From the depths...

So you would imagine that if you had nothing to do all day, that it would be easy to update your blog frequently. That is what I thought, but it has become very apparent that keeping a blog updated requires a certain level of motivation, and honestly I am not really motivated to do anything. (We'll get to that later of course.) But the boy has been up to some fun stuff, and so I figured that I should make an effort.

BUT...before we get to the boy, this came in the mail for me today. I was not expecting a package, so I was very surprised to see:

That's right, I won my Fantasy Baseball League! I don't think the term "won" adequately describes the complete annihilation that I dispensed upon those who dared oppose me. (Of course I am pretty sure that I was the only person paying any attention to it, and even then, I really have no idea what all of the stats are that we were being scored on, I just made sure that I had people playing.) So yes, I am a geek and won my League of Dorks. Though as they say, Fantasy Sports are like Dungeons and Dragons for the guys who used to beat up the guys who play Dungeons and Dragons! So thanks to Josh Lewis for making my day!

Ok, on to things that matter. Owen's best friend in the entire world is Dean, and Dean's mom Katie always arranges the funnest outings for them to go on. Well, since I am now the stay at home mom, I get to go too. This time we went to visit the Fire Station. Anyone who has ever taken 3 and 4 year olds to see a fire station knows of the overwhelming joy and excitement that such a trip brings. Owen talked about this for a week I think, every morning asking if it was the day that we were going to the Fire Station with Dean.

Owen was curious why the Fire Truck was yellow instead of red.

But of course that did not stop him from climbing inside!

This was actually one of the most important parts of our entire trip. I realized that we haven't covered fire safety at all with Owen.

So the Firefighter dressed completely up in his gear so that the kids would not be scared if they ever saw a Firefighter coming to get them. (Because honestly, they look kind of freaky.)

So I am sure you have noticed that Owen is covering his ears in all of these pictures. In the garage they have the loudspeaker from the dispatch office, and it was quite loud.

Giant gloves are always a hit!

Once their little brains could not process anymore awesomeness from the Fire Station, they saw a little park across the parking lot, and ran as fast as they could to play!

It was a nice sunny day, but it had been raining the night before, so when they went down the slide...

They had to slam on the breaks to miss the giant pool of water that had collected at the bottom of the slide.

While Thomas the Train is still #1 for the boy, he is becoming more and more interested in Cars. In fact, he now had Lightning McQueen, Mater, Chick Hicks - with his Mack truck and pit crew, as well as 3 lesser known cars, Leak Less, Octane, and Shifty. He doesn't get rewards for going potty any more - now it is for his behavior at school (more later) so he is working on earning Sheriff.

He wanted to build a maze. He has seen mazes in some of his activity books, and decided that Lightning McQueen needed to have one too!

We have a gigantic activity book that we got at Costco, Owen loves to color and write and draw, and sometimes he'll even follow the directions!

On the topic of the boy and following directions - School. School does two things for children, it teaches them social interaction, and it hopefully teaches them knowledge that they will use in their lives. Well, Owen's pre-K class is not doing a whole lot of the second, which means that he gets bored and is struggling with the first. I'm not saying that they aren't teaching the pre-K children anything, it is just that Owen has known his letter, numbers, shapes and colors since he was 2. Asking him to arrange the letters in his name is not going to keep his attention very long because he has been doing that forever! (Plus, he has 4 letters in his name, not that hard.)

He likes to let us know that he was in the tub.

Well, since he is not really being challenged, he has been up to mischief in class. We received a second discipline notice that the boy was still hitting and pushing as well as being disrespectful. To nip this in the bud we asked his teacher if we could come in and have a little talk about what exactly was going on, and how we might help correct it. In a normal educational setting - i.e. anywhere not here - this would be an informal chat with the teacher, after all, it is @#%$*&% pre-K, they are 4 years old. As you can guess, when we arrived not only was it not informal, but we had both of his teachers as well as the grade-level facilitator there. Now, I have been in meetings like this (on the other side of the table of course) for 6th graders and higher, but again - PRE-K...4 YEARS OLD, can we please dispense with all of the "We're going to protect ourselves in case they sue" bull shit and talk about the boy?

Now, let me take a moment to give you some definitions.

Hit - verb: To strike a blow.

Strike - verb: To come into contact forcefully.

Blow - noun: A forcible stroke delivered with a part of the body or with an instrument.

Push - verb: To press against with force in order to drive or impel.

Disrespect - noun: Lack of respect. verb: To show or express disrespect or contempt for.

Respect - verb: To consider worthy of high regard, To refrain from interfering with.

Contempt - noun: The act of despising.

Despise - verb: To look down on with contempt or aversion.

Aversion - noun: A feeling of repugnance towards something with a desire to turn away.

Repugnance - noun: Strong dislike.

Ok, I'll give you a moment to recover from that horrible grade school flash back that list of definitions just caused you....

Moving on - when you send me a note that says that my child is hitting and pushing and being disrespectful I think that he is punching other kids in the face, pushing them over or out of the way, and treating you the way that all of the students at the Middle School where I am no longer teaching (yup, we'll talk about that) treat me. (Which if he was - and I do not believe that a 4 year old can have such a strong dislike of anything - they haven't been abused by life long enough to become that bitter and hard and callused - if Owen was treating his teachers the way I was being treated, he would be duct tapped upside down to a tree and the squirrels would eat him.)

After listening to them describe the actions of the boy, I was a little annoyed. What they described as "hitting" is the boy tapping other children on the arm. (This is the same thing that he does to his cousins and friends, it is annoying, and he does it on purpose, and it needs to stop, but it is not hitting.) What they described as "pushing" is the boy bumping into the child in front of him in line. (Again, one of those things that he does to be annoying, but not harmful.) And his "disrespect" as that he makes noise during nap time because he doesn't want to take a nap. Now, all three behaviors are ones that need to be corrected, but let's call a spade a spade and not put the boy's life in danger by overstating the severity of his actions.

Now, we did come up with a very good and simple solution, his teacher is going to send home a behavior chart everyday telling us how the boy did that day. He can either get a Smiley Face, as So-So Face, or a Frowny Face. The first day that he brought it home, he had no idea what it was, and so we talked about it. He had 4 smiley faces, 1 so-so face, and 1 frowny face. We talked about each category and what he would have to do to get a smiley face. Then I gave him the ultimate motivation. I told him that instead of a potty chart, we were going to get stickers based on his behavior at school. To get a sticker he would have to get all smilies. Now the boy has enough of his mother's perfectionism in him that once he understood that there were smiley faces involved, he was going to get all smilies. That first day has been the only time that he hasn't brought home all smilies. I just don't think that we needed to have a formal conference with his teachers and grade-level facilitator to come to this plan of action, but what do I know?

There have been plenty of funs things that Owen likes about school. For homework this week he was supposed to help his parents make play dough. Now, I happen to be the king of making play dough, in case you have forgotten:

I made an entire landscape for Owen's cupcake train using like 25 batches of the stuff. I could easily have done it, but it wasn't my homework...

I measured out all of the ingredients for him.

Mommy helped him add the food coloring to the water...

But then he was on his own...

First the flour, then the salt...

Last in goes the water...

The we mix! (I eventually did have to help here, it gets really hard to mix at the end, and the boy was getting tired.)

Then he had to kneed the dough until it was nice and smooth.

Then of course we had to play with it...

We built a nest with eggs in it...and then Papa built a Cobra to eat the eggs...

Owen tried to protect the eggs, so the snake attacked him instead!!!

Chris's Status Update

Ok, so here is the deal with me. If you recall from my last post I had been trying to contact my union for 2 weeks. Well, finally, after 3 weeks, 4 phone calls and 5 emails I got the Union person to call me back. I explained my situation to her, and she sent an email to Human Resources. Yup, that is right, the Union - who tells you that you should be a member so that you will be protected and not have to take on the establishment by yourself - sent a @#$%&*! email, that's it. So when you here people like Glenn Beck telling you that the Unions are only after more members so that they can use their membership dues to fund their own political ambitions, they aren't kidding. I must admit that I am amazed by the lack of help or action on the part of the Union. If I ever teach again, I will not be part of the Union anymore...I think I will go to their meetings and heckle them.

Anyway, sick of not getting anywhere with the Union, and with my Principal not allowing me to transfer until they find someone who is willing to put themselves in an winnable situation, I contacted Human Resources to see how to resign. The lady I spoke to there was the first knowledgeable person I have dealt with through this entire ordeal. She suggested that rather than resign, I should contact the Office of Absence Management and take a Leave of Absence. With a Leave of Absence I will be able to return to the school district next year (if I want to.) So I have my paperwork in for that, so at least I am not going to have to resign or get fired, the problem is that I am now essentially unemployed.

So now I am looking for a job, and with a Master's Degree you would think that I would be ok, except that my Master's Degree is in Music Education, which means that I am pretty much only qualified to do one thing - teach music. I know what you are thinking, because it is the same thing that everyone has said, and yes I have checked with all the private schools. The problem is that while a school might have 5 or 6 math teachers, they only have 1 band teacher, so they usually have that sorted out before the year begins. I have applied for a lot of jobs with the Government, so we will see if anything comes of that. I may also have an opportunity to work at Home Depot, so we will see what happens. We are trying to have faith that everything is going to work out, but we are starting to stress a bit. I'll try to keep up with this a little better to keep you filled in.