Ramon tells me my heart and stomach pulses get much stronger after acupuncture treatments designed to fortify my kidney energy.

Apparently, I’ve had the same reaction both times, which is remarkable. Ramon says he's building up all the reserves of strength I’ll need to birth the new kid.

I find myself wanting everyone I know to try acupuncture. I’m sure it can solve all of our problems.

My friend Lee advised me to stop teaching Sunday School, which is something I totally want to do.

The biggest problem with teaching Sunday School at our church is the “lesson plans.” Each one has “story” that one of the teachers is supposed to tell using props, usually some pieces of felt and some wooden figurines. Sometimes, there are also some laminated animals or pictures that go with the text. There's a script the teacher is supposed to follow, which includes directives to "be silent and gaze at the wondrous scene before you" or "allow the children to sit serenely and reflect on what they've just heard."

After the story, there are no more instructions for the volunteer teachers except reminders to do some songs and “to just be present” with the materials.

The deal with the stories is that they are completely incomprehensible to the three-and-four-year-old students, as well as to the teachers. I know basic biblical stuff fairly well from thirteen years of Catholic education and church-going, but most of the time, I can’t recognize the bible story or idea we’re trying to cover in Sunday School. This proves problematic because at the end of the “story,” there are some questions that everyone is supposed to “discuss.” Except, not only do we not know the answers to the questions, we don’t even know what the questions mean.

After a couple of disastrous attempts at making the story stretch for the an appropriate amount of time, Dan and I decided we just couldn’t do it anymore.

So, we started stealing lessons, art project ideas, and song lyrics from websites for evangelical Christian Sunday School teachers, and things have gone much better. All I do is spend about two hours looking for ideas, gathering materials, and crossing out all the stuff about “getting to heaven” or “going to hell,” and then away we go.

Ramon, my acupuncturist, seems highly competent. He and his wife practice a community model of acupuncture, which means all of us devotees recline comfortably in a large room on individual recliners while listening to therapeutic music and water sounds. Meanwhile, Ramon and Karin circulate quietly. This makes treatments more affordable and allows everyone to benefit from everyone else’s qi.

Don't snicker - I’m totally buying that.

On Tuesday, Ramon worked on fortifying my kidney energy, which is apparently critical to my reproductive functions. He said that the most important aspect of my treatment is being able to relax during the forty minutes when the needles are in my feet. Luckily, I am so generally exhausted that a recliner with soothing background noises was all the prompting I needed to fall asleep so deeply that I woke myself with my own snores at precisely the time Ramon wanted to un-pin me.

“How did it feel?” Ramon asked, his five dreadlocks ponytailed at the base of his neck.

“Well, I don’t really know what I’m supposed to feel like,” I said. “I did have some tingling in my hand.”

Ramon nodded. “Probably not a coincidence,” he said.

“And at one point, that needle kind of…” I wagged my finger at my left arch.

“Activated?” He asked. “Yeah, they do that.”

“Okay,” I said.

Ramon told me to come back within a week, which I’m totally doing.

I know it sounds crazy, but I’m pretty sure that the treatment will work, and that I’m going to have this new baby sometime pretty close to my due date.

I think I made a valiant effort with my sixth hour today. I wanted to review with them some important search tips when working with databases. I also tried to help them brainstorm important world issues for their zines. Finally, I wanted to teach them the new skill of compiling an annotated bibliography.

And I kept trying to accomplish these objectives despite repeated misbehaviors by several students, whom I corrected patiently when necessary.

Everything came to a screeching halt, however, when Dylan announced his plan to secretly videotape the impending birth of my child and subsequently show stills of my private parts to the class.

“Okay,” I said, resigned. “I guess I’m done.” I sat down at my desk mid-database demonstration and went back to the huge pile of papers I need to grade before Thursday.

Later, when Dylan came over and tried to make conversation by asking, “Didn’t a horse die or something?” I still wasn’t in the mood to interact.

“I have no interest in talking to you,” I told him.

He laughed a little.

“No, really,” I said, looking down again.

Me [realizing the water's been running for awhile]: Okay, Shef! That's enough water.

Shef [running in to the baby's room with water streaming down his face grinning]: I'm all wet!

Me: Is there water all over the bathroom now?

Shef: Nope! I cleaned it up!

Me: With what?

Shef: With your pants! [maniacal giggling]

Super.

Ever since I wrote about Shef’s recent success at sleeping through the night, he’s only slept through one time.

Last night, he woke up claiming starvation at 2:30. I actually thought this was plausible, since he hadn’t eaten much lunch or dinner.

While he was wolfing down half a bagel, I had a talk with him about how it would be great if he would go back to his own bed after he ate.

“No,” he said flatly, “I’m coming to your bed.”

“Well, how will you ever get that Hot Wheels track?” I asked, trying to keep the desperation out of my voice.

“I’ll get a quarter the next night.”

“But that’s what you said last night [when you slept until 5:40, but still refused to stay put for the required twenty minutes to achieve pay day].”

He was unmoved.

I also threatened to call Dr. G. next week, who can play a pretty good Heavy, but this was ineffective. Then, I tried to explain that 90% of four-year-olds have already mastered the skill of sleeping alone, but this got no reaction whatsoever.

Me: Is it allergy season? Are your allergies happening?

Sheila: Mine aren't, but yeah, I've heard the pollen count is really high right now.

Me: Okay, good. So I probably have allergies.

Sheila [nodding knowingly]: Mm hmm. Yeah.

Me: So I probably don't have Bird Flu then.

Sheila [still nodding]: Right. Probably not.