son, I found it had closed. At the time, I shrugged and didn’t care because, really? Did I really want to display a piece of jewelry amidst post-partum blobby skin? Not to mention my belly-button looks sort of collapsed-in and weird now.

Fast forward to a year later, when I’ve finally (FINALLY) lost the baby weight and gotten into shape. With my beach vacation looming next week, I decided to take one last grasp at my youth and do something ridiculous, stupid and totally vain.

And I love it.

I will never be the same I was before I had my son–physicially, mentally, emotionally. Nor do I want to be. But damn it, when I’m up with him all night due to razor-sharp molars coming in, wiping baby puke off my formerly nice work suit and cleaning off the vaseline he’s smeared all over the bedroom wall, at least my belly button will look cute.

Bring on the margaritas and the bathing suit!

This morning started off like any other:

Extreme iced coffee consumption, and a book outside while Paige played in her new playhouse in the yard.

Only this morning, there was a bear.

It started off innocently enough, I had just settled into an early morning phone call to my mom to bitch about stuff, when I turned, and beyond our little fence was a bear eating raspberries from our bush.  For some reason, I freaked out, grabbed Paige, told my mom I had to call her back because there was a bear, dropped the phone, and ran into the house….

To tell my husband, so we could go spy on it. And we did, until the dogs saw it and started barking like Old Yeller post rabies.  The bear, who we will call George was not even fazed, continued to waddle around eating leaves and what not, stopping occasionally to stand on a rock and look at us. I’ve never seen a “real live” bear and I’m pleased that they look exactly like teddy bears.

I’ve told about 100 people so far about George, and I will continue to do so. I MEAN HOW COOL. A BEAR!

[And after telling my mother in law, she told me to be careful since black bears eat people...]

Time once again for the old Imperfect Blogger of the Week award, and today we’re awarding the IBOTWA to: In the Trenches of Mommyhood! She was nominated for this post, which if our own experience is any indication, has a serious “Oh yeah, sister, I’ve been there” vibe to it:

So, it’s 1:15, I’ve barely gone to sleep, and all of a sudden, Eldest is standing at my bedside wimpering. Suddenly, the wimpering morphs into HEAVING. So I usher him into his bathroom, leaving a trail of puke in his wake. Now there’s a puddle in the hallway, and the new bathroom tile is slick with vomit. I rush over to comfort him while his head is in the toilet and squish my bare toes in it, sliding as I’m trying to reach him.

*my gag reflex was working overtime as I typed that*

He finishes and I tuck him back into bed, with the puke bucket firmly at his side. Thankfully, he’s not feverish.

Proceed to clean up the mess on the tile and carpet. (There were chunks, in case you were wondering. You weren’t? Oh. Sorry.)

Read the rest to find out why this was even more than the usual bad timing.

Stay tuned, as next week the voting begins and In the Trenches of Mommyhood goes up against all the other July winners to see who will take home the Imperfect Blogger of the Month Major Award™.

As a teacher you constantly ask yourself, Am I reaching my students?” Am I being an effective educator? Am I making learning fun? Do the students understand the concepts I’m teaching? Do the students even like me? Am I making any kind of impact on their lives?

I spent a lot of time during my second student teaching placement reflecting. It was an exciting time of year – I started just before Halloween and left just before Christmas. The students were anxious for the upcoming holidays. The snow was starting to fall. And there I was – a new teacher to contend with.

There was one student who worried me a bit. I’ll call him E. E was a very bright and articulate child, but school didn’t seem to interest him much. He was more concerned with football. Tom Brady and the New England Patriots to be exact. He loved Tom Brady, idolized him. On library day he always came back with a book about football or his favorite player or team. Months later my heart broke for him when the Giants won the Super Bowl. He was a cool kid. He didn’t like to participate in any of my silly dances or songs. He often seemed uninterested in whatever activity we were doing.

I soon began to followed his lead. When talking to him I tried to relate any new learning to football. I made math problems with a football theme. I studied Tom Brady. I watched the games. I was all football all the time with this kid. Still, was it working? I couldn’t be sure.

Then today, while waiting to check out at the grocery store, I looked up and saw E in front of me (shopping with his mom). A huge grin appeared on his face. “Hi!” he said. “Mom, this is one of my teachers.” I was melting. He remembered me! He was happy to see me.

We exchanged some small talk. “How’s your summer going? Are you playing a lot of football? Do you know who your teacher for next year will be?”

Just as he was about to exit the store he turned around. “Do you still have our Cloudy With a Chance of Meatball stories?” You could have knocked me over with a feather! He remembered those stories? He liked those stories?

The class had been studying a unit on weather. We spent a few weeks learning about and discussing the weather. The water cycle, tornados, hurricanes, types of clouds, monsoons, snow, blizzards. You name it. We spent hours outside making weather observations. We made our own barometers.

Then we read Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs – one of my favorite books. Students then had to choose their own food and weather occurrence — Raining With a Chance of Pizza, A Blizzard With a Chance of Cupcakes, etc. Using story maps the children authored and illustrated their own books. They loved it.

E did a wonderful job. His story was inventive and humorous, casting himself as the wisecracking meteorologist. He remained reserved during the process, and I couldn’t tell if E was truly interested in the project. Until today.

As if we needed further proof that celebrities are, in fact, pure evil, we have Gwyneth Paltrow, Angelina Jolie and that ilk nattering on to make us feel even more inferior than our non-size-zero selves were already capable of. According to Gwynnie ”(Having a baby) changed the way I see the world,” she told a reporter. “I feel like it’s even changed my DNA. (My daughter) is such a good girl and so reasonable. I’ve never ever raised my voice or lost my patience with her once.”

I say that anyone who says they have never lost their patience with a child simply isn’t trying. Spend a few hours with a child — any child at all — and I guarantee you will see how unreasonable the little demons can be.

Take my daughter — oh, not forever, we would miss her … eventually. What we wouldn’t miss is her belief that if she is just insistent enough we can make the impossible happen.

Crying over no milk. Say it’s 7 a.m. and we, foolishly and without regard for personal safety, have allowed ourselves to run out of some staple of life akin to oxygen. Something crucial to survival like, say, chocolate milk.

Upon apprising her of the no-chocolate-milk situation, she immediately falls apart. Completely. Because, of course, having a fit about the milk will indeed make chocolate milk appear — as if by magic — by sheer dint of force and will power generously sprinkled with a dollop of whining.

Maybe I should try it. As if that would work and adults wouldn’t have been employing it for years? Does she not think of all the tantrums I could have thrown in my time if whining and carrying on did any good at all?

Why, when I think of mortgage payments I could have dodged simply by staging a good foot stomping tantrum at the bank, the mind reels!

She is an unusual child is other respects as well. She moves so slowly in the morning that she manages to achieve an almost glacial quality.

Her movements are not visible to the naked eye although we’ll grant that if given enough time she will, eventually, make it all the way from the bathroom sink to the back door.

Is that my kid? For this methodical reason we have taken to calling her Pokey-Dokey. Throw her on a soccer field, however, and suddenly she’s alight with speed as if on fire. She moves like a streak across the green and dodges competitors and uneven ground with the grace of a gazelle.

Most game days I must be repeatedly reminded that the blonde blur is, in fact, my child. It just seems so improbable somehow. How is this the same child who needs a jump start to properly brush her teeth?

That’s a no-no. Our son, as a preschooler, was a fairly compliant little boy. We told him not to poke the baby. Not to eat things he found on the floor. And certainly not to kiss the doggy on the lips.

I had not, however, told him specifically that he couldn’t help his baby sister kiss the dog (by helpfully boosting her upright so she could really wrap her lips around the task).

I also completely failed to inform him that flooding the kitchen with the sink sprayer would not be a fine idea, so clearly, I was asking for it. He also, like many small boys, exhibits a complete inability to wrap his fingers around a pencil and properly write a thank you note — at least not without vast infusions of milk and cookies.

Meanwhile, if given a butter knife and a few unguarded moments he could happily unhinge a door — and his mother as well.

Unlike Gwyneth, I’ve been known to lose my patience over little things like that.

Worst yet to come. One saving grace in this whole thing is that if I’m not mistaken, Gwyneth’s child is approximately 2-year-old. The little darling should be getting just about ready to show her real toddler chops.

I say let that kid throw a tantrum — preferably in public — then we’ll see. I’ve yet to see a toddler who isn’t capable of staging a drama worthy of an Academy Award.

Surely that’s something any celebrity parent can understand.