My Hero- Part I

When a couple decides to have a child, I don't think they ever imagine what can happen. I never knew how dangerous a pregnancy could be. I was a naive twenty-six year old. Pregnancy happened quite quickly for us. A month passed. I was pregnant with twins. Our identical twin daughters arrived five weeks early. After sun bathing under bili lights for mild cases of jaundice, we took our daughters home.

Years passed. Thirteen to be exact. Then it started. I can remember the precise second I noticed something was not right. We were at the mall's food court. Everyone had ordered his meal. Tori sat down with her slice of pizza, and then she did something I had never seen her do before. She took a translucent white napkin and used it to stem the pizza's grease. Tossing the now heavy opaque napkin aside, she slowly ate her dinner. For the first time, Tori did not eat the inviting crust most diners leave for their pizza dessert.

My perplexed brows were noticed because Tori answered without being asked. "I want to lose some weight." Okay, I thought. "But, let's be healthy about it." I replied. I have seen too many teens in my classroom go about weight loss in the wrong way. It scares me.

Tori began to pack her own lunch. When this occured, school lunches were not as healthy as they try to be now. She held her brown bag as she stood next to our white stove. I looked inside her bag. Inside was a quarter of a cucumber wrapped in a Glad sandwich bag. A quarter of a cucumber! Needless to say, this was not good. We had to find help.

Today

Not that today was really exciting, but I actually left the house today. You see, it has been a very long time since I left my house. No, I do not have agoraphobia. It is just that during the summer, I really don't have any where to go. I don't have to get up for school. My son is out of town- but now that he drives, he does not need me to taxi him around any more. (I miss him.) - more about that later.

Kohl's had a sale today- and I'll be damned if I didn't get an additional 30% off. So, Kim and I went. She left me, though. She had an exam to finish. God, my life is boring. Not really, but how much does one tell on one of these. As far as I want I guess. So here goes.

Next blog please. . .

Getting started- and rambling

I am going by the name Lady Jane because a friend baptized me with that at a party. I like it; therefore, I adopted it. And, actually, the Jane part is my name. The Lady part is reminiscent of Tennyson's "The Lady of Shallot." It works for me.

I was raised by the best parents in the world. I had a better than average childhood. Fondest memories: ice skating on the frozen lake in winter and Nags Head summers.

I have three brothers and one sister. I love my brothers, but I prayed for my sister. God does answers prayers. I was fifteen when she was born. I guess He decided I didn't need her until then. Maybe my parents needed her more than I did. Funny. I never thought about that until now. I always thought of her as mine.

I went to college where I earned my BA and also received my MRS. I married Tom in 1979. We have 3 wonderful children. Twins, now 27, and our 16 year old son. Our oldest, by a minute, is married. They too were expecting twins, but lost them at 20 weeks. Some time later, God blessed them with an adopted daughter. She is 8 months now.

I am an English teacher. I really do not remember making the final decree, "I will teach English!" It just happened. I began teaching in 1982, the same year our daughters were born. I was teaching the principal's daughter and my ob-gyn's daughter that same year. Pressure much?

I remember missing a week of school because of morning, afternoon, and night sickness. What would my new principal think? He was great about it. My sister-in-law was also an ob-gyn. It was she who found the twins. Imagine my going back to my doc and telling him that I was having twins. Odd, to say the least. Funny that I remember that so vividly these many years later.

Here it is 2009 and I am still teaching. When I began teaching, I taught only ninth grade. Now I teach seniors. I began teaching in North Carolina, now I teach in Virginia. I have decided, after all these years, that no matter what, kids are kids. Sure, the dates have changed, fashions have changed, but all in all, children have not changed. They still worry about how they look. They still worry about who likes whom. They still worry about who talks about whom. Names change. Pressures change. But the very essence of adolescence does not change.

Another thing that I have noticed over the years is that literature teaches so very much. Sure, it teaches tone, mood, alliteration, and other literary terms, but it teaches so much about life. I teach this relevance to my students, but I often wonder if they take it with them through their lives. These authors have already experienced what we are going through. They are telling us what is coming. They are trying to prepare us for the angst, but do we listen? No. History does often repeat itself. But not just in wars and other events; it repeats itself in human events too.

Ahhhh. I like this release. From now on, I will have more of uniformed format. But for today, I think I wanted to give a taste of me, my thoughts, my philosopy, if you will. Until later. . .