Baby's First Year

A recent college graduate, especially as a new teacher, is kind of like a baby adult. Babies experience many changes and milestones in a short period of time. Proud parents like to keep close track of these milestones and record them for posterity's sake. But not all of you "proud parents" live with me to track my every move. So here's a helpful guide for those of you playing along at home. In the last week or two, we've seen:

1. "Baby's First Discovery of Cheating" - with a textbook open to the vocab page during a test.

2. "Baby's First Confrontation" - where the student acted indignant at the suggestion of wrongdoing.

3. "Baby's First Parent Conference" - with the father trying desperately to believe, against all odds, in his son's innocence.

4. "Baby's First Interaction with the Assistant Principal" - who graciously backed her up throughout the incident, enabling said Baby to navigate #1-3 unscathed.

5. "Baby's First Police Escort" - no, wait, that would have been Baby's mentor teacher a few years back, whose screaming parent visitor required a chaperone to enforce her departure. Guess we'll have to postpone this one a little longer in my book.

6. "Baby's First In-Class Lesson Plan" - supposing, hypothetically, that I had at one point this week (say, yesterday in 6th period) not finished planning class until during their quiz. If this had happened, it would have worked out much better than one might suspect.

7. "Baby's First Proselytization" - by a Vedic guy who forcefully sought to convince me that I was really Vedic and had never realized it, and that by scrapping my belief in Jesus' divinity, I would understand true Christianity. Don't hold your breath for "Baby's First Conversion."

8. "Baby's First Recipe Invention" - apparently African ground nut stew, minus three key ingredients, plus four or five others, still tastes awfully good.

9. "Baby's First Shoefly Pie" - because anyone who leaves their shoes directly in front of the oven is secretly asking for toasted shoes.

10. "Baby's First Credit Card" - nothing says "grown-up" like the chance to spend money you don't have. Look out, King of Prussia!

11. "Baby's First Towing" - um, by the way, Mom and Dad... (It sure LOOKED like non-permit parking.)

12. "Baby's First Time Being Told She Looks Like a College Graduate" - actually still waiting for that one too, since most strangers still peg Baby as a high school student. (She's growing up so fast!)