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August 12, 2003 Taking a bow (in advance) here! There is absolutely no precedence for what is going to happen today. It's now 9:10am and Dylan and Delena have been out the door to school for almost 2 hours now. They will be back in 5 and a half hours. During that time, I am going to clean this house like a woman possessed. This is one of those rare bird days when I am tremendously motivated to get everything all polished and cleaned and fresh and gorgeous. Writing this post to you is my last computer act of any detail for the morning and early afternoon and during that time, I shall be a cleanin demon. The weekend was shot for a lot of reasons. I was on the run the whole time and it was a weekend when I very much wished weekends were 3 days instead of 2. What I wouldn't have given to have an extra day for kick back, read, write and relax time. Yesterday was busy as well. Delena and Dylan started school again and (scream budget cuts with me now) instead of the usual "Back to School" night where teachers talk about their policies, procedures and hopeless biases, they had "Back to School Celebration" where parents had to be at school at 7:45am in the kids' classrooms. This was a challenge because I was torn between Delena's class (she is precariously perched on the hysterical "school sucks!" fence and I am very antsy about how 6th grade goes for her) and Dylan's class (he LOVED kindergarten and I was worried about how he'd do with a full day of school). I decided on Dylan's because I figured if nothing else, Delena could fill me in on what her teacher said whereas Dylan would be more likely to fill me in on who else had a Spiderman shirt in his class. I made it over to her class for the last 4-5 words of the teacher's presentation.
With the bigger boys, I learned a long time ago that if a teacher isn't working out for whatever reason, get the kid out, STAT! I used to believe that "in life, we're going to encounter people with whom we have a personal conflict" and "kids have to learn to deal with people with whom they clash," so I would nurse the kids through a tough year with a teacher who had fundamental issues with my kid. If you ever learn it, learn it now: There are teacher who hate kids. There are teachers who specifically hate YOUR kid, often for no reason or for some really lame reason. There are teachers who should not own pets, much less spend more waking hours with your kid than you do. Trust your gut and if you aren't digging what you're feeling and your child isn't thriving under a particular teacher's care, get them out. I'm not saying leapfrog your kid around all 3 second grade classes in one school, but in an instance where something is just "wrong" in the dynamics between your child and their teacher, act fast and act surely. It doesn't have to be anyone's fault and there doesn't have to be any blame going around; just that "it's not working and my child is not academically or personally thriving in this environment." Period. So I'm going to let Delena hang out in this class and see how she feels in a couple of weeks. Dylan loves his school again this year. Talk about blessings, his teacher is actually a first year teacher who was his teacher's aide last year, so they already know and love each other. He is in the smallest class (about 15 kids) and he had a great day yesterday. No worries, no anxieties, just ready to get back to school again. Both kids came home and passed out. Within a half hour of arriving home, they both went sound asleep and snoring away. Nathan wasn't as lost without Dylan as I thought he would be. They are very, very close and there's a lot of hero worship going on there, which is really sweet. He's been doing a lot of individual play and seems to enjoy the quiet. I am so grateful that he's in a weeks long phase of not being destructoman. I can't complain about any of my kids as of the past month or so and that is saying a lot. So hear I go! There's not a lot to share today because things are blessedly quiet and peaceful: exactly the life I'd hoped to harvest. Still having the freaky dreams and needing more sleep, but that will come with time. Lord knows I'll get good and tired today! I'll be around tomorrow to tell you how it went, hopefully sitting in a really, really clean house! Gotta grab the wave when you see it! Yesterday, when Eric was on his way home and the house was a disaster and I really couldn't peg what I'd done all day except go to that Back to School Celebration, I found myself thinking, "Hmm. How can I be a good wife to Eric today without cleaning this damned house?" I ended up compromising by half-assedly cleaning the house, making a nice dinner for him and sending him out to play disc golf (a free set up near here where you play "golf" with a really sturdy frisbee). It's a stoner's funhouse. He hadn't slept well the night before, so he came home tired and ready to gear down for the night. I finished up my columns I hadn't written over the weekend, then went to bed myself. It was a long day in which I accomplished almost nothing. That will NOT be the case today! :o) It is now 10:10am, one hour after I started writing this and I am off and running. Hope you have a FAB day!!
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Delena's
teacher terrifies me. She's got that teacher look to her and
reminds me of Doris Balek (left), who played Anna Craig on OLTL and
Rita on the movie "Tootsie" with Dustin Hoffman. She has rules
for her class that also terrify me: "You will enter the room
SILENTLY and take your seat IMMEDIATELY. You will not speak
unless you are responding to the teacher. You will NOT miss a
homework assignment." Freakin Yikes. I couldn't do that
and I'm nervous about putting Delena through it. I asked her
twice after school yesterday if she wanted to change classes and she
was very clear that she doesn't and that she really likes this
teacher, so I'm going to leave it to her.
