Rice Bowel?

Every day at school, the lunch ladies hang signs by the cafeteria doors to let the elementary kids know what is scheduled for lunch and which line to stand in. 

Today's sign read:             Rice Bowel

Sounds sooo yummy, doesn't it?

A Dance

JBJ is at his first real dance tonight.  He's been to a couple of dances before, but they were dances connected with a youth activity that he was attending at the time and we were always at the dance too because we happened to be chaperoning the activity. 

This is JUST a dance.... with other homeschoolers.... with girls.... alone.

He met his 2 best friends there.  He looked good.  He has been excited for this dance for 3 days.  He actually put on deodorant.

I'm not sure what to think about all this.

Brings back a lot of memories....Stake dances, Regional dances, "Jump" by Van Halen, "Faithfully" by Journey, "Stairway to Heaven" by Led Zeppelin, teaching Les to dance, Mitch and his Cinnamon gum, me & Amy getting ready for the dance (I'm sure we took WAY longer getting ready than the boys ever did!), going to the New Year's Eve dance 3 days after I had my wisdom teeth pulled & my face was still swollen, hiding from the Wren brothers, saving certain songs for certain people, dancing the last dance of the night not wanting it to ever end....

Good times, Good memories, Good friends.

I want JBJ to have the same experience.

My favorite almost-15 year old in the entire world

Top Ten Things that went wrong today

10.  My entire family had to be 8 different places at once all day today...and we only have 1 car.
9.  I woke up late.
8.  I had no breakfast.
7.  BJ stayed up all night to finish a project due today for recording.
6.  I pulled a muscle in my neck picking up a preschooler who has recently resorted to flopping down on the ground like a rag doll when she doesn't want to do what you ask.
5.  I have a hitter/biter in my morning preschool class.
4.  I need an extra aide in class when EH comes to class because he's a one-on-one kid...and I didn't have an extra aide today.
3.  Mr. Complainer came today and stayed the entire class again.
2.  Mr. Complainer's kid got head-butted by my hitter/biter and ends up with a bleeding fat lip.
1.  I had to listen to Mr. Complainer for ANOTHER 45 minutes today.

Maybe it's over?

So my meeting with my principal & Mr. Complainer went ... well?

What it all boils down to is that he is a hyper-sensitive, over-protective, mistrusting, new father.

He loves his boy....maybe a little too much?

??? He didn't bring his son to school yesterday and made it for the last 15 minutes of class today. ???

Maybe it's over?

It ain't over til.....

Now, there is a meeting scheduled with my principal, myself, & Mr. Complainer.
Oh Brother.  I have decided this guy likes to hear himself talk.

So I have decided to take the approach of learning what I can do to better communicate with ALL parents....making sure parents know what we do in preschool...sending home a "Good Things" note each month praising each child...

I have been praying for charity and for mercy.  I want to be able to extend mercy to Mr. Complainer...after all, he is ( I hope?) doing this because he is concerned about his child.

I'm going to use the situation to improve myself .... and not dwell on what an --- this person is being.

Wimp

So after yesterday's drama, I find out what the complaint was about....
~~the way we helped a child sit down by pulling lightly on one of his arms

SERIOUSLY?!

Of all the things I dreamed up last night, that was the one he chose? I would never in a million years have come up with that one.

If that's what he complained about, then he surely would not have liked today.  Today was a bizillion times worse.  I can think of 100 things he could have complained about today:

1.  the biter
2.  the hitter
3.  the roamer
4.  the gagger
5.  the hairpuller
......to name only a few

I say "would not have liked" because he & his really cute child never showed up to class today.

Wimp.

Breathe In, Breathe Out

Today I had my preschoolers in school.  They don't come for the first two weeks of school because we are testing during that time.  But today was the day.  I had 7 in my AM class and 17 in my PM class.  Tomorrow I should have about 11 in my AM class.

But I had a parent complain.  I don't know what the complaint was about because that parent didn't approach me first.  Instead, he went straight to the principal.  That makes me mad.  If there was something wrong in my class, with the way I handled something or the way one of my aides handled something, then let me know first.  Have the decency and the courage to speak up and not go behind someone's back.  He sat in class with us all morning and never spoke out about anything.

As far as I can tell, nothing wrong happened.  Nothing wrong was said.  We did our jobs just fine and, humbly speaking, we are good at our jobs.  God blessed me with a gift for working with kids with special needs.  (I will emphasize KIDS with special needs, NOT their parents!)  I know I'm good at what I do.  I know I do it well.

No matter what, I will return to school tomorrow.  I will smile and wave at this parent when he shows up and stays the entire class time again (because I know he will) and I will do what I do best, which is play with kids and love them.

Because that's what it's all about anyway.

Breathe In, Breathe Out, Breathe In, Breathe Out...............remember what's important.