So this is a combo post.
1) I’m a McFatty and 2) It was my first day of school with kids and I wore heels.
So, rather than write two posts, I’m combining those topics. What follows may just be a case of word vomit because I’m kind of tired. And lacking carbs. And wine.
I’ve known for a while now that I was gaining weight. It’s been quite obvious based on the fit of my pants (or lack of fitting, actually.) It’s probably from all the wine I consumed over the summer. And I’m convinced that when you only wear yoga pants, your body sort of blobs to fit the comfy pants and then refuses to morph back into the shape of your work pants. Or that’s what I’m telling myself anyway.
And because I teach high school, I feel compelled to appear stylish. I can’t fathom the idea of showing up to work in frumpy clothes. I want to look CUTE! If I feel confident, I’m a better teacher. I don’t feel confident when I’m frumpy.
Because I don’t fit comfortably into any of my pants, I wore a cute dress today. I felt great. Until I sat down in the dress and it pulled uncomfortably across my mid-section. That wasn’t such an awesome feeling. I just kept my arms folded across my lap to hide the stretching of the dress. I’m sure the pattern was all sorts of weird by that point. But I received several compliments on the dress so either 1) people were lying to me or 2) I didn’t actually look that bad. (Uh, it’s kind of a no-brainer which option I’m going with on that one, right?)
Along with this cute dress, I wore a pair of wedge heels. I knew these shoes would be uncomfortable before I even got dressed this morning. I SO knew this that I didn’t even put them on before I got in the car to drive to daycare. I put them on IN THE PARKING LOT and I contemplated grabbing my flip-flops from the passenger seat to wear those in to wait until the absolute last second before putting those shoes on my giant, fat feet.
All 199 pounds of me perched atop a skinny wedge heel. I. Am. Insane.
MY FEET ARE SCREAMING AT ME.
(Here’s something about pregnancy you may not know: Your feet are never quite the same once you have severe retention of fluids. If you are lucky enough to get out of a pregnancy with little to no swelling of your feet, I hate you.)
And yes, I did just drop my actual weight in there.
199 pounds.
This is the heaviest I’ve ever been while non-pregnant. ::cue hysterical crying::
So I’ve got to do something. Today, I started changing my diet. I’m not counting points just yet, but I’m watching my portions. After I get into the swing of this new schedule again, I’m going to start counting points again. And eventually, I’ll add in some exercise.
Now back to those tired feet.
I try to stand up more on the first day of school. I’m kind of a “sitter” by nature. I sit on my stool behind my podium and teach from there. Occasionally, I sit on my desk or stand behind my podium and lean on it. But mostly, I sit. But not on the first day of school. Or even the first week of school, really.
I’m not sure where this “no sitting on the first day of school” thing came from. I mean, I DID sit, but I did more standing than I usually do.
So why, WHY did I wear the wedges from HELL today?
Oh, yeah. THEY WERE CUTE WITH THE CUTE DRESS. 🙁 I repeat. I. Am. Insane.
And I can’t get a read on my students. I can’t tell if they’re sitting there in their desks thinking “Wow…this woman’s an idiot…” or if they’re just sizing me up trying to figure out what they can get away with. Or both. Or if they’re thinking “this teacher is awesome.”
I felt all sorts of self-conscious today. Like I need to have former students come in there and talk me up or something to tell them how awesome American Lit is when I teach it. And how awesome I am, too. And that’s a whole lot of awesome I’m trying to project there. It’s kind of exhausting.
Overall, despite the sore feet, I’d have to say the first day wasn’t a bust. Aside from not being able to tell what my students were thinking, it wasn’t horrible. I talked about Joshua every chance I got and proved what a Mama Fail I can be when I realized that I haven’t printed pictures of him since before Christmas.
Uh, he looks NOTHING like the baby in his Christmas pictures.
And when I picked him up today, he was SO excited to see me. I felt bad because he was the last one there for his class, but he was SO, SO excited. I picked him up and he immediately started waving “bye bye” to his afternoon teacher! Which is sad and funny all at once. And then he came back to practice with me and in true boy fashion started picking up rocks and dropping them on the ground.
We’re only one day in, but I think we’ll make it.