Friday, August 15, 2008

Not So Much About Books

Okay, today has been an extremely busy day! First of all, I haven't worked much this week because my babysitter is in a different school district and she started school this week and mine don't until next. So I've been home with them (which I have to admit, I sure as hell have missed that this summer!) but today, I enlisted the help of a dear friend and she kept the kids so that I could go in early and give my boss the day off with her kids before school started. So, it was tough to be gone all day, I'm just not used to that.

Then, as soon as I got off, I ran home, grabbed the things I needed to mail, and headed straight to the Post Office. I sent off SEVEN priority mail packages this afternoon. That means, tee shirts, and Fantasyland and Brandy your books should all be arriving Monday (Tuesday at the latest).

Then I rushed to Wally World to grab a few last minute school supplies because tonight was Meet The Teacher night at the kids school. For those of you that don't know, Bear is dyslexic yet extremely, well let's just say near genius level IQ, and we've had a few struggles with teachers in his short school career, so this is always a bit of a nerve wracking day. Miss Beautiful will be in 1st Grade, and well, she's a bit ahead of her time, both in style AND in brains, so once again, getting a teacher that is willing to challenge her more than the rest of the class has been our main concern. Well, I can say with all honesty we are very much optimistic about this year. Miss Beautiful is going to be in a veteran teachers class, a teacher that is known for her individual approach to teaching. We are most definitely blessed with this! Bear will be in a classroom with a fairly new teacher, and all I really know is that she is very kind and her former students seem to adore her. Bear needs more structure than most, so while we're very optimistic, if she cannot administer to his needs, we may need to switch. We are going into it with much enthusiasm though, and she was very easy to talk to tonight, very open to hearing what we had to say, so all should be well! I'm just so EXCITED about this!

Then of course, we ran and fed the kids (Chinese at our favorite resteraunt that was seriously a disappointment tonight :(), because God Bless my friend, but she invited the kids to stay the night. I imagine we will be getting a call in a few hours telling us the kids are ready to come home. They just don't do sleepovers. We usually have kids spend the night at our house, and our friends who have them tonight have three boys we adore who have spent the night here, but our kids just don't do well away from home. We'll see. Our friends know the kids are like this, and they are great people, so we'll see how the night goes.

So, no kids right now and how sad is this, but I miss them! The Hubs is playing poker on his laptop, I'm typing this with a cold beer in hand, and then I'm going to get back to reading a book I've started. Another YA title, that I think I'll like, I just have to get over all the designer names and such being thrown at me, and the alcohol intake of the kids. I think I like where to story is headed, but we'll see. After all, I'm a small town girl, what the hell do I know about the upper crust of society?!

Take Care

7 comments:

Brandy said...

It sounds as though you had a good but busy day! I hope the teacher situation works out.
My kids are like yours, don't mind having friends over, but not so much spending the night somewhere else. *g*

Thank you for mailing the books, I appreciate it. I hope you didn't go to any trouble.

I also hope you have a terrific weekend!

Dru said...

I hope things work out with the kids teachers. That is most important that the teacher give individuality to their students.

I hope the rest of your evening was a good one. Did the kids stay at your friends?

I don't have kids, but when I first babysat my niece and nephew, within 30 minutes they wanted to go home.

Carolyn Crane said...

I hope the teachers work out! It is so important, and the perceptions of the teachers can so often color what they expect out of the kids.

I think that is so sweet that you are missing them.

ChariDee said...

Brandy, I hope you enjoy them. Like I said, I don't have the first in the series, but the other two are on the way to you! Maybe you could review the third in the series for me, since I didn't get that done!

dru, the kids did great all night. I was so surprised. They had so much fun. Of course, Bear was up until 2 in the morning, and up by 7, so I imagine he crashed pretty hard LOL

Carolyn Jean, I picked the kids up at 9:30 this morning! How sad is that LOL I just couldn't stand them being away.

We were blessed last year with great teachers for both kids, so I'm hoping that the luck holds out. Bear's First Grade year nearly broke him, and I can't stand to watch that all over again!

Thanks for stopping by all!

Anonymous said...

I am so fed up with school systems at this point. If I had kids, I'd have to home school them.

Now I understand why my parents were so frustrated, and why, when my dad was alive, he insisted on tutoring me on certain subjects in addition to whatever I learned in school.

I'm tired of the excuse that there's no time for individual attention. That's why our taxes go to schools -- so that children get an education, not just pushed through a bunch of rooms.

ChariDee said...

Hi Devon! The school system in this country does need some serious overhaul. I'm very active in our PTO, and I'm not ashamed to admit that it has a lot to do with the fact I wanted the teachers to know that these two kids had parents that gave a damn.

Dyslexia runs in our family. My dad is dyslexic. My sister is dyslexic. I am dyslexic. So Bear being diagnosed with it wasn't such a shocker. The shocker was the fact that the school had no idea what to do about it! I was told that dyslexia is a "grey" area. That dyslexia is a "medical" disorder. Both are very untrue statements. What bothers me most, is that we are a smallish town, we have only ONE public elementary school, and enrollment sits every year at around 1000 kids (usually a few more, but that's a nice round number). I found it incredibly hard to believe that my son would be the only one who could be dyslexic. If the school system has nothing in place for these kids, then it's no wonder so many of them drop out, get depressed, and such.

I was also upset by the fact that the teachers in our schools know nothing about dyslexia. We shelled out a lot of money for his testing (money we really didn't have). After it was confirmed that he had dyslexia we hired a private tutor to help him. He now reads at a sixth grade level. He is only 8. Yes, he is slower than most. But by golly, slow and sure beats fast and sloppy any day! :)

Anonymous said...

Good to hear your kids have good teachers.

By bro is very very very intelligent and he would do his works so much faster than everyone in his class. He had a couple of teachers that would get on him about disturbing the class, but he was bored. And it didnt matter how many times my parents told them the simple solution was to give him more work.

I think it was in the 5th or 6th grade he got a wonderful teacher. She decided to just have a whole pile of extra work for him to do. And my bro was happy, he didnt even mind doing the extra work and he in turn didnt disturb the rest of the class.