Teetering

it's a new year

2006-09-11T23:02:00.000-07:00

I have a kid who loves second grade. Wahoo!

the break up

2006-06-20T20:38:00.000-07:00

It finally happened. My boyfriend and I broke up today. I handed his key back to him, wished him luck and told him he could call my cell if he needed to. He asked, "What will I do without you? You're my confidante." I smiled encouragingly at him and gave him a hug. And I left.

*sigh*

That was beautiful, wasn't it? It really happened. Then I came home and announced at dinner that we'd broken up, which probably wasn't an entirely brilliant move since my kids hadn't known I had a boyfriend and were probably a little aghast and troubled by the idea that GB was sitting right there listening. He is my husband after all. But it's really okay with him. I started to talk about that once but that was the day I inadvertently pooped in my pants, and well, an almost 38 year old woman who defecates all over herself with no provocation simply takes blog priority, you know?

Anyway. Back to my boyfriend John. I first saw him years and years ago, probably eight or so of them ago, back when I worked at the school that, if my current school is second cousin school, this school is, oh I don't know what, but something even more removed than second cousin, that's for sure. But as I was saying...

I was sashaying through the office of that school--this was back before kids when I still sashayed places--and noticed a man and woman sitting together, clearly waiting to be interviewed. I thought that was interesting, you rarely see a package deal like that at a school interview. Plus the woman looked vaguely familiar to me, somehow school--like formative years school, not work school--related but I couldn't quite put my finger on it. I let it go because it was just an interview and not like I worked with them yet.

And they both got hired. And at first I was confused because she kept looking familiar to me but had grown up a good 30 miles away from where I'd grown up and that's forever away when you're a kid and I was also confused because they did everything together, even eat out of the same salad bowls and almost seemed like a couple but I could swear he was gay and it was just so confusing. And I really liked them both. As people--I'm always a fan of fellow progressives. As teachers--spectacular, bilingual, love kids and their quirky ways, both very well educated.

And I knew I really loved my boyfriend when I learned which other district school he had come from--turned out he'd worked in the district and brought her over from their old district and transferred into our school with the caveat that he'd only come if she was hired--and I worked at that school too but couldn't quite put my finger on why I always felt creepy when I was at that school until he pointed out that it was like working in a cult. That was it! It was love except that he was taken. Plus me being married was also a bit of a sticky wicket. And I think I may have been pregnant too. Puts a damper on things. Still, I was pretty sure he was gay which makes it okay to have him as my boyfriend. Except that he wasn't then.

Then he moved on and into administration at Country Club school, which, you may recall, is not one I've worked at. And that was a little bit fun because his girlfriend--who, by then, I figured out is married with two of her own children, which just made me lean more toward it being okay to have him as my boyfriend--oh! and I'd also figured out that we went to the same college, only I was a senior when she was a freshman and I knew her because I'd worked in the dorm cafeteria and you see everybody when you work there! That was nice to figure that out--anyway, his girlfriend particularly enjoyed calling him at Country Club school because the secretaries always put her right through because they thought she was his mistress. Bwah-ha-ha-ha! But I digress.

So about three years ago he was moved into my teeny tiny school that I work at as the principal. This is the beloved younger sibling of Country Club school, Country Club Jr. And that was great. Because I ended up being his right hand gal because CC Jr. has no asst. principal, just me the psychologist. Plus since his mistress isn't there, he needed a confidante and guess who won the contest? That's right. Me! I got to be the new girlfriend and I am proud of it.

I wear it like a badge. I refer to him as my boyfriend John with close friends and colleagues. I take every single opportunity to sing his praises to the superintendent. Until he told me to shut my piehole because they were starting to look toward moving him permanently to the district office and he doesn't want that job because he prefers to be with the kids because he tutors them in the afternoons and never yells at the naughty little boys who are mostly just being little boys and he totally gets that and everybody loves him.

I love him.

And it turns out he is gay after all and has a partner and everything so it is completely acceptable to be his girlfriend and GB even refers to him as my boyfriend John. As in, "Your boyfriend John called. Something about a meeting tomorrow." That's right. I'm a wanted woman. I'm sashaying again.

But then I moved to second cousin school this school year and it's just too much and something has to give and I keep letting my boyfriend John down and, well, the rose has lost it's blush. So we needed to face facts and realize that it was time to go our separate ways. And now his other girlfriend has moved over to CC Jr. school, which is bittersweet for all of us since we've become a trio but John can't be as open with her now as he once was seeing as how he's her boss now. But I digress. This is really about me and my boyfriend John, not John and his first love Irma. So we started our long, drawn out break-up sometime in January and he just asked that I be careful how I replace myself. Plus he's moving to Florida as soon as he finishes his doctorate anyway because he's the guardian of the child of a good friend (I suppose she's his girlfriend too) who is terminally ill. So the breakup was coming sooner or later. But doesn't that just make you love him more?

So today I handed him my key except that it was the key to my office and not some other less socially acceptable key. I'll really miss my boyfriend John.

the neverending year

2006-06-17T22:17:00.000-07:00

I seem to be embroiled in a school year that just won't end.

I'm not entirely sure how or why it has happened, but here I am. Everyone around me happily tra-la-laing their ways through their days, summer vacation spread blissfully out before them, while I prepare a 17 page report and motivate myself to sit through a very long meeting on Monday morning, complete with lawyer and advocate.

I want to scream and cry and throw myself onto the pavement just so that I can be entirely certain my point has indeed been made.

My only consolation is that I do not seem to be alone in my feelings. I am joined by many of my colleagues who feel similarly to me. That makes me feel a little bit better. Why just today at a birthday party that made me see how very little I do for my kids, I had a conversation with one of the principals in my district, who happens to be married to the poor woman who will be the administrator at my meeting from hell on Monday, and he evidently feels the same way.

It just won't end. Not only is school *still* not out, once it's finally over for the students, I'll have five more entire days after that to continue working.

*sigh*

It just won't end.

On the bright side, it's going to end very soon. And then I get to go on vacation until late August.

It's just that it keeps stubbornly keeping on.

cease fire

2006-05-26T21:20:00.000-07:00

It's graduation week in this fine country in which we live. Well, graduation month I suppose. The university I attended graduated last weekend if the schedule there is still similar to what it was when I attended, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth...Or, as my darling LB likes to say, "...Back in the 60s and 70s, when people didn't have bathrooms..." I'm not sure exactly how old he thinks I am, or where we pottied back then. Anyway, here in the college town where I find myself living and raising a family (and paying a hefty student loan for GBs education), it's graduation week.

Last weekend we had the school fair. Put on by the PTA, which I have joined, as you may be aware. Nice affair, it's grown larger in the last few years. This year it seems to have been particularly successful.

Anyway, I had two jobs for this fair. One job I was not supposed to have, and that was as the room mom. Somehow at the beginning of the year this job was foisted upon me. Now, it's not that I have a problem with being room mom on principle, it's that I happen to be at work four out of five week days and, well, that becomes problematic when little things like classroom parties, snack day, field trips and PTA fair come up. Because the room mom's primary job is to man the booth at the PTA fair each year. Six hours of your school year, sewn up in September. Now, it's held on a Saturday so in theory I should be able to pull this off. Especially since there are two room moms in our class. Alas, the other room mom was also assigned as room mom to her older daughter's classroom, so there we have it. She's backed up over at that booth, which is quite popular. However, what is truly problematic for me about this is my other fair job, and that's a pretty big job.

I'm in charge of food. All of it. 500 hamburgers and buns. 500 hot dogs and buns (sold out an hour before the fair ended--note to self for next year). 128 cases of soda. sold out. 15 cases of water. sold out. 12 cans of disgusting looking nacho cheese sauce and 9 cans of equally gross chili sauce. sold out. It's a busy affair. Mustard. sold out. My job is to order all the food prior to the fair, coordinate pick ups, drop offs, handing outs. Coffee and donuts the morning of the fair (6:30 a.m.). Answer questions. 1500 pounds of ice. It's not that it's hard, it's just very tiring in the last 48 hours before the fair, and on the day of the fair I really have to be available to all the people selling food, not standing behind a popcorn machine next to a snow cone machine dancing madly because I am going to pee my pants and the family who signed up to work at the booth for a mere sixty minutes is nowhere in sight. That's where it becomes difficult for me to be room mom and in charge of two really big things at one time.

And we had a very popular booth this year. Nobody enjoys a snowcone more than a kid, and especially on a warm day. Now, generally the teachers work the booth for an hour or two, but recalcitrant teacher did not sign up to work that day. whatever. I had steeled myself to be polite and act as if GB and I had not basically asked to have her fired and then all that angst for naught.

At some point during the day I was able to leave the booth and wander around with the kids. It was then that we abruptly met up with her at the hamburger booth. She apparently had steeled herself as well because she gave LB a big hug, me a big smile and started idle chit chat. I noted that I'd heard she was graduating (see? I can bring it around) with her master's degree. She laughed and said something about having to spend some late nights typing over the next week. We both laughed and I commented that the thesis was the worst part of it all for me, that by then I felt I should just be done, etc. Then she acknowledged. She said she'd been telling the kids in the class how they were getting the worst of her (uh-huh), that the last two years have been the worst two years of her life in so many ways (oh yeah?). Trying to smile the whole time. I acknowledged by sharing that the worst year of my life was when EB was a baby and things were wacky all around and at the end of that year I got kicked out of the school I'd been working at. Big smiles all around for that little anecdote. Nothing personal, you know.

Still, I get it. She's stressed. No excuses, no justification, but I've been there. I choose to take my anger out on adults generally, but whatever.

This week was Open House. Now, she's been a little more standoffish with GB, who, you may recall, essentially threatened to kick her ass last time they spoke. He picked LB up from school one day this week and said she'd turned her head to avoid eye contact. Well, she pulled it out again and to her credit, mustered up her professionalism and approached us when we hit the classroom at Open House. I asked her how the thesis writing went. Not well. But they're letting her walk anyway and she has to finish it up this summer. Eh, I did that too, it happens. We laughed. Then she dropped her little bomb. Because, you know, she couldn't really finish it because there had been too many things *wink* *wink* recently, keeping her from concentrating, from sleeping, apparently from functioning in any way. GB and I both smiled at her vapidly and moved on.

Part of me is a little shocked that she actually tried to guilt us into accepting responsibility for her lack of a thesis. Part of me wants to laugh in her face. Part of me is shocked that she's actually getting a master's degree because I cannot imagine that it's actually in education, and if it is, it is certainly not in anything having to do with understanding children and their development. A lot of me thinks that's just icing on the cake. Rather than stopping to look at herself and her methods, she lays the blame at someone else's feet. Refuses to accept responsibility for herself, her speech, her actions. Yet expects a six year old child to not learn from that example and instead accept responsibility for his behaviors that, while definitely must be a pain in her ass, are far more age appropriate than lots of hers have been. Mostly though, I'm just happy that she has apparently actually been disciplined because she's learning to shut her mouth when it comes to my kid and my kid is no longer crying in the morning saying he doesn't want to go to school.

Some lessons we learn the hard way.

little miss popularity

2006-05-18T19:53:00.000-07:00

So I think I may have mentioned the PTA once or twice in previous postings.

I think I may also have mentioned that I'm a joiner.

When my son hit kindergarten, I joined the PTA. At first that was difficult. I had a hard time figuring out when the meetings were being held. I'd look at the marquee in front of the school for signs and signals...I'd watch for the monthly school calendars that never seemed to come home with my son...It was a mystery to me when these super secret meetings were being held. Sure, I'd made it to the very first meeting of the school year, and I also made it to the Back to School Night meeting. I even paid my membership dues. But the actual meetings escaped my notice entirely.

Don't let this awe you too terribly much. As a child, I had significant issues finding the Dr. Demento show on the radio and I don't believe I was ever successful. Later on I couldn't figure out what day of the week Saturday Night Live was televised. Hard to believe I have a master's degree, isn't it? (aha! but you see, the university was large and therefore easy to find!)

Nevertheless, I finally stumbled my way into a meeting on the second Thursday of whatever month I finally figured it out and I've been a faithful PTA hanger-on ever since.

And apparently the PTA is lacking in sheep because I very quickly found myself heading up the food for the annual school fair and then as quickly found myself secretary of the PTA.

So this year I go to my PTA meetings (the second Thursday of every month except for one month when the president had to drop her son off to college in another state and that month had paltry attendance) regularly and take notes on what everybody says. Except for those politically incorrect items that the president tries to encourage me to write.

For example, last month, we were being given more information about the principal's colonoscopy, prostate biopsy and apparent abscess than I personally want to know, and she leaned over and whispered, "Write that we talked about Jim's ass." This led to a completely inappropriate guffaw on my part followed by a quick hand slapped over my mouth. And you know, poor Jim, we're all picturing his rectum now, you know? I mean, imagine the indignity of it all! There he'll be next year, trying to preside over us--and we generally tend to border on inappropriate when we don't jump right into the abyss of politically incorrect sexual harassment--and I, for one, will definitely be picturing his ass. And right after that I'll imagine him smoking out because he and I went to the same college (which is really a coincidence since it's definitely not local to where we live) and everybody there smokes out (ok kz, not everybody, but almost everybody else did).

But I digress.

Anyway, so this year I'm the secretary and I listen to the president, who really is quite funny and very intelligent and doesn't really seem to care that she wades right into the quagmire of impropriety in her story-telling, which is probably why I find her so amusing. And it turns out that the people who bought the house next door to me when the old lady died two years ago know her quite well. In fact, she has brought them up several times even though I frankly have not found them to be particularly friendly...Or, at least, I had not a few weeks ago...But anyway, a while before that she confided that she really really really really dislikes the fiancee, but loves the fiance. And she talks about it quite freely and frequently to me and I mostly try to smile and say things like, "I really don't see them very often, they are quite busy."

And then a few weeks ago it was spring break, and it was Friday evening, and all the neighbors who were on spring break were out in the front yard and the new neighbors came over and pretty soon we were (well, mostly me because I'm the smallest of them all and they can all apparently drink me into the gutter) a little bit loaded and the new neighbor mentioned how the PTA president doesn't like her and I was vulnerable man! I couldn't respond, I just mostly gaped at her like, well, like I'm not sure what. My husband mentioned deers in headlights later, and both of the other female neighbors gave me consoling pats on my arm and told me they tried to send me warning looks.

I did not confirm the dislike. I absolutely, positively, did not say anything out loud to confirm that the president of the PTA does not like the fiancee living next door to me.

But I also did not deny it. I think what I said was, "We're working on her."

Which I suppose kind of confirms it in a roundabout way, doesn't it?

So in that moment, I gave up the vice presidency for next year. I've also been drinking less alcohol since then.

whew.

So anyway, at the next PTA meeting (where we talked about Jim's ass--see? Now you're picturing it too, aren't you?), I had to confess and I figured, "Well, that's it, I'm out. No longer in with the in crowd."

I know, it doesn't seem like that big of a deal. But you don't know the president. She is also the registrar for soccer. And tee ball. And she has something or other to do with baseball. She has her fingers in almost every single pot in this little town. She is powerful. And I also like her because she's pretty darn funny. So I was disappointed in my lack of discretion.

She didn't say much, but did mention it to the VP, who is definitely her best friend ever and generally believed by most people I know to be just about the nicest person living in this city. And they both have sons the same age as mine and of course, they got the good first grade teacher this year (see previous post). So even though she didn't appear to be particulary angry about it, I figured I'd pretty much sewn up ostracism.

So the next week was PTA convention. I didn't go. No point. I keep the lowly secretary position next year instead of moving into the VP for the current VP who will be president next year. The day it began, I saw the vice president with the president's son in her car, obviously picking him up from school for her friend. Who is no longer my friend, obviously, since I blew it for her.

The next evening, the phone rang and when I picked it up, it was the PTA president asking me if I'd seen her son, he'd been picked up from school the previous day, etc., etc. At first I panicked and got a little freaked out. Oh my God, has her son been kidnapped?

Then I realized.

I'm popular! She likes me anyway and she's calling me from the PTA convention! She was joking of course, because I'd make a remark to the VP when I saw the wrong child in her car. She even called the fiance to get my number--who told her he doesn't have my number, when he wants to talk to me he yells over the wall--and somehow she got my number and I got the drunk phone call!

I'm in with The In Crowd.

That's right.

Little Miss Popularity.

That's why I'm a joiner.

son versus teacher, round 98

2006-05-12T08:56:00.000-07:00

So I have a six-year-old son. Whipsmart. A little oppositional. Kind hearted. On the active side. Kind of a pain in the ass in the classroom I'm sure, because he's definitely a pain at home. But since he's my son and I recognize me and my husband in him, I love him madly. He is my sun.

He's been battling with his teacher this year. Which means we've been battling with his teacher this year.

There have been various incidents.

Like the time he led the other students into standing up all together in the middle of a heated discussion with his teacher...

Or the time he had a friend lift him up onto the tetherball so he would swing around the pole...

But what sends me over the edge, both as a parent and as an educator working in the field, is that she seems to think it's perfectly fine to use humiliation and degradation as a tool in her classroom.

And that it is allowed to happen.

Things like calling children stupid or sneaky or telling them to shut up don't sit well with me. So to that end I met with the principal a few weeks ago, after asking the teacher to implement a behavior plan with my child. Which she did for a sum total of five school days and then never did again. *sigh*

Anywhoo, the principal was, of course, profusely apologetic and assured me it would all be taken care of immediately.

Then he went to the hospital because there's something going on in the butt area (I know way too much about the staff members at that school--unforeseen hazard of PTA involvement).

So, this week, while I was taking a few days off from work with a younger chickenpoxed child, Gertrude's mother came to me and said she wanted to make sure I knew about a situation that had occurred on the previous Thursday.

uh, what situation?

Seems my young boy was playing sleeve slap fight with his little friend Gertrude in the classroom. I have not been able to figure out what part of the day this was, but it seems to have been during the first few minutes of class since he and Gertrude have already been separated in their seating assignments.

[side note; son and Gertrude are good friends, very similar in their activity levels and energy]

Anyway, son's teacher asked son if he had hit Gertrude. Son said he had not. Son's teacher asked Gertrude if son had hit Gertrude. Gertrude affirmed that he had. Teacher then announced to the class that son was suspended from school and escorted him to the school office, where he apparently spent the entire morning but was not spoken to by anyone. He returned to class at lunch time.

As Gertrude relayed this story to her mother that evening, she noted that son had not really hit her though, not realizing the implication behind this statement. Gertrude's mother took that as a teaching moment with poor Gertrude, who now feels terribly about the whole situation and is very cutely making up for it by taking son to a karate party this evening. Gertrude's mother felt the best remedy was to tell me the whole story (thank you, since nobody at the school seemed to think I needed any notification!), to do with what I saw fit. Gertrude's mother is also a teacher, so we both understand the implications behind this--it is illegal for the school to have disciplined my child in this fashion without having notified his parents in any way.

And let's not even get into the fact that he was disciplined for something that did not actually occur...

So I sent my henchman husband in to deal with recalcitrant teacher.

And they went toe-to-toe. Shouting. Implying. Inferring. Both unapologetically livid and defiant, from the way he relayed the story. I think his exact words were, "If she'd been a man, I would have kicked her ass. Why did you send me over there?"

For that exact reason. I needed her to unequivocally understand that it is simply unacceptable to humiliate and degrade my child, and to do so is to risk everything.

And then I went to make nice this morning with the assistant principal. But not very nice. One thing my husband asked the teacher was, "Do I need to remove my son from your classroom?" And I told Jekyll [I privately refer to the principal and asst. principal as Hekyll and Jekyll--in a loving way, of course] the whole story "I'm so sorry LB, I was not informed that he'd been suspended..." and reiterated the question. "Do I need to remove my son from the school for the rest of the year or can you assure me that he will be emotionally safe?"

The thing is, I really like this school. I loved his kindergarten teacher (and he was no prince in that room either, but she is, erm, well the truth is that I stalk her and I would marry her if I had any lesbian tendencies whatsoever, but I don't so I leave it to stalking). I love the third grade group, the fourth grade group, the fifth grade group. I don't know the second grade group but I hear they're good and they've got his second grade teacher lined up for him already, who is roundly agreed (even by poor, stalked kindergarten teacher) to be a great match for him next year.

I just can't stand the first grade teachers, who seem to be the most bitter group of unfucked old biddies in the world.

Sorry. I know that's crass, but I do think that's really it. The PTA President even asked her husband to take one for the team with son's teacher (because that's what a good PTA President does), but he had to turn us down. That's why he's not invited to participate in our PTA parties.

So, suffice to say that son's teacher will be disciplined this afternoon. I guess I feel a little badly for her as a fellow professional, that's a terrible feeling.

You know, I expect that we'll have issues for many years to come. I have a prep school picked out for him when he hits high school and I'll begin sending him to their summer camps beginning next summer. Kids like my son are very difficult. I've been there but I was more covertly subversive with teachers and generally used my words to sting them (fourth grade, in response to my teacher commenting that he didn't think I liked him; "You're right, Mr. M. I don't like you. Clearly you don't understand children and I think you're probably not a very good teacher either." oops). My husband was more of the type that my son is. Openly rebellious. In your face oppositional. Messing with you just for his own amusement. But he runs cognitive circles around me, as I suspect our son will also someday do.

But humiliation and degradation should never be tools in the classroom setting.

And my son's teacher should be fired.

crawling toward respite

2006-04-30T20:27:00.000-07:00

We opened up the pool this weekend.

AAAAHHHH!!!

I used to be a fan of winter. I still am I suppose, but back then, it was that I was a fan of winter as opposed to enjoying summer. Sure, I've always enjoyed my summer vacations, but mostly I watched soaps, shopped, cooked for the husband, whatever. As a season, I largely preferred winter.

I felt (and to a certain extent still do) that summer sucked primarily because you simply cannot cool down and if I'm naked and sweating but not exercising or having sex, well, that's bad.

On the other hand, in the winter you can layer. Bundle up. You can always find a way to "beat" the weather. With blazing heat, not so much.

But now I'm a home owner with a pool. And it's all good.

We put the thermal blanket on the pool last weekend. Nevermind that there were no signs of spring in the air last weekend. We were set. And sure enough, the pool reached a less than warm 76 degrees on Saturday and the kids jumped in and swam around. Yikes. I prefer to wait until it reaches a nice, warm, bathtubby 90 degrees myself.

The point is, we are now on the road to summer vacation. And now summer vacation means so much more than it did before kids.

Now it's long lazy mornings, sleeping in, waking up slowly to a cup of coffee and another chapter in the latest book while the kids watch some cartoons.

It's taking early morning walks through the neighborhood with my son, doing nothing special, no hurries, no worries.

It's taking evening walks with the whole family, doing nothing special.

It's eating outside around the pool, everybody a little bit burned, hair askew, swim suits soaked.

It's long days and nights, marked only by the rising and setting of the sun, weeks marked by family events, which only occur on weekends.

It's boredom. Complete and utter boredom.

Bliss. I cannot wait for those eight weeks.

We begin our summer vacation this year with a week at a resort where we own a "timeshare". We love this chain of resorts and had been to two others before purchasing. Once there, we park ourselves on the beach during the day, riding the waves, collecting the shells, ordering drinks--our son leans toward the virgin pina colada--before heading in for showers and a dinner at the restaurant. Kids go to bed, parents read and turn in.

Boring I know. But blissful for us.

I've come to love summer, and these days, nothing signifies summer more than a dip in the pool

Today my husband joined the kids. I sat in my chair and perused my magazine. I'm happy to wait until that thermometer hits 90. I might consider a dip at 88. But nothing lower than that.

more songs

2006-04-09T21:09:00.000-07:00

Just to give equal time to songs eliciting feelings and memories…

I’m supposed to be working right now. Writing a report in this insane, never-ending year of school for my whole frustrated family. And I’ve found that my ability to attend to work generally (tonight excluded, obviously) increases if I plug in the headphones and listen to music while I work. It decreases ambient distractions…at home those include children asking for things, infrequent spousal television viewing, and increases my ability to remain in my chair. At work, it drastically cuts down on the verbal abuse spewing forth from the teacher with whom I share a portable (gah! A completely different posting and I swear, I’ve taken plenty of measures in an attempt to decrease it).

So one of the songs on my playlist is Still the One by Orleans. Do you remember that? It’s playing. For the third time;

You are still the one

That makes me shout!

That I dream about!

We’re still having fun!

And you’re still the one!

This song, along with You’re my Best Friend by Queen, are the two songs I play to think about my spouse. Because, day to day drudgery of life aside, I do love him madly. He’s the smartest man I’ve ever met. He’s the most loyal person I know. Generous to a fault with his family. Irritating as hell and not as funny as he thinks he is. But still my one.

We met in high school. My best friend was dating his best friend and my best friend wanted me to accompany her to a party at her boyfriend’s house. So somehow he was appointed guardian of me and picked me up at my house on the evening in question. My friend came to the door to get me, we walked out to his car, and there he was, leaning against his white Maverick, jeans, leather jacket, lighting a cigarette. 18 years old to my 15 years.

And I recognized him. I had been having dreams about him for months. This exact person, leaning in this exact way against his car, lighting his cigarette exactly like that. And I thought, “Oh! There he is, the man I’m going to marry.”

That simple.

Of course, there was that hurdle that he thought I was ugly to get over. Plus the whole thing of not liking me and thinking I was stupid. Not to mention that I wouldn’t put out.

So we dated for a few months. Then he made up some song and dance about having a kid in another country, blah blah blah. We broke up. Then he realized he actually liked me. A lot. More than he’d thought. So we started to date again.

All together, we dated for two years and four months and broke up in my senior year of high school, after the “promise ring” and all of that. Luckily (now, looking back on it), after I’d insisted on having professional pictures taken of the two of us in high school.

And I graduated from high school and went off to college, where I became a slut and got diseases.

That was nice.

Eventually I found my self-esteem and moved on to graduate school.

During all that time, we were buddies. Got loaded together periodically. All by ourselves. Hanging out. Making dinners. Touring museums. One time he visited me at college only to find himself confronted by a stoned peer of mine who apparently harbored a very possessive crush on me and confronted my spouse with a machete. That was a little ugly.

And one day, during my internship, I realized we were meant to be together. That he is my best friend. That we are stuck with each other, for better or worse.

And we got married ten years ago, after having known each other for twelve years. Eight years ago I officially passed over into having known my husband for longer than I hadn’t known him. I cannot really remember not having had him in my life anymore and certainly cannot fathom a future without him. Even though I find him more irritating than almost any other person. But today, as he made some silly joke that I was about to make while we were outside with the neighbors and kids, I commented to my neighbor that I love his sense of

But he’s still the one for me.

We’ve been together since way back when
Sometimes I never want to see you again
But I want you to know
After all these years
You’re still the one I want whispering in my ear

You’re still the one I wanna talk to in bed
Still the one that turns my head
We’re still having fun
And you’re still the one

I look at your face every day
Yet I never saw it 'til I went away
When winter came, I just wanted to go
Deep in the desert, I longed for the snow

You're still the one that makes me laugh
Still the one that's my better half
We're still having fun, and you're still the one

You're still the one that makes me strong
Still the one I wanna take along
We're still having fun, and you're still the one

Changing, our love is going gold
Even though we grow old, it grows new

You're still the one that I love to touch
Still the one and I can't get enough
We're still having fun, and you're still the one

You're still the one who can scratch my itch
Still the one and I wouldn't switch
We're still having fun, and you're still the one

You are still the one that makes me shout
Still the one that I dream about
We're still having fun, and you're still the one...

poopy pants

2006-03-24T19:51:00.000-08:00

well, I started to talk about my boyfriend, but now he'll have to wait for another day because I just had an incident that I find highly mortifying, which means everybody should know about it.

So here I was, writing about my boyfriend and why that's okay with my husband, when I felt a little, um, gassy. Since I'm the only person in the room (translate that into I really don't care, I would have just let it fly anyway), I went ahead and farted.

Only once I did that, it didn't feel so much like gas. More like, you-better-go-check-your-chonies than just-a-little-gassy.

So I did.

Check my chonies, that is.

And yep, I pooped in my pants.

37 years old. A mere three weeks away from 38. I really should be more ashamed.

Evidently something I ate today didn't sit well because there was more where that came from. Plus, as I sat there looking at my clothing I realized of course that I couldn't put it back on. But my husband is in our bedroom.

huh.

So I decided to play it off. I nonchalantly threw my soiled laundry into the washing machine (it's seen worse!), and then sauntered (I may even have swaggered) down the hall, clad only in my t-shirt, saying to myself, "Just act like nothing happened. He'll never notice." Like this kind of thing, me walking around half naked, is totally normal. Just another day in the LB household, deciding to change my chonies.

yep. It's all good.

I walked in to our bedroom, headed to the dresser, opened up the underwear drawer. And then it happened. I took a chance and glanced over at dh, who, never even looking up, said, "Get in the shower and clean your ass."

So I did.

I really should be more ashamed.

But mostly I laughed out loud while he mostly tried to ignore me.

I'm not really sure what it was that I ate...

2006-03-24T19:41:00.000-08:00

Everard just made me teary.

Everard makes me insane mostly. Nice guy, nice teacher, not so great on organization or actually putting philosophy into practice.

We went to that conference a few weeks ago on autism and working with students. Granted, there is A LOT of work involved in actually putting what we were being taught into practice. Complete overhaul of the room, all new lesson plans, all new lessons, a significant amount of planning to put into putting the lessons together.

It's taken him awhile to even think about starting it. But he stepped up and came into work last weekend to change his room configuration.

And then he emailed me multiple times early this week to ask for help with a very bright not-so-austistic-but-there's-no-convincing-his-mom-at-this-point child. So I suggested he actually try training the kid in the program we learned.

And he did.

And I just checked my email even though it's Friday evening.

And Everard emailed me thanking me (really, I do understand I had nothing to do with it) for suggesting he train the little guy because the little guy has had a spectacular week and came up to him today asking for his "work".

Way to go Everard! I'm teary just thinking about all the help these kids are going to get now. I could just burst.

potty humor

2006-03-09T21:39:00.000-08:00

Here's one of my favorite recent stories, relayed to me by a family member.

Context; three young girls, ages 3, 6 and 8, taking a bath all together.

6 year old decides it's time to take a dump and hops out of the bathtub to do so. It turns out that her poop is quite rank and rancid, causing the 3 year old's sensitive gag reflex to kick in. As she's gagging, the sensitive in general 8 year old jumps out of the tub as quickly as possible, looking horrified, and runs upstairs to her bedroom. 6 year old finishes up her business and hops back into the tub, just as 3 year old barfs all over everything...water fouled, floor despoiled, father rolling around on floor, laughing hysterically. 6 year old says, "Why is 3 year old barfing everywhere?!" 8 year old sister yells from the bedroom, "Because your poop smells so bad!"

blech! blech! ptooey!

2006-03-02T20:07:00.000-08:00

So I belong to that classmates website. I admit it. I'm a joiner. I like joining things. Feeling joined up. Like I belong.

But mostly I'm nosy. I want to know who is doing what and what that's all about and why, and how can I find out more?

That's why I'm a psychologist. Carte blanche into your deepest, darkest secrets. A little sick, I know. And I have improved over the years, I swear. But I'm still nosy and I think I always will be.

So anyway, I was checking out the site because I've had 313! views to my profile (does it count when I look at my own? I mean, I do that regularly, so maybe I've really only had 20 or so views?) But I got the email that noted I'd had five views just this week, which made me feel really popular and emboldened, and I trotted right on over to check me out.

And after I checked me and my popularity (turns out, not so much) out, I decided that I might as well look at the general message boards. Sometimes I see people I know there...I clicked on the message boards thingamabobber button. And I checked out the messages.

Ah! There's one from that boy I dated for all of three months freshman year (two of those were summer and if I remember correctly, he was in Mexico on a mission with his church? something or other like that). He married one of my closest friends pretty much right out of high school (gross enough, that) and then just before my senior year of college, four years into his marriage, sidled up to me at a beach picnic and wondered aloud what it would have been like if we'd gotten married instead of them. What?! ew! I gave him the stink-eye with about-to-vomit mixed in and moved away as quickly as possible. A few months later he sent me a love letter, professing his undying love to me! blech! blech! ptooey!

I didn't respond.

It kind of killed my friendship with her too. Just because...well, yuck! Who wants to hang out with someone knowing her husband is, so, well, squicky?! Not to mention probably unfaithful, or, at least, willing to be. And I just take a pass on that kind of weirdness.

But now and again I hear from them...Christmas cards...they came to my wedding ...she (I think it's she, I can never be entirely sure) and I email each other periodically...

anyway.

So there was a post from him to all of us who went to this high school together. Something about kids from the junior high and elementary schools he attended. I clicked on it, because, as I think I may have mentioned, I'm nosy.

It said, "blah blah blah, so-and-so, so-and-so, blah blah blah." Nobody I know anything about, and even if I did, I probably wouldn't respond because, well, who wants to give fuel to explosive people?

Then there was a response to him from this other very nice boy I've known since kindergarten. We were neighbors growing up. I have no issues with him whatsoever and we correspond periodically. "I don't know if you remember me since we didn't go to the same schools until HS, blah blah blah."

Squick man responded, "Yeah, of course I remember you, you were dating so-and-so and I was dating LB!" whoa there! back the train up! I'm being discussed on a message board at classmates! A little weird for me! That message went on to talk about how adorable my children are, and how great my husband is and how happy he is for me. I mean, he actually wrote "SOOOOO happy for them!" Just like that.

uh, ew!

I couldn't help myself. I had to chime in. It just felt so squicky, walking in on a conversation that was not really about me, but sort of turned into a conversation about me and I made a stupid little, Whoa there boys, be kind! comment that was totally dumb and then backed out of the room and away from the computer.

I should have backed away before I made the posting.

Today, I check email, and Squick man emailed me! What the hell was I thinking? I should have left it alone, acted like I didn't know. I know how to be discreet! Where was my head? See? This is where my tendency toward impulsivity always comes into play and bites me in the ass.

Haven't responded yet. Thankfully there were no undying professions of love involved. I can't imagine that would be the case anymore, we're all a little long in the tooth for that. But I also can't help feeling squicky about it. blech. blech. ptooey.

garcon!

2006-02-22T20:27:00.000-08:00

Got a funny little phone call a couple of weeks ago.

I came into work on a Tuesday morning following a Monday off. Nice.

The previous week I'd been at a seminar, out all week. I'd checked my messages through Thursday, my normal working week, and then left them alone.

Anywho, I came into work on that Tuesday back to work, looked grudgingly at the phone and decided, What the hell. So I went ahead and checked my messages. Normal stuff, nothing new, then suddenly, a message from someone I wouldn't know if I crashed into her on the street. Someone named Lucinda Moreno. Calling from Country Club school in my district. I don't work at Country Club school. I work at Second Cousins school, down the street. I also work at Country Club Jr. school (which is only the primary grades and feeds into Country Club school), but I have never worked at Country Club school, and though I may have had aspirations at an earlier point in my career, I don't particularly like the current principal at Country Club school and I am just fine thankyouverymuch at Second Cousins school. Anyway, apparently Ms. Moreno at Country Club school has a student who just entered her classroom. And apparently, this student used to attend Second Cousins school. This student is in kindergarten. In fact, this is already his fifth kindergarten this year, meaning he stays about a month at any place before his family moves him on. Poor kid. Anyway, this is how her message went,

"Hello, this is Lucinda Moreno at Country Club school. I have a student, Little Johnny Not Fitting into my Class, and he used to attend Second Cousins school. You observed him when he was there. I'm going to need you to come over to Country Club school and get me that diagnosis now. Please let me know when you will be able to do that."

I was gobsmacked.

In fact, I still am.

And lest you think I'm just an unhelpful cretin, let's dissect my perspective on this message. First, even though I do not work at Country Club school, I'm more than happy to answer any question that may arise at Country Club school on many many topics--a child I've worked with, a topic I've inserviced on, a policy or procedure I've helped put into place. However, Country Club school has it's own school psychologist who is quite competent and able to get her "that diagnosis" she seeks. If it exists.

However, that's one of the issues I have with it. So maybe this student is quirky. Well, he's definitely quirky, that's not particularly open to debate. But the more burning question for me in terms of diagnosing him is, "Why?" Can he function in the classroom? I'm not sure. He's been to five schools already in this, his inaugural year of school. I'm thinkin' Little Johnny may have more pressing issues--like stability--that are impacting his ability to be not quirky in any situation. When I saw Johnny, he needed some space. He needed to be sitting in back of his peers where he could do a little floor rolling when necessary so that he could once again pay attention. By sitting at the back, he can do this with minimal impact on his neighbors...note, it is difficult to floor roll when you have peers on all sides of you. You are bound to accidentally kick somebody in the face...Also, Johnny apparently has bowel and bladder control (seriously, when you work primarily with moderately retarded preschool and kinder aged students, this becomes a really big deal to you in terms of peer comparison) and fairly age appropriate language skills (see last aside). And this is, after all, kindergarten! I mean, for heaven's sakes, I ate paste throughout kindergarten!

Yeah yeah, the standards and all that. I'm NCLBed up to my eyeballs and I quite frankly don't really give a rat's ass because we all know who Georgie really wants to succeed and it ain't the population in my district!

So anyway, I question how much Johnny really needs to learn this year, other than don't pick your nose in public...always pee in the bathroom and then wash your hands, preferably with soap...don't hit or kick other people. If he learns a little reading and math, that would be nice too.

A third issue for me is that we have procedures in place for this type of issue. I spent more than a year drafting these procedures and when used correctly, I think they work. I could point to ten cases off the top of my head where it has all worked as it should. I can point to a current one--teacher at Second Cousin School asked me to come in and observe her kindergarten student. I went in and said, Oh yeah, you've got a point there. We're getting that diagnosis for them (different diagnosis, same principle, same grade). I think Ms. Moreno needs to start following those procedures.

Lastly, I don't think I have ever been more condescendingly summoned in my life. Worse than that, poor little Johnny, who has no chance of fitting in and succeeding EVER since he's already needing a "diagnosis." Actually, he probably really could have one, and I think I know what it is, but still, at least work with the kid a bit!

As politely as I could, I returned Lucinda's call and said, "Hi Lucinda. I received your message about Little Johnny Not Fitting into my Class. I observe lots of kids at Second Cousins school, and while I think I know who you're referring to, without more contextual information, I couldn't possibly make any recommendation (note; this was kind of true. Even though I was pretty sure I knew who she was referring to, I couldn't exactly remember Johnny's name at that precise moment). I don't work at your school, I only work at Second Cousins school. Thus, I won't be able to accommodate your request. You have your own psychologist, Morris, at Country Club school, here is his name, and I think he's there on Tuesdays. Maybe you can discuss Johnny with him today. Good luck!"

I did let Morris know about the message when I saw him later that week. He kind of guffawed at me about it all, shaking his head knowingly. I feel kind of sad for Little Johnny of course, but I'm sure Morris will ultimately take care of it all for him. He has a soft spot for the little guys. And I get kind of a smug, self-satisfaction thinking about Ms. Moreno getting my voicemail. 'Cause I imagine when she left that one for me, she had a kind of a slapping-your-hands-together-like-you're-brushing-off-flour-dust smug little There! That takes care of that little mess! thing going on. Passive aggressive I know. But hey, I paid a ton of cash to learn just how that works and sometimes, dammit, I just want to use it!

The Mommy Wars

2006-02-18T20:22:00.000-08:00

Read a post yesterday on another blog (see blogs I favor) that talked about The Mommy Wars.

A few years, okay, maybe just one year, ago I began an essay on The Mommy Wars. I had just read The Price of Motherhood by Ann Crittenden, in my book group. The book was chosen by me with some help from another woman in the group. This meant that I hosted that monthly meeting. Now, I work--we'll get to the details of that later--and here we were, sitting in my home, discussing the book. We have a very linear way of working through our group and it was not yet my turn. One of the women said something along the lines of, "Women who work and put their children in daycare should not have children." (Of course, this was said in the presence of her mother, also in the group, who is a working mother) I blurted out, "Hello! You are sitting in my home!" Somebody else quickly said, "Well, you don't have your kids in daycare at 6:30 in the morning." "Yes. Yes I do." That's our schedule. Kids in at 6:30 a.m. And honestly, from all that I can see, this judge-of-all-working-mothers isn't doing such a bang-up job raising her kids while she stays at home with them...just saying.

I work part-time. Thus, I actually consider myself a part-time stay at home mom (SAHM). It's an interesting mix and I think I'm in a unique position to really see both sides of this war. Sort of a secret double agent, if you will. Sure, I work four days each week. But this is September through June. Okay, okay, that's really most of the year, I know. But I work with the schools. So don't forget I get almost a week at Thanksgiving. Two weeks over the Holiday season. Another week around Easter. Multiple three-day weekends in addition to my weekly three-day weekend, actually making them four-day weekends. All told, I work 157.6 (go figure, some personnel thing) days per year. You do the math. I actually stay at home with my kids more often than I work. I'm a SAHM who does some WOH (working out of the home) during the year. It's all work. But for me, it really is less stressful work to be at home with my kids, in comparison to working and having kids.

During the work week here is my schedule;

4:55 a.m., alarm rings. Hit snooze two times.
5:09 a.m., get out of bed, into shower.
5:20'ish, out of shower, into other bathroom, note which children have moved into my bed for future reference.
5:45'ish--make-up completed, hair dry, lotion on, out of bathroom into kitchen, turning on many lights to wake up children and spouse.
5:50'ish -- begin making lunches for children, self, spouse, while attempting to cajole the children into eating breakfast and trying very hard not to coerce them.
6:05'ish--lunches complete, on a good day, kids are racing toward the bathroom spouse is in to brush their teeth. Go pick out their clothes, throw them on my bed, put on whatever pants/skirt I'm wearing that day. Pack my car with lunches of child/ren being dropped off by me.
6:15--brush teeth, pull female child into bathroom to brush/style her hair, pull male child in to douse his hair with water and comb it, wishing for the umpteenth time that spouse had not simply given instructions to "trim it" and walked away in the salon, leaving haircutting lady to cut off all his wavy surfer-boy locks. *sigh*
6:20--giving sock reminders now, looking at the clock, finishing my hair, clothes, jewelry.
6:30--out the door, drop child 1 off at school daycare, head toward child 2s daycare

Here is a non-working school day.

6:20 get into shower (spouse is already up and showered at this point, kids are usually rolling around in the bed with me, giggling--leave them to watch Zoboomafoo while I shower).
6:40, out of shower, kiss spouse good-bye, set kids up to eat while I dry my hair and get dressed
7:00, kids get dressed, brush teeth
7:30, one more homework check, pack backpack for child 1, make lunch in the event he wants to take lunch today
7:45, leave house, send child 1 across street to pick up neighbor child who enjoys walking with us
8:00, arrive at school, head toward playground, chit-chat with various teachers and parents, head home with child 2

Much less stressful for me all around. And I have a spouse who really does pitch in. He irons, he cooks, he cleans, he picks up, he starts homework, he's good.

I like staying at home with my kids. I really enjoy it. I can see why it becomes stressful for parents who do only that. No matter what we do, I think we tend to become embroiled in the day-to-day drudgery and politics of it. That creates stress and decreases our perspective on things. We begin to feel that anyone not doing what we do is not doing anything at all and thus, ripe for our judgement. I like working too. I think I've chosen a good career for myself. I enjoy my job, although it becomes stressful, and I hate having a deadline and a sick child at the same time. That stinks in a way no SAHM could ever appreciate if she has not been through it herself. I hate hate hated when my sister used to say to me, "I stay at home! I can't call in sick!" Uh, and you think I can? Not only can I not really call in sick to work (because I have to save those days for the illnesses of my children), but my children do not magically disappear when I work or when I'm sick. They still live in my house too. They still require love, humor, education and periodic bathing. They clamor to be fed and watered, taken to playdates.

Interestingly, I no longer seem to run into the SAHMs I used to feel judging me. Maybe because my kids have moved beyond Gymboree and other Mommy and Me things. I belong to the PTA, and yes, it seems to be dominated by SAHMs. But many of them are part-timers like me, and more and more seem to be entering the workforce...likely as a result of this shitty economy our SAHM loving conservative government has forced on us. If they're judging me, they sure aren't showing it. But maybe I also care less. When the issue is moved into my thought pattern, it makes me angry. I don't understand why we spend time following the shiny instead of focusing on the issues that really matter. The economy. Adequate early childhood resources. Adequate respect for mothers in general! Good maternity and paternity leaves akin to other countries in our world.

Anyway, I eventually lost the focus on my Mommy Wars essay. I planned at the time to send it in to a very non-mainstream mothering (hint hint) publication in the hopes that it might jumpstart some kind of true discussion (because that's how powerful I am). But I lost interest. It felt less real to me I guess, less current. Maybe summer vacation hit and I stopped being worried about being a working mom. I can't remember now.

But I hate The Mommy Wars.

glimpsing my future self

2006-02-14T20:56:00.000-08:00

I have 8 cousins. Two on my mother's side and six on my father's side. On my mother's side, one looks exactly like me. Or, rather, I look like her. I'm the youngest cousin of them all, so I guess I'm always the copycat here. On my father's side, I look exactly like one. Enough so that when I see a picture of her at my wedding--every single time--I think, "What the hell am I wearing a blazer for?" before I remember that it is not, in fact, me, but her.

She's older than me. Oh. I said that already. But she's older than me. I'm not sure how much. When I was young she lived in Japan. By the time she and her family returned to my part of the world, I was a child, not even a very young child anymore, but a child considering a double digit age and she was definitely in the throes of adolescent puberty. Not remotely interested in her youngest cousin, and for good enough reason. Now, I certainly have friends who are ten to fifteen years older than me. So in theory I could be friends with my cousins who are ten'ish years older than I am. But we didn't grow up with that kind of family, so we're not.

So today, Everard and I began a three-day seminar on working with Autistic kids. Our colleague LaRue went with us. I love LaRue. She's a little on the obsessive-compulsive side...wound a little tightly...someone I can totally identify and work with. In fact, I think LaRue and I were mostly sent to police Everard, who will be expected to implement in his classroom what we'll be learning this week.

So LaRue and I carpooled. We got there early (I already mentioned the OCD thing, right?) and were sitting, chitchatting when I looked up and there was my cousin (on my father's side). I thought. I mentioned it. And looked again. Then mentioned it again. Then craned my neck. Then found her name tag. Yep. That's her.

So she sat with us. Turns out, she and Everard have the same job. Turns out, she already has her classroom set up in the manner the seminar teachers suggest (natch). Turns out, she has similar lines around her mouth that suggest to me she also smokes. Well, I don't smoke anymore, but I recognize smoking lines around the lips. huh. So much for that Southern Baptist thing...

So, essentially, she's a stranger to me. We share ancestry and there was some small talk about our families. There are many things in her family right now that really are shitty. Brother in law with metastatic cancer. Mother showing the signs of Alzheimer's. Not much going on over here in comparison. But we both know each other's business. Our dads talk. And we both feel a little exposed, but really want to love our family and have no ill will toward one another. I think she found me unsettling. I tend to dominate Everard (believe, he needs it), as does LaRue, and we had several (helpful?) comments for him regarding his current students. My cousin seems to be functioning quite well without my insights and was likely a little befuddled to see me as an adult with opinions and education. I mean, to me, she's always been an adult. There was no paradigm shift for me. This is life as it should be. But it is harder to see our children grow up I think. So I'd guess it was slightly more startling for her to see me as a responsible, reliable adult. I, on the other hand, was simply startled to realize how similar we look. Again.

I can see me ten years from now. All those crinkly lines around the eyes. Hands, always slightly dry, needing lotion, with large lines, large cells, puffy and wrinkled. We have similar movements. We have similar reactions to things. Laugh at the same jokes. Her colleagues joined us and one said, "You're really cousins?" Uh, yeah. Notice the similarities? He didn't. Although, truth told, he could pass as our brother if his hair was a little more blonde than red. I'm not sure who he thinks he's kidding. Thankfully I don't look ugly ten years from now. I just look older. Wrinkled. But not in a bad way, more in a....erm...quiet, proud way. Having earned every line. Plus, now I can see that if I go more platinum (hiding the grey of course, as I'm sure she is too), it doesn't look half bad. I think I need to do the eyebrows though.

I suspect she has tender feelings toward me, as I do her. Driving home, LaRue and I discussed how not close my family of origin is, as opposed to the family into which I married, and her family of origin. It's sad. I have these nice people, living close to me, who could be sources of comfort, people to confide in, who share my experiences, and yet, we are virtual strangers to one another. In a sense, more cut off because of our forced shared experiences rather than closer because of a close family. Too bad. But maybe this can be a turning point. I doubt it. I think my cousin has her established life and I have mine. After all, her children are all adults--of legal voting and drinking ages--whereas mine are not even near the upper grades of the elementary school system yet. So different. So similar.

I'm glad our paths are crossing this week. It's nice to see me.

Mama's a little bit loaded tonight

2006-02-03T20:31:00.000-08:00

So today I finally had my day off. I am still in the recovery process from last week's marathon work schedule. I handled my four big meetings with aplomb this last week although truth told, by Wednesday afternoon when the autistic three year old wandered into my office with his mother I was really only able to stare and blink at him, wondering why my intern wasn't jumping off her duff to actually interview the parent to complete the interview I'd suggested she complete. sheesh. So glad nobody watched me as intently as I watch my graduate students...

It's a scary year when the thought of a work week commuting to a conservative, narrow-minded, homophobic, segrationist city to attend a conference on a topic with which you are well-acquainted and really only attending so that you can later point out to dear old Everard that he's not actually doing his job sounds really inviting.

That's where I'm heading during the week of Valentine's Day. Missing the class party for my dear son--truth told, not such a big sacrifice, that--and driving a good 90 minutes each way plus the time involved in picking up and dropping off a colleague for carpooling purposes. And I can't wait. I just have to get through the five new long meetings during the upcoming week so that starting next Thursday I don't actually go into the office or step foot on a campus again for another 11 days.

Bliss.

Not that work is bad. It's just stressful. Terribly so. I remember the first couple of years out of graduate school, when I'd drive home, anticipating the cigarette (still smoked in those days) and thinking about how I really needed a small tape recording device to record my memories so that I could write a book about my experiences--I planned to call it something along the lines of, "In the Trenches; a School Psychologist's Fledgling Years." I dunno. Now I realize I would have breached about fifty million confidentiality rules and I could never go back to those times anyway now. I'm old. I'm jaded. I know exponentially more than I knew then, and that was still more than my current graduate students know. Geez, what kinds of training programs are they running these days?

But I digressed.

So today was my normal Friday off. And my daughter seems to maybe have finally figured out that I'm really serious when I tell her that complete tantrumming meltdowns in stores are simply inappropriate and not to be accepted. Because several times today she pointed out to me that she hadn't screamed one time and could she please have a squirt of whipped cream when we got home? I happily obliged, even though it took about three requests for me to figure out what the hell she was referring to. Which brings me to another point of digression--we really do ignore people who are doing what we want them to do and generally only attend to the shitty stuff, and this explains why so many people really only do shitty things. That's all they ever get credit for doing! We really need to start remembing to notice the good stuff instead of the shitty stuff. Thank you, dear daughter, for reminding me of that today.

I feel wasted, exhausted and as if maybe Sunday is the day to be recovered. There were errands to be completed today and a few more tomorrow morning, along with some kind of cleaning effort. By Sunday, laundry should be completed, shopping contended with and kids should be happily screaming in the street as they ride their bikes hither and yon. I plan to sit out there on my camping chair for at least four hours, book nearby, unread (because quite frankly, even though I am supposed to be enjoying it because afterall, I am a brilliant intellectual, I cannot stand this month's selection of my book group), some kind of (probably nonalcoholic) drink nearby (oh yeah, I'm loaded, aren't I? I forgot to tell you how that happened), chit-chatting with various neighbors except for the new ones who appear to be nice but who I secretly believe are pathological liars and not to be invited into the circle. We'll see if I'm wrong in the end, but in these scenarios I usually am not.

So just to finish with the initial point of the post, which is that Mama inadvertently got drunk early on in the evening, today I picked my dear son up from his school day to find him a little more oppositional than usual. So, after a little scuffle involving a scooter and a school yard, we had a tussle over a karate uniform and beating the tar out of a younger sister. Then we had an incident while waiting in line for karate class to start which ended in me very delicately (I swear to God, that part is not embellished in the slightest) taking him by the hand (out of the karate line in front of everybody so that he actually missed karate today) and walking him out to the car while informing him that he would be spending the rest of today in his room while his family had fun. Then my spouse irritated me by wanting to drive off on his motorcycle instead and I had to take both children to the grocery store. That ended up being not so bad because my calm demeanor in the karate line scared the heck out of both children and when we arrived home, husband was sitting out in the front yard on the bench. After setting up son in his room to address and sign valentines, I headed outside with a beer (see, here it comes!). A little chit-chat ensued, less irritation, I relented and let son out of his room to play, another beer, the neighbor came home, tossed her daughter into our yard, handed me a cup of wine and left to pick up her son, and next thing I knew, Mama was a little loaded and all was right with the world again while the kids played happily, there was chit-chat amongst the spouses and neighbors and once again, we were on a weekend evening. I think I actually might be recovered by tomorrow morning. That is, if I'm not hungover.

Have a good one.

2006-01-28T23:12:00.000-08:00

Hopefully, tomorrow I'll be recovering from a six-day work week.

I know that for some, many, far too many, that's normal. If you're reading this and shouting, "Welcome to my world!" at the screen, I apologize.

For me it's not. My kids? Also not so hot on the thought. My daughter cried for ten long minutes yesterday morning when she realized that we were not staying home together and that she had to go to daycare again. My son seems to enjoy the before school care and didn't seem too put out by it all. Of course, he knew he was coming with me to work today so it was probably a tad easier on him.

Me? I'm just worn out and exhausted. There's a reason I went to a four day week and took the 20% paycut. I don't want to work five days a week! It's really that simple. I like walking my son to school and picking him up after school, just that one time each week. I like chit-chatting with his teacher, joking with the principal and assistant principal. I like the connection. I want them to know I'm around, paying attention.

Yesterday we went to a family party and it was all I could do to keep myself from curling up on the couch and sleeping. This morning, about 4 a.m., I was attempting to lull myself back to sleep just so that I could get a little more time in before having to get up and get ready for work on a Saturday.

Now I'm trying to wind down. The work day wasn't long, I'm just exhausted. Doesn't help that we headed out to a theme park for the evening hours. I hate the feeling that work is consuming me. And these days I feel that more and more frequently.

I've been waking up in the middle of the night, running through scenarios, making mental lists of students to evaluate, teachers to speak with, phone calls to make.

I'm working at night--verboten until recently--every week, multiple evenings.

I'm stressed out, yelling at the kids, thinking evil thoughts about my husband, wishing all the neighbors would go back into their houses and leave me alone.

I'm hypervigilant to my environment. Jumping at every noise. Cringing at the television and stereo. I thought I was going to freak out in the grocery store the other night when I kept bumping into things, my daughter kept talking more loudly than I would have liked. It hurt my head, my ears, my eyes, my being.

I find myself dreaming of winning the lottery, starting a bookstore in the downtown area, anything other than this.

And I actually like my job.

But nobody should be this stressed out. stretched thin.

I can't wait until July.

2006-01-20T08:52:00.000-08:00

what do you want for your child? part two

2006-01-19T21:13:00.000-08:00

So today, instead of dealing with special education teachers, I worked with general education teachers vying to move their kids out of their classrooms and into special education classrooms. This is otherwise known as Student Success Team in some schools and Student Study Team in others. I've also seen an acronym of ARC in states other than mine and it appears to be the same process but I have no idea what that stands for.

New teacher Gladys. First year fully credentialed and officially hired at my school. Not a young new teacher. A teacher who has raised her own three successful children and then went back to get her credential. Has already somehow managed to alienate the rest of the teachers at her grade level. Spends a lot of time telling people about her experience as a leader for the Cub Scouts and how that relates to teaching. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I'm just saying.

Four kids referred today. I knew they were coming. After first quarter conferences in November she gleefully sang out in my general direction that four of her students' parents are requesting special education. Imagine! Four of them! What are the odds that four separate sets of parents would request that in one sitting? I dunno, I'm thinking that probably the odds increase when the teacher suggests it? I'm not accusing, I'm merely alleging.

At any rate, when she told me that in November, I smiled back and said, "You know, I find that most of the time when parents ask something like that, what they're really asking for is help in general and they aren't really sure how to do that, or what the options are." She agreed, still smiling. Genuinely. Because I don't think she has a clue what she'd just told those parents.

That basically, she thinks that each of those children has a life long disabling condition that could never allow that child to function without the assistance of special services. At least in my opinion that's what she said. And I don't think that's something to say or determine lightly. There really are people out there with significant and severe learning disabilities and their experiences should not be watered down so glibly and without forethought. So anyway, she referred all four of them to the SST. And then she went on to tell our resource specialist that she had four kids who were "slam dunks" for testing.

Slam dunks.

I don't even really know what that means.

Slam dunk stupid? Slam dunk failing? Slam dunk disabled?

We didn't refer any of them for evaluation. Not that they aren't struggling. She's right about that.

Student A has significant family issues. I'm not privy to all of them apparently, but looks went around the room that I am smart enough to know meant "not good." And since I've already evaluated one of Student A's siblings and seen another sibling in last month's SST, I'm guessing those issues are big ones and that the family needs a something something other than special ed. And, he's in an intervention program already and improving! So that's great news. We'll be looking at him again later in the year to ensure he's still progressing.

Student B. Well, this is his fifth school and he's in fourth grade and his mom looked like she could kick my ass if she wanted to and she said a little something about kicking last year's anorexic (seriously, she said just this) teacher's ass if she ran into her on campus. Again, not sure this is so much a learning disability as it seems to be a restraining order kind of thing.

Student C. Parents didn't even come. I think one is in jail and the other didn't come and has made it clear she has no interest. Poor kid is already showing involvement in gangs and it's not looking good. I feel really badly for him.

Student D. Parents came. He has not turned in any homework since, oh, I think around October. Call me crazy, but it seems to me that if you don't attempt to do the work, it's a little bit hard to learn the material. And it didn't matter what we said, mom made it clear she's not going to be helping little D. And at the end, the parent wanted to know if she still has to take the child to the doctor like the teacher told her to. What the hell? Turns out she told the parents that doctors diagnose processing deficits (commonly referred to as learning disabilities) and that she should take the child there for...I'm not sure what for. A prescription maybe? LD Be Gone?

What I decided about new teacher Gladys is that she is very very good at identifying families in crisis. Not so much at the identifying which kids are suffering intolerably and unmistakably from learning disabilities, but she's definitely got the crisis thing going on. I'm glad she brought them. They need to be on my radar and our principal's radar. Their parents need to know they and their kids are on our radar. I know I'm on the principal's radar at the school my kid attends (but I'm pretty sure it's in an entirely different way). And I want these kids to do well. And succeed. And flourish. But I'm not going to make up some disabling condition and make things worse for them.

And you know, this always gets me hot in these meetings. It never fails that one of the moms comes in (not to blame it all on the moms, they just seem to be the ones to show up for things and I've also never really heard a dad say this next thing in my decade-plus of working in schools), and during the meeting while we're discussing her child, says, bold-faced right to me, "You know, I work!" Uh yeah. So do I. That's why I'm here right now. Talking to you. Not at home with my young child. Because I work.

I only get hot in my head about that. But I do usually give a polite retort along the lines of Yes, it's so difficult, isn't it? I think it is too. Today I think I got a little hot. It was the absolute refusal to help her kid out I think. Every suggestion we came up with, she shot down. She works from 7:00 a.m. and doesn't get home until almost 5:00. Yup, same here. My kids still do their homework. And we even start it on the weekends to get a little jump on the coming week. So I said, I work too! I have kids too. I'm here at seven in the morning and my children still do their homework! If you want your child's life to be better, easier--and we most of us want these things for our children--then you must help your child learn to read and do math!

oy. I'm glad today is over. I'm sure poor New Teacher Gladys is too.

I need the orange

2006-01-16T19:49:00.000-08:00

My four-year-old daughter has had a bout of the croup and is now at the tail end of it. She has a mild cold. So last night and tonight we gave her some cough/cold medicine--nighttime kind, with an antihistamine in it. She can't stand the taste of it and continually lobbies for the "orange" medicine--plain old ibuprofen, which does nothing for the stuffy nose and mild cough...So this was our conversation before bed this evening...

Daughter: I'm still sick you know.

Me: I know. We should give you your medicine now before you go to bed.

Daughter (trotting behind me down the hall to the kitchen): But I only want the orange medicine. No red.

Me: Go ask Daddy what he thinks.

I hand her the "red" medicine and quickly run down the hall behind her, then stand behind her and mouth "THIS one" to my husband.

Daughter: Daddy, I need the orange medicine.

She hands him the red medicine, the one she doesn't want as she says this.

Daddy: Let me see...this says...If you are coughing and you are four years old--How old are you again?

Daughter, not missing a beat: 90

post vacation jet lag

2006-01-06T19:46:00.000-08:00

We just returned from a week long vacation in sunny Orlando, Florida. We skipped Disney--don't even get me started on my annoyance with that corporation--and headed for the Universal Studios and Sea World theme parks instead, with a jaunt over to Cape Canaveral to visit the Kennedy Space Center. The kids were a little young for that, resulting in limited enjoyment for us as well. Next trip perhaps.

But what we really noticed throughout the week was the rudeness of people in general. We were pushed, we were jostled, we were ignored and all other sorts of ugliness by the other patrons of such parks. Adults attempting to push their way past our children for a photo op with Shrek. A woman pushing me while saying, "We are trying to get through!" on her way to a spot (where she was karmically soaked) for the Shamu show at Sea World. My loving spouse muttered back at her, "Everybody is trying to get through." I understand Shamu is a big deal when you don't have access to such things routinely. And truth told, we do. We have access to all these parks right near our home and so I suppose we are a bit more immune as adults. But our kids aren't. They are just as eager to feed the dolphins as the next person is and when a grown person shoves him/herself in front of my four year old to try to pet a dolphin, well, my blood just boils. (What would you want for your child?) Maybe people don't understand that what they're doing is rude. But I really think they do and that most of us suffer from insufferable rudeness and lack of proper etiquette and consideration for others.

Today for example. We were flying back home and were at the middle airport between flights. I was standing in line to buy some food for the family (an entirely separate rant; why don't airlines serve food anymore?!). A youngish man came walking up toward the counter, looked right at me, then inserted himself between me and the man actually paying at the counter. I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Actually, it was more like I was in denial. Surely he wasn't cutting in front of me so blatantly, right? He must be with the other man. He must be his son! No. Just a dick. He began his order. I said, "Excuse me, but I was standing in line when you cut in front of me." No response. I repeated myself. No response. Meanwhile his order is completing and he has paid and moved to the side. I walked to the counter, made sure he made eye contact with me and said, "Hi. I was actually standing in line." Blank stare. "When you walked into line. Remember that? You looked right at me? You looked into my eyes? You cut right in front of me. I was in line." The clerk looked aghast. Why? Is it so wrong to confront him? I didn't actually tell him out loud that he's a dick. I didn't say anything insulting. I merely repeated the facts of the encounter. He muttered something back but it certainly wasn't remorseful and there was no apology. It was more that he acknowledged my truth. "Yeah. You're right." That just makes him a dick.

My son often comes home from school and comments that he and his teacher are the only people in his class who ever say "Bless you" when somebody sneezes. We aren't particularly religious. I believe we are spiritual, but not particularly faithful to any one religion. So we've taught bless you, salud as phrases of etiquette to our children. My son is particularly affronted that no one else uses either phrase or even appears to notice a sneeze. And evidently he's done some experimenting with it with some fake sneezes (that just makes me giggle a little bit to imagine). He keeps commenting that he's going to stop using the phrases and I keep encouraging him to take the higher moral ground. I firmly believe that joy begets joy. So I try to smile at everyone and thank everyone and please everyone. And it often works. I often get a big smile back and a Have a good day. But that's just the people who are being paid to interact with me. The rest of the people...well...let's just say there was a bit of relief to come home today. I was about to dispense with the thank yous and start in on the blows.

blasts from the past

2005-12-29T20:24:00.000-08:00

Don't we all have those? I just had one. I don't know why I torture myself. It's that one song that transports me. It's so clear, so quick. I can almost see the funnel I'm spiraling through; spinning, colors blending, blurring together. It's visceral and I find myself gasping for breath as quietly as I can, in the hopes that nobody hears and interrupts my moment. Mambo Sun by TRex. I suppose the song itself doesn't matter. We each have our own. And I don't even think it's the song itself, although it has a certain, shall we say...F Me...feeling to it...

It's the thought behind it. That there was a someone who had enough passion for me, enough feeling, to sit down, find the song on a cassette (I'm old, I admit it), re-record it onto a new cassette, write me a letter professing undying love and put it in the mailbox. The promise, the shiny newness of young romantic love and lust.

Here I sit, at my computer, beer next to me, kids in bed. Not the same person that sent the cassette living in my house with me. That fire died out as quickly as it started. Just one day, *poof* he was gone, never to be heard from in a positive way again. I love the person with me. But there was never that got-to-have-you-or-die feeling from him. His is a slow, steady, pragmatic love, born of length, mutuality and, well, there's a certain soulmatish feel to it. It's better in the long run I think and I'm happier all in all. I wouldn't trade my life for another.

But sometimes the excitement of Mambo Sun transports me to a stinky little flat where we were all poor college kids finding our ways in the world. Those ways just didn't traverse together...

Post Christmas

2005-12-26T18:50:00.000-08:00

We are past the time of joy and giving. We didn't give very much this year...I don't really care what Bush and his cronies tell me, we are not in an economic era of wealth and gain. The family we have created stands on the edge of an economic abyss and we are madly flailing our arms to regain some balance.

Now, I know we made some choices. We chose to have my husband give up his well paying job to become a teacher. And that in itself cost some cash. Then there's the part where he'd basically screwed up his previous educational experiences and needed to go to one of "those" colleges that cost a ton of cash and accept everybody. So there was the added business of the student loan...plus daycare costs for two young children, and here we are, a master's degree and two credentials later, trying to pay our bills each month. Seems sad, doesn't it? You give up money for the higher moral ground of serving children--our future citizens--and you find yourself in the poorhouse, barely able to make ends meet.

Truth told however, our idea of a sad Santa year is certainly another person's idea of a Christmas bonanza. Our son "finally" (in his long six years on earth, he has sadly been neglected in the video game arena) got his Gameboy. I keep waiting for the seizures to kick in and we had to have a discussion with him earlier today regarding the fact that he cannot only play Gameboy twenty-four hours a day. Our daughter is avidly writing all over her Leap Pad plus Writing thingamajig. She loves to write. There were a few moments where she threatened to huck the entire thing across the room when it wasn't responding as she expected it to (I suspect she gets that from me), but we were able to smooth things over with a fair amount of ease. And then there's the matter of heading out on a week's vacation to Orlando later this week. I'm panicked about the cash we're spending, but the reality is, we're going, we've bought the plan tickets, we've paid our maintenance fee on our timeshare, we can afford a fair amount. We feel poor, but it's all about perspective.

Family and neighborhood feuding, that's another story. Starting with a "Get the F*** out of my house" and ending with the neighbor across the street announcing that she's "done" with the neighbor next door...well, let's just say I've had some Pinot Noir, found my password to my blog account, and here I am...stories for another day. Hey, at least Christmas came early in the winter vacation of school hood this year and I still have almost two weeks of vacation left!

what would you want for your child?

2005-12-07T20:23:00.000-08:00

Honestly, I ask myself this question every day, multiple times. And I shout it inwardly in my head at others all day long. And apparently psychic shouting doesn't help because other people continue to bumble through the day as if we don't have real kids' lives in our hands.

Take an on-going discussion this year. "Everard, you must write goals for Little Johnny in several areas--Language Arts, Math, Social Skills, Communication Skills, etc., etc. Little Johnny is only just turning three years old and your job is to teach him how to be ready for kindergarten in two years." Everard refuses to step up to the plate. This is his third year working with Little Johnny and all his mates and Everard completely resists taking any responsibility to Little Johnny's education even though he is Little Johnny's main defense against a cold hard world. I want to strangle Everard.

For example. Everard "specializes" in teaching children with Autistic tendencies. Today we were to have a meeting for Little Johnny's friend Jimmy, who, big surprise, has autistic tendencies. I knew that. Our speech therapist knew that. Our nurse knew that. Jimmy's mom knows that. How did Everard miss that? Jimmy has moderate retardation...no language, lots and lots of sensory issues--he flaps his hands, he rolls around on the floor, he sometimes trips over his own feet. It's hard to "assess" Jimmy in a traditional way because Jimmy is simply not a traditional kind of kid. And he's probably never going to be.

Still, I somehow wrote a report based on Jimmy's current functioning. The nurse wrote one. So did the speech therapist. And his home teacher. Not to mention his occupational therapist. Somehow, Everard is not sure where Jimmy is functioning (and I'm just making a wild guess here, but I suspect it goes hand in hand with Everard also missing that Jimmy has Autism) and thus, doesn't really know how to write goals for Jimmy.

You know, I do prefer being left. I really do. And I don't support firing teachers without due process. But Hell, I think there's something to be said for a longer waiting period before any of us acquire tenure! Because quite frankly, although I think Everard is very nice (a little milquetoast for my taste, but you know, he's nice), I don't think I'd want him for my child!

seminars

2005-12-05T20:21:00.000-08:00

Today was seminar day. Something I'd agreed to go to, to be "educated" in a topic of choice--today's choice was a buffet of Asperger, Bipolar and Conduct Disorders. A smorgasbord, if you will pardon the expression.

Anyhoo, I'd forgotten completely that I'd agreed to this seminar...last week a coworker reminded me and asked if I wanted to carpool. My, December came quickly. So I gave some instructions to my graduate student that I thought inherently included the directive to "Stay here in the district" and went along on my merry way this morning. We were joined by several others from our workplace, dispelling any false beliefs/hopes/whathaveyou that we'd be cutting out early. And during the morning I was treated to several, "And here comes..." types of statements, none the least of which was more surprising than, "There is your graduate student." What the hell?

This is the second grievous incident. The first was a willy-nilly act of complete disregard for the fact that we are working with real, live children with real, live families. Today's incident included "skipping" at least one counseling session with a counseling student, at best, and completely disregarding what she knew she was supposed to be doing at worst. I'm hoping for at best, but thinking she's at worst.

I think she thinks she's on a playground of digitally cloned kids and she gets to play all she wants. I don't think she understands that people are counting on her to do what she is supposed to be doing.

This is not the first sign of her impulsive and flighty behavior.

I think I have to fire her. How do you fire somebody who is volunteering? And the problem with that is, it may just get her kicked out of her graduate program. I don't know, I'm not sure. But she found me late as a site supervisor, and I'm thinking there's a reason for that.

You should have seen the look on her face when she saw me standing in front of her. In my defense, I don't think I looked particularly frightening, but she visibly double-took and then stood at attention...I suppose I did that when my supervisors showed up during graduate school as well, but it was still a little disconcerting. Did she think I wouldn't figure it out? At least she was doing something toward her education.

stage fright

2005-12-04T19:36:00.000-08:00

So I'm not sure what it is about this forum. In all other forums I seem to generally be able to muster some kind of humor or humorous story. For some reason there is less vulnerability there for me? Have to think on that a bit. But here I just feel tonge-tied and silly, thinking this may not be for me after all...

job interviews

2005-11-28T19:50:00.000-08:00

So today at work we interviewed victims to join our workforce. Of course, there was one favored candidate before we ever hit the table, but I generally try not to be obvious about it. Not so with my ever so subtle friend sitting next to me. During the interview of said candidate, he quietly pulled a small napkin onto his interview question papers, wrote various instructions to the candidate about what the correct answers were causing me to viciously kick my neighbor. That's all I need--another round of interviews because my sappy friend doesn't believe in the candidate enough to let him do his own talking. He was head and shoulders above the rest anyway.

In other bits of news, spouse took our son to the dentist today to have that tooth that his sister kicked in on Thanksgiving morning removed. Being the nice and accommodating person that she is, she gladly removed two teeth for my dear son. He's so happy. Came home and grinned broadly at me, allowed me to snap several pictures with the digital camera. I'd forgotten what his toothless grin looked like. It's been several years and I try not to think about the colicky period of hell anyway. But suffice to say that the parrot living behind us at the time learned how to cry my son's cry so well that once when my son was sleeping in my lap and the parrot started in--wah! wah! wah! WWWAAAAHHHHH!--I couldn't figure out what the hell was going on and kept looking around for the other baby that I'd obviously misplaced. I wondered if I'd gone psychotic for a minute. That actually came later when the sister arrived to join her borther in mayhem and mischief. At least she wasn't colicky, just at death's door. You know, it's all good when there's no colic.

musing on the day

2005-11-27T19:13:00.000-08:00

Having recovered a little from yesterday's inaugural post...of course, the second immediately following the one during which I hit send, I thought of about one hundred interesting and witty things I could have typed. However, it felt a little obsessive to post again right away and even more obsessive to edit my previous post, as if I'm too insecure to actually let the first one stand on it's own without a little tweaking...yes, I'd say "Teetering" was definitely the right choice in a blog name, wouldn't you?

Spent most of today outside with the kids. And the neighbors. And the neighbor's dog. In my house. Why the hell is the dog in my house when everybody else is outside? It's like the time my spouse was wiring the house for dsl and looked up to find that dog's owner in the house. "Hello! How are you today?" Scared out of my pants, how the heck are you? Why would you even enter another person's house without being invited? I don't understand that. Just like I don't understand that same neighbor who stands across the street shouting at me, "We're about to leave town for two weeks! We're flying on X plane at X time and we're staying at X hotel!" Maybe I'm just a paranoid freakazoid, but forgawdsake Lady, have some discretion!

Anyway, I digressed. Get used to that. Spent the day outside with the kids after the spouse went away to install a garage door opener at the in-law's house. Many periods of tears and shouting. A couple of incidents and accidents on bicycles. One point in which I had to tell the (same!) neighbor daughter to please untie the dog from my four year old's bicycle while she was riding. "But why?" Well, let's see. Because she broke her arm on that bike and she just had eye surgery last week and if your lovely animal decides to make a break for it she'll probably break some teeth off with her luck? How's that? Untie the dog! The reality is that the dog would never make a break for it. As my dog is prancing around her trying to animate her to do something, anything, she sometimes makes a half-hearted stab at standing before immediately resuming her plotz. And I don't care how much people say that girls are worse than boys socially. My son cannot play with more than one child at a time to save his life. He's with this one and then that one, and if another one steps in, it's all tears and mayhem. sheesh. I wonder if I did this to him? Have I rushed in to save social situations too many times and now at the tender age of six years old is he ruined already for life? I hope not. But it's really too early to see. I just keep trying to give him some problem solving skills and move on.

Back to work tomorrow after ten luxurious days off...except for that one day when the office called in a panic needing X information, necessitating a drive in with both children in tow to recover and photocopy said information (I knew I should have brought that file home). A full day of interviews to replace the colleague who has left. Wish us luck. Not looking forward to that at all--mostly because I don't really feel like answering any questions about the aforementioned file when the boss shows up to the panel. oy. Is it almost Christmas?

inauspicious beginning

2005-11-26T20:20:00.000-08:00

Oh see, I can't do this. I can't even remember the word for a first something...first INAUGURAL! That's it! What the hell, I've got the title up there already. That's me, always on the edge, a little aphasic under stress, but trying like heck to keep up and make things good. Hard to imagine shouting out from the rooftops, "Hey! Come see my mediocre blog!" Does everybody else do that? I've seen other people's blogs, but not everybody has told me they have one...maybe they don't want me reading their blogs? I'll have to think on that for a little while... I wonder if anyone will read mine? Maybe this will be my little secret on the web. A nice, under the radar place to shout everything out. Put it into the universe, leave it to the wild beyond to tame or set free.