Overheard

In the car today, the Captain and I were discussing the living arrangements of one of his friends.  The friend’s sister is away at college, and she has left her baby with her mother while she pursues her college education.

Captain:  You would never let me go off to college and leave my baby with you.

Me:  That’s why you aren’t going to be having any babies before you go to college.  No babies until after college when you have a good job to support them.  So when you’re seventeen, you wrap that little thing.

*cricket, cricket*

Him:  When I’m seventeen, it won’t be so little.

I almost drove off the road.

Now, if groups like Moral Majority have their way, there won’t be any sex education at school, and our kids will be the dumbest in the world when it comes to sex…. But our parents are sexually retarded too…. Fear and primitive morals are creating a sexual pressure-cooker in this country and soon the top will blow…. Only in the U.S. do we find children drawing a picture of a baby coming from the clouds or from under a cabbage leaf.  ~Floyd Martinson

12 days

That’s how far we were into the school year before I requested a conference with my son’s teachers.

My son is in a new school where, historically, there have only been 5th and 6th graders.  My son’s 4th grade class was moved to this school because of space issues.  His teachers were looping teachers, meaning they taught 5th grade one year and then taught the same class in 6th grade the next year.  Last year they were 6th grade teachers.  They were informed they would be taking the new 4th grade class this year.  They have gone from teaching a group of 12 year olds, to teaching a group of 9 year olds.  That’s a big difference in maturity level and readiness.

My son has had some difficulties with learning – specifically with reading and spelling.  (He is a whiz at math though!).  Homework assignments are supposed to be written on a white board, and it is then up to the students to transfer that information to their homework assignment books.  In addition, homework is posted on the school website so parents can check to make sure everything is accounted for.

Because my son has some difficulties, I am super diligent about checking the website and matching it to what he has written in his assignment notebook, and then making sure he completes his work.  Two days ago, on the homework blog, there was a message that some students weren’t getting their homework done.  I didn’t spend much time thinking about it because I know how much time we spend at home making sure everything is done. 

When my son arrived home today, he immediately wanted to talk to me “in private” – no sister, no Postman, no friend (who is spending the night and had arrived here before my son).  His lip was quivering as he showed me a letter, dated today, stating that my son had not completed the attached homework and was therefore getting a zero.  IF he completes it by Monday, he will get HALF credit.  The letter was made out “Dear parents” and was very generic, not at all specific to my son.  It was a very condescending note, telling parents THEY are responsible for modeling good study habits and suggesting we sit with our children to make sure they complete their homework. 

Bitch, please. 

If you only knew how many hours and occasional tears of frustration are shed over homework in this house, you wouldn’t DARE send home a letter suggesting I am not encouraging good study habits.

I asked him what exactly I was looking at in regards to the work, and he told me it was something they were handed in class.  His name and the date 9/10/08 were written on it so I had that as a starting point.  I looked in his assignment notebook – nothing.  I looked on the homework blog – nothing.  However, there was another note on the homework blog stating OVER HALF of the students did not complete their homework.  It was in regards to the letter my son (and apparently several other students) was sent home with.

I am crazy mad.  I have already e-mailed the teachers asking for a meeting at their earliest convenience.

Here are my points:

1. There is nothing in my son’s assignment notebook.  I asked him if verbal instructions are ever given and he said they were sometimes given.  I asked him if he had trouble writing down the verbal instructions and he said he sometimes did.
2. There is nothing on the homework blog.  If verbal instructions are given, I think it would be reasonable to state those “extra” homework assignments on the blog.  Otherwise, how are we parents supposed to know what to help with?
3. Theses kids are nine years old.  I understand the teachers are not familiar with teaching this age, so maybe we ALL need to adjust?
4. Over half the class didn’t get this particular assignment done.  Um…just a suggestion, but maybe, JUST MAYBE, the instructions were not clear?
5. As far as I know, this is the first assignment my son has not completed.  If there are others he has not completed, I want to be notified individually.  I want a call or a note home from his teachers stating there is a problem and asking me what we can all do to correct it.  This feels like they have decided to make an example out of this situation, regardless of each child’s completion record up to this point.
6. OVER HALF THE CLASS, Y’ALL.  Something just isn’t right and this is not sitting well with me at all.

So, twelve days in and Big Momma is going to make her presence known.  I think it might be a long year.

Education aims to give you a boost up the ladder of knowledge.  Too often, it just gives you a cramp on one of its rungs.  ~Martin H. Fischer

911

I tried writing a post but noting seemed quite right, so I just have this:

A giant tool. No, not me.

The Postman got a flat tire on his route, and could not get the lug nuts off to change his tire.  So he called me.

Yeah, I laughed too. 

Turns out I was his third choice.  Actually, I was probably his 453rd choice, but everyone else before me was unavailable.  So he called me, and asked me to go into his father’s garage and he would tell me where to find the things he needed.

Him:  In the blue cabinet on the left, there’s a set of sockets.  All together, in a holder.  Different sizes, you can’t miss them. 

Turns out I CAN miss them, but only the first seven times I look right at them.

Him:  Now there’s a long chrome handle, about a foot and a half long with a knuckle on the end that fits into the sockets.  It’s somewhere in the same cabinet where the sockets were.

Silence for, like, 3 minutes while I look.

Him:  HONEY.  Long, chrome handle.  Foot and a half.  Knuckle on the end.  Fits the sockets.  In the cabinet.  Long.  Chrome handle.  Right there.  I know it should be right there.  Long handle.  Chrome.  Knuckle.

Me:  If you don’t shut the fuck up right now I am going to BEAT you with it when I finally find it and bring it to you.  Repeating the same words over and over is NOT helping me find it.  I am well aware that I am completely tool stupid, but how about remembering that I AM HELPING YOU OUT HERE, JACKASS!

Ok, well, I guess I wasn’t REALLY helping since I couldn’t find the stupid, giant, chrome handled tool.  With a knuckle on the end.

When I did find it – you know, HIDING right there in the BOTTOM OF THE RED TOOL BOX, – I then needed to find ANOTHER stupid lug nut remover thingy.  Fortheloveofallthatisgood.  Did he NOT learn how painful it is to have me find a tool yet?

Finally I had all the necessary equipment, or the equipment that sounded like what he was describing, and I was on my way to find him out on his route.

He got his tire off in no time with the handy dandy chrome thingy and sockets and was off to complete his work day.

Me?  I took his flat tire to get repaired to make up for telling him to shut the fuck up.  I rock.

Oh, and?  Is it wrong that ”long handled chrome tool” makes me giggle?  Everytime.

It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little – do what you can.  ~Sydney Smith

My inner snob

The Diva’s school pictures are tomorrow.  She has been putting outfits together, deciding what she will wear, and picking the pose she wants.

The Captain, caught up in the madness, asked when HIS school pictures are.  I told him and then said “I’d like you to wear the black shirt with the pony on it.”  I walked into the other room to see the Postman smirking and shaking his head.

Him:  He’s not a Polo kind of kid, Buffy.

Me:  Yeah, but it’s black and he’ll probably be sporting a mohawk.  It’s called compromise.

In my defense, he picked out the shirt himself the day we went school shopping, and I don’t even think he knows who Ralph Lauren is.

But it still made me a little happy.  Is that wrong?

What a strange power there is in clothing.  ~Isaac Bashevis Singer