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.

A Full Moon...

Wow, a mid-week post! If anyone is actually reading out there (hello....hello.... hello?) you are probably almost as surprised to be reading it as I am to be writing it! But this story is too good to save for the weekend.

Every day, at the end of the day, we have centers. Now, in MY kindergarten, centers is teacher-speak for "play with the toys, develop some social skills, and kill that last 45 mins before we can go home because your little brains are way too fried to think anymore today!" Sure, I could spin some edu-talk about how the centers reinforce our daily learning, and sometimes they do, but for the most part it's playtime.

Today I spent most of the centers time in our class library, reading Halloween books aloud to various children. I may not be able to officially promote Halloween, but I get around it in sneaky ways such as putting out a basket of enticing books and making it known I would be more than happy to sit in my rocking chair and read to anyone who asks. Just as I finished my third reading of Big Pumpkin (I do a rocking witch voice according to Thing One!) a chorus of "Mrs. Kindergarten! Mrs. Kindergarten!! He showed us his BUTT!" rang out from the blocks corner. Scrambling to my feet I rushed over there to find Van Gogh and another boy pointing at a third, who was cowering in the corner and insisting his pants "just slipped". Van Gogh and Friend insisted that NO, he had DROPPED his pants and showed his butt ON PURPOSE! As I was evil eyeing all 3 boys, trying to decide via telepathy who was lying to me, who should stroll in by Mrs. Pop! Of course, I was fumbling for the right decision, I should have KNOWN she was on her way!

In this case I was actually glad to see her. I called her over, explained the situation thus far, and looked at her expectantly. Mrs. Pop seemed a bit taken aback, but rallied quickly and told me that she thought she would take Moony for a walk to discuss his "pants malfunction". Her words, not mine, but it took every ounce of self control not to LMAO at her choice of phrase! Mrs. Pop left with Moony, the rest of us began to tidy up the room in preparation for dismissal. Just before the bell rang a tear stained little boy slipped back into my room and Mrs. Pop's voice echoed from the intercom. "Mrs. Kindergarten? I have spoken to Moony's mother and the problem has been taken care of. He will not do it again!" Which can only leave me to believe that at some point Moony must have 'fessed up and admitted that properly fitting pants do not just slip down to your knees suddenly and by themselves!

So, a new friend to occasionally blog about - Moony McButt!

Parent/Teacher Conferences

Parent/Teacher Conferences - a love/hate relationship! I like meeting the parents (many for the first time, sad to say) and filling them in on how much I adore their kiddos. I don't like having to discuss behavior or educational problems with parents who look at me cluelessly and claim earnestly that their baby is a perfect angel who reads Shakespeare at home, so they just don't know what my problem is at school! I even more dislike parents who don't bother to show up, or have the common courtesy to call and TELL me they are not going to show up, for our one and only face to face meeting of the year.

Overall, this year's conferences went really well.

Pukey's mom told me that she had actually prayed for her daughter to be in my class, and she knew we were the perfect fit for one another.

Thing 1's step-mom and dad were very pleasant and fully supported the behavior contract I have him on.

Van Gogh's mom didn't come, but she at least had the decency to send a note that morning saying their car was broken and she couldn't make it. I don't know if that's actually true or not, but I appreciate the notice as opposed to being stood up.

Southern Belle's mom said that her daughter "simply loves y'all at this school!" and how good she felt about the move.

Princess' mom is unhappy that we don't have homework yet, and doesn't think the program is quite challenging enough (never mind that Princess has not mastered all of the skills I have introduced this year and is not a child I would even consider recommending for the Gifted Program!). I assured her that we would start having homework after Christmas and suggested that she look into those lovely workbooks you can buy at most of the big box stores if she wanted to supplement Princess' academic day. What I wanted to say was "come on! It's KINDERGARTEN! She's SIX! Her homework is to run, and play, and make up stories, and listen to you read, and decompress after 7 hours of being told to sit still, focus, and listen."

Toddler Girl's mom - my only no-show of the night. Which didn't surprise me, but did piss me off since A)I sent a very blunt note home in TG's folder that it was very important Mom come because we needed to discuss TG's SPED testing and B) I had assembled an entire team to meet with her but she didn't have the shred of decency required to call the school and say "not coming". So now we get to hound her via USPS to come in so we can do an IEP meeting and get Toddler Girl the help she needs.

My big surprise of the night came from the family of a little guy I haven't introduced yet. He's a nice kid, somewhat hyper but not outstandingly so, with a great giggle and a winning smile. I think I'm going to dub him Mr. Perfect. Not because he is, but because that is what the family expects of him. Dad wants to know why I don't require Mr. Perfect to color every picture on every paper fully and completely, using the correct colors (no purple zebras in his world!), and staying meticulously within the lines. He also wants to know why I don't demand type-quality handwriting, especially when it comes to Mr. Perfect's daily name writing practice, and why I allow him to get away with such shoddy things as backwards numbers and invented spelling. Poor Mr. Perfect! In a typical day he's a typical kid, funny and open, well liked by his classmates. With his family I saw a whole new side - very quiet, very contained, hands folded and eyes downcast. Dad informed me, with pride, that Mr. Perfect is not allowed to cry at home, crying is for sissies and babies, and men don't show wussy emotions. I was also told that whenever Mr. Perfect flips a card (one card!) at school Dad takes a toy from his room and smashes it with a hammer to teach him a lesson. Dad doesn't feel that Mr. Perfect is always honest about flipping those cards and would like me to send home a note every time he flips a card so that he can correct the behavior. I told Dad that typically I only contact parents when the child has flipped 3 or more cards in a day, unless the child is a constant behavior problem and is on a daily behavior report from me. I assured him that his son, who has only flipped cards 3 or 4 times this year and then only 1 card a day, is no where near daily behavior report level and that I was uncomfortable being placed in a "tattle-tale" position for him. In my head I thought "well, then Mr. Perfect just won't flip cards, I'll come up with some other discipline at school for him" because damned if I am going to be the cause of a basically sweet and good kid watching his toys get smashed because he ran in the hall or pushed his way into the middle of the line. Seriously, who is THIS HARD on their five year old? If Mr. Perfect was killing small animals, setting fires, and threatening to blow my f'ing head off (like Terrorist Girl from my 1st year of teaching K) then I might understand the military-ish stance of Dad. But this is an overall good kid and even good kids make mistakes now and then. So I guess I'm going to have to monitor Mr. Perfect's work a little closer, in hopes of keeping Dad off his back (and mine!) but in my head I'm going to be thinking "you poor kid! Life isn't supposed to be this harsh!"

So conferences are mostly over for the year. I still have to somehow talk to Van Gogh's mom - either face-to-face or over the phone - and Toddler Girl's mom is going to come in and meet with me whether she likes it or not!

Toddling off to SPED

Finally, after many days of looking at the SPED teacher and SPED director and saying "squeak, squeak, squeak!!!" (the squeaky wheel, get it?), they finished up Toddler Girl's testing. And lo and behold, she turned up with a developmental age of just under 3 and an IQ that puts her near the bottom of the mildly mentally retarded range. And when I heard that I also heard angels singing in the background because this means there is no doubt she is going to qualify for services, no doubt she is FINALLY going to get an appropriate education instead of just stagnating in my room. Now we just have to get her mother to come in to the school and sign the paperwork, which may be an ordeal all in itself. See, mother will not answer the phone when the school calls (we are convinced she looks at Caller ID, sees our school name, and walks away!) and will not respond to any notes we have ever sent home. I have her scheduled for an entire hour's block at Parent/Teacher conferences later this month, so that we can go over all the test results and convince her to sign the paperwork, but am not at all sure she is actually going to show up!

I asked the SPED teacher what happens if Toddler Mom doesn't show up for her conference. She said, with some degree of assurance, that we try again to schedule an IEP meeting with her and that we send her notification via USPS and if she still doesn't show then we place Toddler Girl without her direct approval. I didn't know we could do that, but nice to hear! Toddler Girl is not the first lil' darlin' I've helped place in SPED but she is the first one where I think mother is going to fight us tooth and nail to oppose the placement.

So, as I understand the plan right now, once we get all the paperwork signed and in order, Toddler Girl will spend the morning with the SPED program. All of our really academic stuff happens before lunch - reading, writing, math, etc. She will join us for both recesses and lunch time. After lunch she will stay with my class for special classes (library, gym, art, etc.), story time, nap, snack, and centers. That allows her to get her academics at her own pace and level during the morning, but be with her age-peers for socialization during the afternoon. During her morning SPED time she will also get served by the speech pathologist and the occupational therapist (kiddo has lots of fine motor issues, related to an accident about a year ago). Sounds very reasonable to me, holding thumbs that Toddler Mother will see it the same way.

So that news was absolutely the best part of my week! Otherwise, not much to report, no major highs or lows for any of my other friends.