The Queen's Rambles

I really should be in bed. Really, really. The bags under my eyes are begging me for a little rest.

So why am I writing here?

It was just a day. It’s been a week. You know? Ugh.

So today was our MOMS Club meeting. I’m the president, so I should be there early to open the room and get things set up. I have it all under control and planned. I hear Elsa crying. I walk into her room and find her hanging off her changing table. I feel terrible because it looks like she’s been crying for hours with the amount of snot hanging off her face. I didn’t know a child could have that much snot.

And a child probably couldn’t have that much snot.

It wasn’t snot. It was a whole travel size thing of Vaseline all over her face, in her hair, on her clothes. She had it all in her eyes, which is why she was crying I think. Good lord, it was a mess and a half to clean up.

I was late to the meeting, but I don’t think anyone cared much. We are a very casual group. We really only had one item on our agenda: making Valentine’s for kids at a children’s hospital.

We looked around the room and realized our fun craft idea for kids was pretty much shot to hell since our children ranged in age from 6 months to Elsa. Yeah. They weren’t so big on making Valentine’s, though Elsa did get into using the stamp pad. She basically coated herself in ink (washable), and then rolled around on a table, coating the table in ink. It all came off with use of diaper wipes, but I was worried there for a few minutes. I’d hate to lose the use of our free meeting place.

I’ve had a lively e-mail exchange with Erik’s teacher today. Yesterday evening was awful. It all started with Erik refusing to eat his lunch. He loves my super easy chicken sauce, so I thought I’d be smart and send it in his lunch. Big, big mistake. He didn’t eat a single bite of lunch, so he was a complete bear when he got home.

For all my complaining about the math program at his school, the reading program works very well for him. Why can’t they do math groups the same way? He is currently reading at an end of first grade level, so now his reading homework has a written component. It’s a little much for him just because he hates writing. He can answer the question, but getting him to write it out is like pulling teeth.

After an afternoon of him whining, crying, screaming, and just generally testing my patience, I was done. It was time for him to go to bed, the homework still wasn’t done, and I lost it. Completely lost it. I ripped up his paper and told him to just forget it. I regretted it immediately.

He told me the teacher would be disgusted with me and I need to learn to control my temper. So true. So very true.

I e-mailed the teacher to let her know what happened. It was extremely embarrassing, but I didn’t want her to accuse Erik of lying when he came to school with this story. Thankfully she didn’t want to call CPS on me and my crazy self. She did say that she never, never wants her students or parents to feel that frustrated over homework. If it’s not working, just put it away and she’ll deal with it at school. That was definitely a relief to hear since he will be getting more work like this as he advances through the reading levels.

Erik got his report card today. It was pretty much as expected. Proficient in every academic area and most social areas. In Progress on several of the behavior/completes work items.

I am still very frustrated about the math/science situation at his school. Mommyprof and Jeanette gave me some great comments over at the blog2.queenoframbles.com blog. As Mommyprof says, their gifted program is ludicrous. It is just completely and totally effed up. They say 30% of kids qualify for the program and only 2% are accepted. So it is totally ok to fail 28% of our children? The whole system enrages me. I am not saying Erik would even qualify. I don’t think he is a super genius or anything, but he is no slouch either. I just hope his teacher really does work out a way to give him some acceleration in his class. I’ll give her a couple of weeks, then it’s time to go to the principal. I have been very friendly about it and have done a lot of “how can we work together to solve this? What do you need me to do at home?” types of things. I don’t want to get her on the defensive. I just want him to not hate school. If a flim-flamming addition worksheet could help in that goal, I don’t know why he can’t have one. I was looking up the math curriculum last night and discovered by the end of the year they will be adding! All the way up to 5! Whoo-hoo! Their biggest challenge will be adding 2+3. Give me a break.

Ok. Really gotta go to bed.