Thankfulness

Rather than focusing on an individual friend this week, I am going to adopt what my friend C. calls the attitude of gratitude and think/write about those school-related things for which I am thankful.

1. I am thankful to have a job I love. The stories I tell here are mostly the horror show ones, because let's face it - they are the most entertaining to retell. What I don't write about are the moments of joy, like when Thing One wraps his arms around me, bats those navy-blue peepers, and says adoringly "I looooooovvvveeee you Mrs. Kindergarten!" Or the stunned happiness on the face of Southern Belle when she realizes she just read that word by herself and she is quickly becoming a reader, just like her adored and idolized big cousin. I know that in our country there are millions of people who get up each day and drag themselves to jobs they detest, just to keep food on the table and a roof over their heads. I am so lucky to have a job I practically skip to each morning.

2. I am thankful that we are in the part of the year where the kids know the rules, the routines, the procedures, the daily schedule and I can relax a little and be sure if I steal 5 minutes of centers time to clear some papers off my desk they will continue to (for the most part) play nicely even though I am not hovering right there.

3. I am thankful that I work in a school where we don't have a lot of drugs or violence. My school feels safe, for both students and teachers.

4. I am thankful that my grade level team gets along relatively well and we have very little infighting and absolutely no tattling on each other to the principal. There have been big personality issues in some of the upper grades in the last few years, and big dramatic blow outs between teachers that echoed down to the lower halls. The kindergarten teachers might get impatient with each other occasionally and disagree over this or that, but for the most part we work really hard to keep it pleasant and cooperative within our team.

5. I am thankful for one particular team member, who always sits next to me at staff meetings so we can trade whispered snarky comments about the administration and the utter farce that is NCLB. On the surface we have absolutely nothing in common - she's almost 10 yrs younger than me, single, childless, very dedicated to her church, very outgoing where I tend to be somewhat shy and reserved. But we have a very similar sarcastic sense of humor and we just click somehow. To the point that if the team has to break down into smaller groups to work on a project she and I always latch onto each other. We aren't BFF, but you might think that if you saw us at school!

6. I am thankful for a support staff - lunch ladies, custodians, secretaries - that do an awesome job keeping our school running day in and day out. The custodian on our hall is an older black man with a James Earl Jones voice and shoulder length dreads. He stands out just a bit in our white-bread midwestern town! I'm going to call him Edgar - obviously not his real name, but close enough. My younger son, Robby, ADORES him and follows him around every afternoon "helping". Edgar is so tolerant of this - surprisingly tolerant for a man who has no children and told me once he always knew he didn't want kids - and "pays" Robby in mini Hershey's bars for turning the vacuum on and off and putting the trash cans back after Edgar has emptied them. Robby thinks he wants to be Mr. Edgar when he grows up!

7. I am thankful for the wonderful teachers who have my sons in their classes this year. Will, my eternal pessimist, has always hated anyplace he had to go that wasn't home. Hated going to his grandma's house when she babysat him, hated going to the daycare after grandma got too sick to babysit any longer, hated preschool, hated kindergarten.... see a pattern? However he L-O-V-E-S first grade and I lay most of the change of heart squarely at the feet of his energetic, funny, wonderful teacher. They have just clicked, in a way he never has with any teacher/caregiver before, and he is having a stellar year. I am so grateful for Mrs. First Grade and the bubbly way she interacts with my Eyore boy! As for Robby, the eternal Mr. Sunshine in our family, I knew he would have a good year. His preschool teacher is a friend of mine, a very loving, organized, cheerleader of a teacher and Robby has taken to her like a duck to water. He also loves school and I think he has a little crush on Mrs. Preschool as well!

So that's the short list of things I am thankful for at school. Of course, I have to admit, I'm also thankful for the long holiday weekend coming up!

Update Time

I had planned to introduce a new friend this week, either Pukey or Tattlin' Queen, but have decided instead to update on a few previously introduced friends and keep mulling over which girl to write about next. Or I might introduce Farm Boy..... decisions, decisions!

Toddler Girl - on Friday, slightly more than a week after she left, we finally got a records request from a school in a neighboring state. Which is a huge relief, because now I know she's back on some body's radar. Crossing fingers that this school will be more successful at getting her mother to sign that very necessary SPED paperwork than we were. The kids miss Toddler Girl way more than I would have anticipated. Southern Belle, who sat next to her at the table, has cried for her several times since she left and Tattlin' Queen has written several mournful entries in her journal wondering where Toddler Girl is and if she is ever coming back. Even Thing One has told me "I miss Toddler Girl, why did she have to leave?" on more than one occasion.

Van Gogh - ARGH! Just when I think we are making progress he has a serious backslide into tantrum-ville. This week was hard, on both of us. Wednesday AND Thursday I banished him to other classrooms for a time out to allow both of us to cool down, because I knew I was losing my grip and was afraid I was going to wind up being mean if I had to listen to one more whining crying tantrum over something insignificant to the rest of the world. On Thursday I sent a note home with him, rather vaguely stating he had a rough week and asking his adults to talk to him about better ways to express his frustrations. When I said "be sure you show this to your mom and dad" he glared at me and shrieked "I CAN'T show it to my dad, he's in JAIL right now, SHEESH!" Big light bulb moment, suddenly I understand why he has been a little ball of exposed nerve endings all week! So I scheduled him for some one-on-one time with our counselor the next day and made arrangements for him to check in with her every afternoon for a while, hopefully to help keep him in check.

Princess - Princess' daddy is supposed to be home from his deployment before Christmas and she is just glowing with excitement. I pray every night for his safety and that they will have a magical family Christmas this year.

Thing One - This kiddo is such a oxymoron to me! He's shaping up to be one of my top readers for the year, picking up those letter sounds and blending three letter words like a champ. But he's also one of the most immature 6 yr olds I have ever met. It's all about him, all the time. On Friday I sent another boy to the office with a praise note, because he had spontaneously cleaned up someone else's snack mess (instead of tattling to me that the other child left the mess, or making the mess worse!). Thing One turned emerald green with jealousy and started a lengthy whined out list of all the times HE had been helpful and why, oh why, WHY hadn't HE gotten a praise note? He absolutely cannot stand for someone else to have something good happen to them. And it's not the normal Kinder-Kid jealousy, it's an extreme version of ego-centric me-me-me.

Southern Belle - as I feared, our midwestern falls are too harsh for this little delicate flower. She spends much of the afternoon in her coat, shivering dramatically and telling me approximately eleventy-billion times that she is "cawld". What she is going to do when the snow starts to fall I can't imagine! And honestly, it hasn't been that cold yet! Just wait for the really chilly days of late Dec. into late Feb.! I love this kid, she's smart, well mannered, and so kind to everyone, but the oh-poor-me Sarah Bernhart bit does wear on me after a while.

So that's the latest. We are about to descend into the holiday frenzy that grips us for the 3 weeks between T-giving and Christmas. I'm considering doubling up on my anxiety meds to get me through those days!

A Short Break

It's been a rough week and a half, emotionally. Both of my kids are sick, with different illnesses. Hubs has been going through some rather dramatic issues with his bio family. I am mourning the loss of Toddler Girl and worried to death because we still haven't gotten a record request so we have no idea where she is. One of our cats died. It's been a rough week and and a half, emotionally. I'll be back when I can pull it together.

Banging My Head

Pardon me, do you have a brick wall handy I can use to bang my head against for a few minutes? Just until I can actually accept the reality of what happened this afternoon? Thanks!

The SPED teacher finally tricked Toddler Girl's mom into answering her phone. Tricked? Well, after many failed attempts to get her to pick up by calling her home number using the school phones, the crafty SPED teacher called Toddler Mom on her cell number using the SPED teacher's cell phone and lo and behold, she picked right up! Unfortunately, that is the only good news in this report.

Toddler Mom utterly refused to come sign the IEP paperwork to place Toddler Girl in SPED. Why? Because she is pulling Toddler Girl out of our school as of tomorrow. When the shocked and dismayed SPED teacher inquired about this sudden move she got a half mumbled vague excuse about Toddler Mom leaving Toddler Dad, so they will be moving to a new house, but she doesn't know where or when or what school district Toddler Girl will wind up attending. Matter of fact, she might just home school Toddler Girl for a while and see if she can't get her caught up, since we clearly aren't teaching her anything at school! She is not convinced that our tests are accurate, after all Toddler Girl is the youngest of her 7 children and she hasn't really noticed that she's any slower than the others.

GIVE ME A FREAKING BREAK! This sweet lost little lamb tested out with a full scale IQ of 58! Are you f'ing kidding me? She functions on a 2 yr 7 month level! HOW can you not have noticed she is slower than the other children? Unless ALL 7 of your kids are MR? I guess that's possible...

So I'm unclear on whether today was Toddler Girl's last day with us, or if it will be tomorrow. My heart is cracked at the thought of her adjusting to a new school, new teacher, new class, new world. She really is a sweet loving little thing and the world is so confusing for her. Even worse is the thought of Mom "homeschooling" her to keep her out of SPED. That is NOT me knocking homeschoolers - I know some kick-ass homeschoolers right here in my little town and think it can be a great choice for some kids and some families. But not this kid and this family.

I guess the silver lining in this cloud of frustration is that Toddler Mom waited a little too long to make her move. We have finished all of our testing, all of the professionals at school have signed off on it, we only needed Mom's signature to make it official. So.... when and if we get a records request from a new school we can send them all of Toddler Girl's test results and hopefully THEY can get her into SPED. Or Mom will pull her again and keep pulling her until she finds a school that suits her twisted view of her daughter's abilities.

So frustrated by this. Poor Toddler Girl.