Day 21 at St. Florence: "What are you still doing here?"

at long last: lunchtime talk turned to pregnancies.

we went through 8 cm dilations, not-false pregnancies, icky-placental guck, 34-36 wk births (4 pounders that fit in the palm of your hand), hospital policy, sleepless husbands (troopers!) and this story:

"when my mom's water broke for her fourth child, my dad said he was hungry and asked her to make a sandwich. she made it and he ate it. when they got to the hospital, the nurses asked, 'what took so long?'"

until kindergarten teacher asked, "Herman, what are you still doing here?"

it was late into the lunch hour and the only people left in the staff room were mothers, soon to be mothers and one male volunteer doing his elementary school teaching placement.

i shrugged. "gotta be prepared for this some time, right?"

kindergarten teacher: aren't you grossed out?

me: [shrugs again]

kindergarten teacher: that's your reaction to everything! i love Herman; [to the principal] can we keep him?

principal: yes, we should! can you come to our play date on June 25th? we're having games and hot dogs!

grade 5 teacher: and you can help set up...

principal: oh, and you can come to the bowling trip. [to grade 5 teacher] there, now you have one adult volunteer. you'll just need two more.

me: i'll come whenever i'm needed.

grade 5 teacher: oh, just come from June 2nd to the 27th...

by the end of the day, i had been suckered into spending at least half of June volunteering at St. Florence, which is great since i have steadfastedly refused to look for a summer job, even though this is the big year that i really need to.