I’m at my desk at school. The students are working on their own blogs while I’m working on mine. The Common Core curriculum requires students to use the internet for publishing. This is yet another example of the fact that Education rules and guidelines are not written by educators. I had to do a lot of leg work to make this possible and then more leg work to get it up and running. Geesh!
Anyway…
Anyway…
I’m exhausted. Seriously exhausted. The weekend cannot come too soon for me. The kicker of today is that Jack and Julianna both have today and tomorrow off from school. Their school district recognizes Jewish holidays, mine does not. So my little ones rolled out of bed and off we went to Auntie’s in their jammies and with their little messy bedheads. Plus it is a rainy day. Oh, and I forgot my coffee at home. I didn’t get the chance to get coffee until I got through traffic and to my regular Dunks. I think I’ll offer to buy Jo a coffee if she goes and gets me one, too.
The kids are still doing well in school. I’m supplementing Jack’s reading materials by having him read to me every night and during the day when I can. Fortunately, he’s on an I Spy kick. While these books aren’t particularly challenging, he enjoys them and he does have to sound a few words out. He’s kind of a lazy reader. If he can persuade someone to do it for him, he will. He tries to convince us that he can’t read, but then he’ll ask us questions about signs he’s read along the road while we’re driving, giving himself away. We’ve got a ton of little I Spy books that should keep him occupied for a while. In the meantime, I’ll be on the lookout for something to replace them when he’s done.
Anna is doing well. I went to her IEP meeting on Monday morning. That was good, I guess. She’ll start going full day Mondays through Thursdays, with a half day on Fridays. That should get her ready for kindergarten. I also got them to add an amendment saying that they would base all instruction off classroom performance and not the Psych Eval. Both the chair and Anna’s teacher swore up and down that Anna is not only not “borderline,” but that she is really very bright. Thank you. The fact that they said that makes me feel better, but the fact that they actually wrote the amendment makes me feel more comfortable with kindergarten looming on the horizon. I would hate for there to be a miscommunication about it because that would hurt Anna, and I would have to get ugly. No one wants me to get ugly. It’s just so much better for everyone if I don’t have to get ugly.
Anna’s teacher did say that Anna had a little problem with being appropriate with other children. She likes them so much, that she just wants to be NEAR them. Apparently she touches them (I’m assuming she tries to hold their hands; I’ve seen her do that at Disney), and she gets right in their faces. I’ve definitely seen her do that. I kind of wonder if it’s because she’s so much taller than everyone else that she’s got to bend down to make eye contact. It does kind of freak other children out.
Ballet is going well so far. We’re only two classes into it. Anna loves it. Her teachers come out and get the class and she goes off and gets in line with the other girls. They make a train to get to the studio, so she’s there with her hands on the shoulders off the girl in front of her. She doesn’t mess around in line, either. She’s completely appropriate as far as I can see. When the class is over, she comes back to me, very happy to see me, and she tells me what she does in the class. I like that she does that. I think she needs something just for her, at least for a little while. This is just hers, not Jack’s and hers or just Jack’s. She’s never really had that before.
Jack is headed back to Tae Kwon Do at the place he used to go. If you’ve been reading along, you can understand that I had reservations about this, and I’m still not comfortable with it. Don’t get me wrong. I like the idea of the program, the ideals, the creed, etc. I do think though that they’re a little overextended. We took a break from it for a while for many reasons. One is because it would have been about six months for Jack to move up to the next class, and he had been doing the same thing for a year and a half; he was a little bored with it. Another reason is that the overextension of the Master came at the expense of my son. Jack was slighted in many ways. I know that they weren’t out to hurt him; they were just operating at a level they couldn’t really manage, but it just seemed that it was at Jack’s expense more than any other child’s. It was not ideal. I can’t tell you how many days I drove home from karate, trying very hard not to cry because Jack had been slighted and had known that he had been slighted. If he hadn’t realized what was going on, that would have been one thing, but he knew and he asked me.
At first we looked at another place completely. John found a place near us that was actually a little scary. It was four nights a week, for an hour, even for the little ones. Their demo team scares the shit out of me, to be honest. John liked it because of the structure and because he thought it would toughen Jack up a bit. But the commitment is a little too much, honestly. Maybe he could have handled it, but I couldn’t have. Not at all.
So since we liked the program of the place Jack had started in, we decided to go to another place that was part of the “chain.” It seemed ideal to me because the time was 6:30 – 7, which meant that I wouldn’t have to drag Anna Banana, which is a big relief. She can’t sit for that long with her game or her book or anything really. And now that she doesn’t cry and hide with me when people cough or sneeze, there’s no way she will sit that long and wait for her brother. So John brought him to a private lesson and to watch a class.
John took Jack to the private lesson and told the guy who runs this particular dojo (or whatever it’s called) that he liked the program, but he was frustrated with the way it was run at the original place. The problem with that is the guy who runs the new place is a former student of the guy who runs the old place who also happens to be the guy who developed the whole program way back in the ‘80’s. So the new guy was very uncomfortable. And I guess Jack mentioned that he wanted to go to the old place and not the new place (except his mama didn’t want him to—talk about heartbreak. Yes, I sobbed about that one, folks, and spent a night with a stuffy nose and head because of it). John took Jack to watch the class that Jack would be in the new place and I guess it’s tight with over 30 kids in the class. John also said that the kids’ at the old place were more skilled.
So after they left the new place, John took Jack to the old place to see about getting him back into the old place, but in a higher class. Apparently, the Master couldn’t speak with John at the time, but would call him back. I’m not sure if he did or not, but last night John brought Jack to check out the higher class at the old place. Apparently, the Master was excited to see John and Jack and was ready to take Jack back. He told them that Jack could start right away, just jumping into the higher age group class—the class for 7-12 year olds. Also, there’s this girl there—I shouldn’t call her a girl. She’s got to be in her early 20s and she’s just an amazing teacher and organizer—who made a big deal about seeing Jack, so he felt welcomed.
I’m not quite sold on this one. The one thing that’s preventing me from throwing a huge fit over this is that John has decided that he’s handling the whole thing and has even moved around his work schedule to accommodate it. Even the fact that John will have to pick up Jack at ballet class on Wednesdays to bring him to karate isn’t a problem. They tried it yesterday, and got there in plenty of time to spare. There is one snag, and that is that sometimes, John won’t be able to do it. If John has to work late one karate night, he can bring Jack on the following Saturday. It’s really not a big deal.
The big problem will hit in a little while. With this age grouping, they only have three belt levels per class. So once Jack gets to his purple bet, which may be in March, he’ll have to go at a different time—earlier in the day. Which means that at the end of March-beginning of April, I’m back to schlepping the kid and his sister to karate two days a week.
We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.
The next bit was added much later in the day:
My stomach hurts. It absolutely hurts for two reasons.
1) I sent a very angry email today. Not usually my style, but some times it happens. I had a friend read the email, but she wondered if I should soften it some because I was so angry. Because I had already sent the very angry email, I sent one that hopefully sooths the angry one a little bit. Now I have to wait because I won't hear back from the sendee until tomorrow. Yikes.
2) I had a little conversation this afternoon with the little boy next door. Actually it wasn't a conversation--a dialogue. It was a monologue. His monologue. I'm not sure what he told me, but it was either:
"I have new friends because we're not friends anymore and I need to get new friends."
Or
"I have no friends because we're not friends anymore and I need to get new friends."
Couldn't make it out because his mother really hates us and doesn't want him to talk to us, so she was yelling at him.
I don't really care that she hates us. Honestly, that doesn't bother me. Hate away. What makes my stomach hurt is that either way, whatever he said, it was sad. The other reason why it makes my stomach hurt is because his affect was off. He greeted me with a big smile and a "Hi, Jen!" Before I could reply, his mother was yelling at him.
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