The Secret's Out!

On Thursday I told my students I was pregnant. I didn't have plans to tell them for a while longer, but the opportunity just presented itself. We were talking about how water expands when it freezes and before I knew it I said, "Just like Mrs. T's belly has been expanding. . ."

Absolute silence.

". . .because there's a baby in there." My homeroom erupted! They were so excited and had so many questions. They wanted to know if it was going to be a boy or a girl, and when I said I didn't know yet the boys started chanting BOY! BOY! BOY! and the girls starting chanting GIRL! GIRL! GIRL! I even had one girl call out to the others, "Girls, we better start praying to God that the baby will be a girl!" The kids wanted to take a poll right then and there on the baby's gender, but I told them we'll do that later.

There were also questions about the baby's name. One boy asked, "Aren't you supposed to name it after your father's middle name?" Huh? Another suggested that the baby be a Junior, just like him. I think once we do find out the gender I'll make it a warm-up one day for the kids to suggest a name for the baby. With my population of students, I should get some pretty interesting answers.

Once they found out the baby would be born in August, they wanted to know if I'd bring it up to school next year so they could see it. I told them I might be able to do that.

By the time we switched blocks, the "rumor" had gotten around to the next class. I won't even bother telling you about their reaction. Let's just say there is a huge maturity level difference between my homeroom and this other class. One comment that was kind of funny from that class happened right before I confirmed the rumor. I asked the class, "Do I really look like I'm pregnant?" Most of the students said no, but one brave boy spoke up, "Well, from the side. . . ."

So that's how the secret got out. I'm glad I no longer have to keep things quiet. Maybe I can use my pregnancy to my advantage with the kids. :)