Baby Borchardt Goes to School

It has been fun sharing the excitement of the pregnancy with my sixth grade students. When we finished the first trimester, I decided to tell my students and the rest of the staff at my school. I wanted to tell people before I started to show. While student teaching, one of the teachers shared the big news using the game hangman. I decided to do the same thing. For the first group of students, the puzzle was "Your teacher is pregnant." It worked out well, because pregnant was the last word. As soon as one student blurted it out, they all started cheering and clapping. They were so excited. I even got them to keep it a secret until after the next class. For the next group of students, I wrote "Your teacher is having a baby in July." They reacted the same as the first class.

Since then, they have had many questions and have many suggestions for names. Usually, they think I should use their names. One boy, who doesn't even have me for class, brought in cake one day so he brought the extra pieces to other teachers. When he went back to his original teacher he told her that he gave pieces to Mrs. Dahl, Mrs. Borchardt, and Baby Borchardt. Awe! Another boy said it would be very exciting if I went into labor during class. I told him that it isn't very likely since I'm due in July.

I've even used the pregnancy to my advantage at school. I told the students that the baby can hear sounds and that they need to be quiet so that they don't wake up the baby. It didn't really work, but it was worth a try. Since I'm hungry all of the time now, I was eating a little snack in front of the students. One boy called me out on the snack, so I told him that when he is pregnant, he can eat in class.

The baby has even gotten to experience an overnight field trip with my sixth grade students. Last week we spent two days and one night at Upham Woods near the Dells. I decided to pass on the toboggan run and cross country skiing. I mainly walked around and helped where I could. Sleeping in an old cabin didn't really promote sleep. I also had get up in the middle night and walk to another building to use the bathroom. When I got home Thursday night, I took a shower and laid down in bed. I was asleep by 5:15. The next thing I knew, it was 11:15pm. I got up to eat some dinner and then went back to sleep for the rest of the night. I ended up getting about 12 hours of sleep. I guess the field trip wiped me out a bit.