Guess who's back?

That's right, my (five) trusty followers. After one long and eventful month, I have returned.

Settle down, settle down... I know you're excited.

I'll briefly recap for you the going ons of the last month- I was accepted into and decided attend grad school, I was in a show, I was not raptured, I turned 24, I took some online classes, I wrote 160 pages, I finished my first year of teaching, I purchased Dance Central, and I started running again.

And there you have it. I lead a truly thrilling life.

There were also a few mildly humorous things that happened somewhere in that mix. I'll share two of them today.

Anecdote # 1:

I am a teacher. Did I mention that? (Answer: Yes, I did. Check the 7th thing in my list of going ons. If you missed it, you're not a real fan.) Well one day, while walking to our classroom after parent pick-up, my co-teacher and I stopped in the office to grab our pay stubs. As we walked, she mentioned how sad it made her to see the amount she loses to taxes every month. Now, to be perfectly honest with you, I'm terrible at being an adult. I never check my pay stubs. Someone could be stealing hundreds of dollars from me, and I would never know it. If there is any amount of money deposited into my bank account every other Friday, I am a happy girl.

Anyway, upon hearing this, I decided I would try to look super mature and grown up by opening my envelope, looking at the numbers, and making some kind of intelligently indignant remark about a teacher's salary compared to a professional wrestler's (we make 1/25 of what the wrestlers on TV make, by the way... and that's if the teacher is high on the pay scale and the wrestler is low).

So as we are entering the classroom, I finally get this thing opened and unfolded. When my eyes found the number in question, I stopped right in the doorway- I. was. dumbfounded. It is a lot of money.

Like I said, I had planned to say something witty, but shock overtook me, and all I could say was, "DAMN!!"

I looked up hoping to see my co-teacher so that we could bond in our bitterness. Instead, my eyes found one of our classroom aides... and her young grandchildren and their equally young friends.

Note to self: Do not say bad words at work. Even if it is after hours.

Anecdote #2:

One of the best things about the school in which I work is its size. I teach in a very small elementary school, which means we're like a little family.

And by "family" I mean all of the kids learn MY name, and I just refer to them all as "friend", "honey", or "baby". Go ahead and judge me. It's okay... I judge myself for that.

So pretty much every day, I eat lunch in a friend's classroom, and then walk through the cafeteria during pre-K lunch to put my stuff away before recess. Now, for some reason I do not understand, the pre-K kids LOVE me. When they see me pass through the cafeteria, they all start screaming my name and getting up to hug me.

I won't lie... I freaking love it. My self esteem goes through the roof when those little four-year-olds treat me like a rock star.

On this particular day, I (being the kind and gracious person that I am) decided to give these little tykes the gift of a lifetime by high fiving each of them while I walked by. Seriously... if you could've seen the looks on their faces, you really would believe that it was the best day of their lives.

So I'm high fiving all over the place, getting hugs from ketchup-soaked children, and loving every second of it. I feel cooler than freaking Dora the Explorer.

Then, out of nowhere, one little boy excitedly asks, "Ms. E! Are you going to have a baby??"

I try not to overreact... maybe he wants to know if I ever plan to have kids! I convince myself that this is the case, and I tell him "Not any time soon!"

And then, I did a very, very masochistic thing. I asked the dumbest question ever.

"Why? Does it look like I'm going to have a baby?"

In that moment, my self esteem was like Wile E. Coyote right after he runs off of a cliff. He knows the fall is coming, but there's this awkward moment when he's suspended in mid-air and scrambling to get back on land.

"Yes! It's in your tummy!"

(And there's the crash.)

If that's not bad enough, several other pre-K kids overheard this conversation, and they immediately look at my belly and shriek their agreement.

"There is is!"

"There's a little baby in your stomach!"

"You have a baby in you!"

"Miss E. is going to have a baby!"

And then they did the thing that every pregnant woman hates- they all started to pet my stomach.

Let me tell you, preggos... it's MUCH worse when you're not pregnant.

And there you have it- the story of how I went from feeling like a goddess to a pre-teen girl in about 10 seconds flat.

And THAT, dear readers, is why number nine on my going ons list is happening.