An unexpected trip

I did something today I thought I’d have at least a few more years before I’d have to do: I bought my son a Happy Meal. Yes, I know, he’s only 14.5 months old. According to every book I’ve read and every personal belief I hold, that’s way too young to be pulling in the drive thru and asking for a bag packed with saturated fat, high cholesterol, and potential heart disease. Oh, and don’t forget that cheaply made Ronald McDonald in a pirate ship that was made in China and no doubt contains lead paint.

I had no plans to get him a Happy Meal, but I really had few options. He was screaming and nothing seemed to calm him down except the tiny pieces of rice cake I found stuck to his snack bowl. When I saw food would appease, I was relieved. He’s been sick since Friday and over the course of the weekend, we got a bowl of applesauce, 1/2 cup of yogurt and a few cups of milk down him. Since he threw up most of that, I figured his gnawing on those tiny scraps was a good sign his appetite was coming back.

Normally I’d stop at a grocery store and grab him some toddler crackers, which aren’t really that different from adult crackers, except they have lots of extra fiber and less salt and sugar. However, the route from the sitter’s to my house is fairly sparse and the closest grocery store I knew of was a good 20 minutes down the road. The volume level was rising and the vein on my temple was throbbing, so searching aimlessly for one was out. A gas station market might have been a better idea, but when I tried to put my son in his car seat at the sitter’s, he threw an absolute tantrum. He screamed. He arched his back. He made it virtually impossible to strap him in. At the sitter’s no one was there to witness his fit. There was no way I was going to attempt to put him back in that chair at a gas station. Someone would probably think I was kidnapping or abusing him. It was that kind of scream.

When I saw the Golden Arches, I knew I could fix the problem…at least temporarily.

Now, my son has never had anything fried, much less actual fries. He hasn’t even had juice. He’s strictly water, milk, veggies, fruits and my home cooking, which for him consists mostly of mac n’ cheese, grilled cheese, muffin pizzas, and lots of pasta. All made with whole wheat and lots of extra veggies snuck in for good measure. I was suprised to find that the Happy Meal of today is not quite the fat fest it was in my day. I was able to get him milk (granted, only 1% and he’s still on whole) and apple dippers. The apples were even already peeled, so I could just pass them back and let him munch. I got a cheeseburger, figuring I’d reheat it for my dinner. My husband plays cards on Wednesday nights, so it’s always just the baby and me.

As the first apple hit his mouth, he was quiet. Well, not quiet really, but happy. And giggling. And most importantly, calm.

Later that night when I went to feed him dinner, I was excited he might eat something substantial. I got out my little baby spaghettios and some yogurt. I microwaved the burger and figured we’d eat together. I tried to give him a spoonful of the o’s (a usual favorite of his) and he turned his nose up in disgust. He stuck his chubby little arm out and grabbed for the burger. I took a bite and tried a spoonful of yogurt instead. No dice. He looked at the burger, looked at me and then started to wail when I lifted it toward my mouth. The little booger wanted my cheeseburger. I gave him a tiny piece, sure the ketchup, mustard and onions would turn him off. No, not my kid. He proceeded to eat nearly the entire burger. I got three small bites, two of which I took before I realized he would eat nothing else.

I know I should be happy since for the last four days his diet has been mostly Pedialyte and thinned out oatmeal, but I really kind of wanted the cheeseburger. I’m not a huge McDonald’s fan, but once I got a small taste of it, I was actually looking forward to finishing it off. Even without the fries. Now though, the baby is in bed and my husband won’t be home until well after I’m in bed as well, so it looks like no cheeseburger for me. Why couldn’t he stay sick for one more day?

Oh well, at least I still have the caramel to dip my apple in tomorrow!

T-minus 10 days and counting

The end of the school year is quickly approaching, just 10 more days left, and I am not at all ready for it. Well, that’s not entirely true. Emotionally I am ready to be done. Physically I am ready to be done. Mentally I am ready to be done. But as far as actual amount of work I have left, I need at least another month.

Right now, I should be grading. I brought home an entire shoulder/teacher bag full of papers plus two large manilla file folders full to work on over the next 10 days.

Friday was my birthday and I’ll admit I got nothing done except for a two hour dinner that was delicious, but left me so full and so tired all I could do was come home, watch the last episode of Lost and fall asleep.

Saturday I had a sick baby on my hands, so the only time I got to grade was during naps. Duing his wonderful two hour nap, I got some research papers graded. I was able to get a few more done after he went to bed. Ten total. Now I only have 45 more to go. Oh, and I have 60 some business letters to grade, 75 journals, and 60 vocabulary tests. I also have a final to finish writing since I’m adding material and, in an effort to save what little remains of my sanity, I’m getting rid of the essay my kids usually do with their final. This is not simply laziness, although I won’t deny there is a spark of it mixed in there. Our finals finish up on Thursday and our grades are due the very next day by 3pm. This year I decided to be like just about every other teacher in my building and give a multiple choice final and be done with it. After all, I will no doubt still have a research paper or two to grade Thursday night.

Don’t get me wrong, I like my job. It’s just amazing how the work piles up so quickly. My kids tell me the solution is easy: just stop assigning work. I realize that would make my life amazingly simpler, but it would also do them a big disservice. Not that they realize it now. I’m not a busywork teacher. My assignments tend to be rather long and involved (as in they have at least a week to do the assignment, but they require quite a bit of work and real effort). Even my multiple choice test won’t be easy. I teach AP afterall, I know how to write some pretty difficult questions. My kids generally really on my “short answer” and essay questions to pull their grades up. They always get excited when I say multiple choice, then they remember what mine are like.

Still, there are definitely days where I wish I could be the teacher who lets them go to lunch early. It’d be nice to show a movie for a few days and catch up on my grading. I’ll admit I’ve thought about cutting my paper down to paragraphs (and love the business letter because it fulfills a state requirement and is only one page). I wish I could mark everything with checks and not spend hours giving thoughtful comments I hope they’ll use for improvement. There are days I’d like to be that teacher.

Then I remember that I’m trying to prepare my kids for the real world. Sure, some of them won’t ever have to write more than a quick memo or a receipt, but about 75% of my kids plan to go to some sort of college. It’s hard when I see teachers who do the bare minimum and are “loved.” I just keep reminding myself that they don’t necessarily love their kids and want the best for them. They want free time and everything to be smooth and trouble free. It’s a pain in my ass now, but considering that some of my kids always end up dropping me an email or coming back in to see me and telling me that even though I pushed them really hard and they hated me at times, I got them ready for college.

Still, right now, I kind of wish the stress level was a little lower. I think my face is breaking out. Yuck! I need summer.

You and Your Racist Dad

So today I got called a racist. Well, not exactly outright called a racist, but the inference was undeniable. Maybe I wouldn’t be quite so upset if I’d actually done anything to deserve it. If I’d told an off color joke or punished a student of one race and not a student of my own, it might have been warranted. Maybe it would have bothered me less if it had been one of my students, angry over a grade or a punishment, looking to place blame somewhere else. But it wasn’t. It was a parent and he was definitely looking to place blame other than where it belonged, which, by the way was entirely on his son.

You see, my integrity came into question when I gave his son an F for plagiarizing his research paper. I’m not talking about forgetting a citation or two. I’m talking about copying 90% of an essay from an essay website (view the essay he copied from here), slapping his name on it, and turning it in as his own. The kicker is that he knew he had to upload it to a plagiarism detection website. Still, he took an anonymous student’s essay, added a few words of his own (which made no sense) and uploaded it. I’m not sure if he actually thought I was not smart enough to catch him or he just didn’t care. Either way, the website caught him and I gave him an F.

I called his mother to tell her about the plagiarism. She seemed upset. Not at me though. She was obviously shocked her son cheated. I offered to send her a copy of his essay as well as the site he cheated from, but she told me it wasn’t necessary as she wasn’t questioning me. A little later I emailed his father to let him know I would send the copy home and that because he’d been failing before the research paper was figured into the grade, the 0 he earned on the research paper and all its componants would mean there was no way he could pass the class.

His father called minutes later. He assured me I must be mistaken. After all, both he and his wife had watched and helped their son work on the paper last night. This was extremely odd to me since the paper was turned in a week ago and the only thing his son could have been doing to it was uploading it to the website. I informed him of this, but he said I had to be talking about the wrong paper. I clarified myself and explained the paper I was talking about: his research paper on racism. The father’s response? “Are you sure the subject matter doesn’t have something to do with this?” I was taken aback.

In 10 years of teaching, I have been accused of losing student papers (never have), being a bitch (definitely am), having ridiculous expectations (only for lazy students) and not telling kids information (which I always do, usually verbally, on the board and in handout form), but I’ve never been accused of failing a kid because he wrote about racism.

I assured his father the topic was not the problem. It was the fact his son copied 90% of his paper, including the other student’s sources, that caused him to fail. I even read a selection from the original essay: “From the beginning of recorded history, possibly before then, humans have found a necessity for classifying and categorizing every aspect of life.” And followed it with a selection from his son’s essay: “From the beginning of recorded history, possibly before then, humans have found a necessity for classifying and categorizing every our daily life.” The entire paper is just like this, sentences that are 90-100% copied, with his own strange wordings added in in what I can only assume is an attempt to fool me into thinking a student who guessed that unalterable meant “not able to start” understands that “Racialism is an ideology based on the following suppositions,” another excerpt from “his” paper. Anyone else see a problem?

His father started ranting about needing to pull his kid out of our school. He told me repeatedly that I could do what I felt I had to, and that he would do the same. I’m not entirely sure what he meant by that, but I’m assuming he meant take his kid out of our district. I realize I’ve only taught at four different schools, but I somehow can’t imagine any school is going to give his kid anything other than a 0 for intellectual theivery (a phrase I’m proud I used in our conversation).

I tried to explain this to his father, but instead of putting any responsibility on his lying, cheating child, he simply told me that he could not believe this wasn’t because of the subject his child chose. I told him I found that highly offensive. Then he hung up on me.

I know there is a lot of prejudice in this world. I know people are often treated unfairly as a result of it, but when did cheating become a racially motivated activity? In ten years of teaching I’ve caught several kids plagiarizing. Until today, they have always been white. I’m all for calling out racial inequality when it exists in society, but using your race as an excuse for cheating and lying is despicable, especially when you accuse someone of being a racist. It makes you someone I don’t want to associate with, a bad human being, and let’s face it, a racist.

Congratulations sir, you were right…racism was involved. Too bad it’s you who’s the racist.

A bad day

Today has not been a good day. It had real potential this morning. I woke up for the second morning in a row to a Metalica song, which amused me as my alarm clock is set to some random radio station. Since I was running a little early, I decided to stop by the store and pick up some little chocolate donuts. After all, what can go wrong when there’s a tiny little chocolate covered piece of cakey happiness in your hand?

I got to school, got all my pre-school stuff done and was just checking my email when my phone rang. It was all downhill from there. It was a parent I can’t stand. In the last four months, I have talked to her either through email or on the phone over thirty times. Every time I see an email from her in my inbox, I cringe. She’s the type of parent teachers hate. Nothing is ever her kid’s fault. She’s got 100 excuses and just as many requests for extentions. And they all started the second day her daughter was in my class.

A seemingly innocent assignment to have kids read any grade level appropriate novel turned into a nearly week long debate because according to her, her child preferred non-fiction, and since she’d had a “lot of tough times in her life,” her mom thought she deserved to read whatever she wanted to. We were already doing a unit on non-fiction, reading from various biographies, essays, articles, etc, and the second big project could be either fiction or non, so I put my foot down and said she had to do find a fiction book. Turned out the kid was fine with it. It got her more books. GRRRRRRRRR!!!

At various points this year her mother and I have butted heads. Their computer went down and her daughter was just devestated that her “opus” wouldn’t be perfect because she didn’t get to make changes. Could she possibly have an extension? She missed a day of school, so shouldn’t she get one more day for the project she’d already had 60 to do? She wasn’t feeling well, couldn’t she take the test another day? And my personal favorite, her computer crashed (for the umpteenth time this semester), so couldn’t she get a few more days to work on a timeline project that didn’t need any actual computer work? No. No. No. And yet again, no.

Today it was yet again a computer error and her daughter was up until 1 am trying to fix it and just balling her eyes out. Considering it isn’t due for another week, why any of that happened, I have no idea. I have a feeling she was actually up until 1 am finishing the project, tried very quickly to do the computer portion, didn’t read the directions clearly, gave up, threw a fit and asked mommy to get her more time. It took me three tries to explain how to do it correctly and how she still had seven more days before mom stopped emailing me.

It didn’t get any better after that.

On the way to newspaper I stopped a former student in the hallway over his cel phone. Our policy is fairly clear. They can’t be seen or heard during the school day. They have been told repeatedly. They sign a handbook agreeing to the policy. This particular kid has already been in trouble with his phone a number of times this year and at least three times with me last year. When I told him to hand it over, he put it back in his pocket and refused. Instead, he argued. Luckily one of the vice principals was around, so I called him over. He repeated the rule and when he asked for the phone, it was handed over. While this would have been enough to annoy me to begin with (damn sexist twerp), the fact that when I was walking back to the classroom after getting a quick nip at the water fountain, he turned to his friend and said, “That bitch took my phone,” made it worse. I told him I could hear him and he was making the situation worse, to which he replied, “shut up.” And people wonder why our schools are failing…

The end of the day was looking up. I was invited to a late lasagna lunch by a few of my kids who also take home ec. Alas, it was not meant to be. A colleague had a major emergency and I agreed to take over her classroom. Unfortunately it was the same classroom my phone junkie was in. I had just enough time to talk to the vice principal who yanked him from the hallway before he even got to his class. Part way through the period one of the subs came in and offered to take over so I could have my prep. That was really sweet of her. Sadly I’d already missed the start of my lasagna lunch, so I went to my room to finish some grading.

I didn’t get too far before my department head had something she wanted to talk about. I can’t complain about that. It was fun talking to her, but I ended up having to stay after school to finish grading the projects because we talked too long.

My son decided to cry most of the way home and nothing would calm him down.

Finally I made it home. I refused to cook, so we went out, where I got a big margarita. Things have been much better ever since.

I’m an XBOX widow

It’s that time of year again. The flowers start to bloom. The bees start buzzing in the air. The air is crisp and smells of pansies and petunias. The sun is staying out later and so are the neighborhood children. Their shouts of joy can be heard even inside our living room as they zoom by on their bicycles.

Shouts can be heard inside my living room as well. However, they aren’t usually shouts of joy. Generally they are strings of curse words hurled at the TV as my husband gets sniped, no doubt by a thirteen year old kid in his parent’s basement, playing Call of Duty IV.

While most people see the return of spring as a time to get out, take walks, plant things, have cook-outs and read lazily in hammocks, my husband maniacally creeps up behind virtual soldiers and stabs them in the back. Granted, this behavior is not limited to the season of rebirth. He’s all about the virtual carnage every season, but his blood lust has risen drastically since he just got an XBox. And Call of Duty 4. Oh, and Grand Theft Auto 4. Even though he has had the game for less than three hours, he has already pulled out the map and pointed out the sheer expansiveness of the game. He also popped it in the second he got home and as soon as I walked in the door, he tried to show me the “amazing graphics.”

Now it’s not that I don’t appreciate good computer graphics. I love the detail the Sims 2 brings. I think it is incredibly cool that if I zoom in close enough the tiny turkey dinner they are eating actually looks fairly similar to the feast my mother-in-law and I prepared this year. The fact that the babies can smile and I can see their little baby legs squirm as they are tickled impresses me. I especially like the fact that I can make my Sims paint pictures from my personal photo album, so that I can paper my virtual walls with portraits of my son, just like my actual house. I can appreciate the hours, days, weeks, months, etc. that goes into planning these games. What I find a bit harder is appreciating the hours, days, weeks, months, etc. that my husband feels he needs to devote to the games in order to thank the designers.

It’s not that I have a problem with the games themselves. Sure, they are horribly violent and I don’t have a desire to play any game that allows you to have sex with a hooker, beat her up moments later and then take your money back. Although I see the humor in selling drugs from a converted ice cream truck, I don’t want to do it. And while I can enjoy my Sims for a few hours once every week or so (much less during heavy grading times), I simply cannot understand how my husband can devote five to six hours straight sitting in front of the TV driving a virtual car around a city, sometimes not even reaking any havoc, but instead just marveling at how cool it all is.

When my husband focusses on something, the house could actually fall down around him, and he wouldn’t notice. The baby can scream, and he doesn’t even break eye contact. It’s not that he doesn’t love our son. He adores him. It’s just that all his brain can think is, “must chase down rival gang member and beat him to death with bat, then slice his corpse open.”

What baffles me even more is the fact that after six years of being together, at least three of which have involved this game, he still thinks I care. I will be in the family room grading or on the computer and I will hear a shout from the living room, “quick, honey, come here.” Thinking that something is wrong, I run to the room, only to find him reving up a motorcycle to get an insane stunt bonus by jumping it off some ramp. Or flying a helicopter over a mountain and seeing clouds, or driving a car wildly through the streets while some hapless digi-man is clinging to the hood. I don’t know why I fall for it. It’s probably the insistance in both his voice and the way in which he keeps calling me until I peak into the other room.

With the new release, awesome graphics and sheer size of the map he showed me, I know I have several months of this game to look forward to. I’m sort of hoping he develops his usual addiction so he can get most of it out of his system before summer comes. While I have grading I don’t mind him careening through the streets doing drive bys, but once I’m on vacation, I want some control over the TV (or to go out, or read).

Fortunately he’s been invited to a video game gathering tonight. The baby is in bed and instead of watching him hijack an ambulance and mow people down in it, I’ll get to watch the episode of Bones I didn’t get to watch last night because he was getting his ass kicked by teeny boppers online.

Plus I get french fries and egg rolls for dinner. Maybe there is an upside to the game….naw.

A soul shattering cry

There is not much worse, at least in my mind, than listening to a small child cry. Especially when there seems to be no reason for the child to be crying and the crying is so loud, and sounds so very, very distraught. It’s particularly bad when the cry is not so much a cry as a deep wailing that lets you know whatever is upsetting the child has been done by you and has somehow not just damaged him physically, but destroyed his fragile emotional well-being. It’s a cry that seems to say, “this moment right here is where you can trace the years of therapy I will one day need back to, you negligent monster.”

This is the sound echoing through my house this evening. It’s not merely a cry, it’s a soul shattering.

I don’t really know why my son is so distraught. It’s bedtime, sure, but he’s not a baby who melts down at bedtime. In fact, he usually loves his bath, squirms like crazy, laughing the entire time we try to put his pjs on, and sips his milk from his cup as we read Goodnight Moon while lullabies play in the background. When I put him in his crib, all I have to do is hand over his stuffed cow, which he greets with a smile before hugging it, rolling over and heading off to slumber land.

Tonight was no exception until I had the audacity to close the door behind me as I walked out of his room. That’s when the damn broke and the flood began. Actually, I’m not even sure what just happened had tears. It was far deeper than that. Tears are for making sure people cover you with kisses when you bump your head or fall down while chasing the cat. This sort of melancholy and hysteria is reserved for those moments when someone has wronged you beyond repair.

I went back in to make sure he was fine. I had horrible visions of him getting stuck in the railing of the crib (it is new and up to safety codes) or having pulled himself up enough and being stuck partially in and partially out of the crib. Neither was the case. He was sitting up leaning against the bars and wailing. I leaned down, picked him up and although his howling did not immediately cease, he did put his tiny head on my shoulder. I rocked him back and forth, rubbing his back and assuring him that I loved him. We swayed silently, his cried subsiding, turning to small sighs. His went limp in my arms. Silent. Sweet. Soothed.

Then I tried to put him back down. He gripped the rail ferociously. I gently pulled his hand away and before his head could hit the mattress, he was wailing again. I quickly backed out, knowing my only choice was to sit in the rocking chair until he fell asleep, which could be a really long time and get him into bad habits, or let him cry and kill a small piece of my soul in the process.

So here I sit, three rooms away, as silent as possible, hoping that he will settle down and fall into much needed repose.

Being a parent is hard.

Forget it!

Although I am still relatively young, my mind is already going.

On the way to work I was all fired up. As soon as I got out of my car, I knew what I wanted this blog to be about. As I pulled into my driveway, precious free time on my hands since I had a doctor’s appointment and my husband was picking up the baby, I realized I had no idea what I’d been so impassioned about this morning.

Last night I was sitting down to do some grading when I remembered I didn’t have the baby monitor just in case my son started crying. I got up, walked to the kitchen, which cannot possibly be more than 20 feet away, and stood there, staring. I had absolutely no idea what I’d left the living room for. I knew I needed something. I knew it was in the kitchen. I just didn’t know what it was. So I walked back to the living room., settled in to grade and once again remembered the monitor.

This is a fairly new phenomenon for me. I’ve never been what you might call forgetful. In fact, despite the clutter of papers that often gathers on my desk (both home and work) and my kitchen counter, I am pretty damn organized. I keep a day planner. I don’t look at it every day, but I glance often enough to never forget appointments and meetings. I write myself check lists for things to complete during my prep period and follow through with them. Kids ocassionally try to claim I lost their work, but in 10 years of teaching, it’s never been me. Why? Because I have a system. Homework is turned directly into the homework bin (divided into class periods) then immediately pulled out of the bin, paper clipped together and put into the appropriately labelled manilla folder. Amazingly enough every paper makes it in and back except for the one slacker’s, so they soon realize (and admit) that they did it, but must have forgotten to turn it in.

This loss in memory is fairly recent and appears to coincide with the birth of my son. A student told me she’d heard every child a person has lowers their IQ by a few points. While I know this is false, since mine started to fail me, I think I might be the freak genetic link some institute is looking for. I suppose one could just as easily point to my “getting older” as the cause, but I’m skeptical. My son seems to not only be draining my energy, my social life and my patience (although not very often as he’s a fairly well-behaved baby), but also my short term memory. This was not in any of the baby books I read…and I read a lot of them!

I had a point with this whole post today, but as I’ve been writing for over 10 minutes and I’m nearing the end, I’ve forgotten what it is.

Missing

I had what I think can only be described as a mild panic attack. Considering how crappy the rest of my week has been, today was going pretty well. I squandered my entire prep talking to a student about Jude the Obscure and then talking to a potential newspaper advertiser who just happened to grow up right around the corner from where I currently live. Although it means I have tons to do tomorrow during my prep, it didn’t really bother me. I left work as soon as I could in order to meet my best friend for coffee-like drinks at our favorite cafe. Everything was going great until I got to my sitter’s house.

All week I’ve been running a bit later than usual. One small hassle after another. Since I had plans, I was early-ish to pick my son up. When I arrived, I saw a familiar van in the driveway. My sitter’s best friend is also a stay at home mom, so every couple of weeks she brings her kids (and their tiny, adorable dog) over to play. It’s great because she has two boys, so my son gets used to playing with lots of kids. He also loves their dog. The day was beautiful and I was not at all surprised to see the front door open. I was, however, very surprised when I walked in and found the house empty.

As the day was so lovely, I strolled around to the back yard expecting to find them playing. Granted, every time I’ve ever come to pick up my son they’ve always been in the house, but he also was far too little to play outside in the fall. Spring days seem to logically suggest romping in the backyard.

I didn’t find them in the yard though. I did find their dog, who promptly barked at me, indicating that I should get the hell out of their yard. I went back inside. Calling out for anyone. I crept up the stairs to see if maybe, just maybe, everyone was napping. I had no idea why they’d be napping with company, but the empty house made no sense to me. No one. I headed downstairs to see if maybe somehow they were in the basement and just didn’t hear me. It’s a tri-level and I was talking quite loudly, and since there were at least six of them I didn’t know how that was possible, but I was perplexed. Once again, no one.

I looked up and down the road. Empty. Five minutes passed. I tried to call her husband at school, but he must have headed for home. I started silently cursing the fact that she has no cell phone. I also started pacing. I went back inside the house. I called out. I’m not really sure why as I knew there was no way anyone was there.

Looking around I noticed my son’s cup partly full of milk sitting on the table. Pizza with tiny teeth marks was also left out. The kitchen sink was dribbling water. A backpack was open on the couch. A DVD player was on and sitting on the couch. It was eerie. As if they’d all just disappeared.

Ten minutes passed and I was starting to freak out. My heart started beating fast. All kinds of horrific thoughts flashed through my head. I was pacing. Ringing my hands. I found tears welling up in my eyes. I kept saying to myself, “Where’s my baby? I want my baby.” It was a terrifying feeling not knowing where he was or if he was ok. Even though I’d only been there for ten minutes, I’d dropped him off almost nine hours ago. Anything could have happened in the interim.

I noticed the stroller wasn’t sitting out in front of the garage the way it had been that morning. Her house is the second on the block. I looked down the street at what appeared to be a dead end, only to see a man on a bike with two small children following him. They came out of nowhere. I started walking.

It turns out what I thought was a tiny circle has a twist just over a small hill and actually opens up into a large neighborhood of homes. I kept walking, hoping that I would find them. It had been fifteen minutes and I was determined to comb every inch of the neighborhood until I found them. In the distance, probably ten houses away, I saw a group of people in a front yard. There seemed to be several small children playing. I picked up my pace. I couldn’t make out anyone specifically. Suddenly, from behind a truck in a driveway, I saw a woman pushing a baby stroller. It was my sitter, and more importantly, my son.

I practically ran to them. I was very calm, but the second she was within reach, I snatched him up and gave him a kiss. She told me how they’d been playing and that he’d had so much fun with the other kids. I just clung tightly to him. They were heading back to the house, but I didn’t even consider putting him back in the stroller. I carried him, all 24.5 pounds, back to my car. I didn’t even notice his weight. Instead I hugged him tight, gave him lots of little kisses and told him how much I loved him.

This may seem like major over-reacting, and in hindsight, I won’t deny that I let my imagination get the best of me, which caused me to panic. The only thing I can say in my defense, is that unless you have a child, especially a pretty darn helpless baby, my reaction seems ludicrous. Heck, two years ago I would have laughed at my behavior. Sitting here now I find the situation a little funny. I know I blew it a bit out of proportion. My sitter adores my son and would never let anything happen to him.

Still, those 15 minutes of not knowing were some of the scariest in recent years. I think I’ve learned not to jump so quickly to conclusions. I think I also have a slight understanding of the agony parents of missing children go through. It’s amazing how someone so tiny has changed me. I can’t guarentee that I’ll never freak out like this again. All I know for sure is I never want that feeling again and I dread the days when he has a car of his own and I’ll spend my evenings wondering where he is and if he’s ok.

Do they microchip babies?

The ides of April

I am in a foul mood today. While I have not been betrayed by one of my closest friends, I have,  yet again, been screwed over by a family member.

I should have known it was going to be a bad day when my son woke up at 5 am for no apparent reason, cried just long enough to wake me up and keep me from doing anything more than slight drifting, then went back to sleep only to be grumpy when I had to wake him up for the sitter’s.

It was all downhill from there. During first period, a mouthy freshmen complained about how I don’t give enough directions for the writing assignments. What it really boils down to is she’s annoyed she doesn’t have an A. Writing is something she’s generally good at, even though she can’t wrap her brain around the fact that journalistic writing is different than essay writing. Her stories always exceed the word limit. She’s vague and often doesn’t follow the guidelines of the assignment. I give them lots of room so they can be creative with their topics. After a week of studying a specific type of writing though, I don’t feel I should have to tell exactly how many facts their stories need. Or how long their quotes need to be. She just wanted to argue and it rubbed me the wrong way.

Second block things got worse. I took my class to the library. While they were well-behaved and actually complimented by the librarian (she had horrid children first block), they couldn’t find good research materials because despite telling me they weren’t letting kids check books out, some of my colleagues, who are actually using my lesson plans, let their kids go hog wild and check out everything in the library. No limits. No making them take notes first, just straight up to the counter to check out every freakin’ book on pollution the library had. One is even letting multiple kids choose the same topic, which not only ensures all the books will be gone but also that her kids will no doubt share info and find ways to cheat. I don’t care so much that they’ll have to deal with cheating and the extreme boredom of reading three papers on global warming, but when my kids can’t do their research, my ire is up.

The real cherry on the crap sundae though was when I called the bank to check on the hold they’d placed on a check I deposited a week ago. It seems my great aunt has powers far beyond the reach of the grave and has managed to make our lives just a bit more difficult. Her estate (the executor is my second cousin) was late paying with the payment for our court settlement. This would not be a problem as we got the check a week ago. Apparently though, despite having gobs of money in multiple accounts, my cousin decided to write our check knowing the account she wrote from had insufficient funds. That’s right, my settlement check, the one I used to pay my final car payment, is going to bounce. 

When the check came in, my  husband and I each treated ourselves to a neat little gift we’d been wanting for months. Since the check hadn’t cleared yet, we put it on our credit card. As much as I hate having any sort of balance on the card, it’s lucky we didn’t just pay for the new toys out of the joint account. We wouldn’t have been eating this month if we had. I think my son would have had a real objection to that.

Now instead of paying off bills and putting money away for college, we are going to be fighting a family memeber to get the money we are owed. I don’t know what kind of sneaky ploy this was. I do know that I signed legal documents saying the settlement was, well, settled, and I’m hoping they can be reversed or changed in some way. I know little about the law and I have a feeling that despite the 60 day stipulation of the original papers this is going to drag out for a long time.

I don’t say this often, but man, I need a drink.

A step into the 21st century

It took a long time, but I am finally cool. Yes, that’s right. Just like nearly all of my friends and apparently every single high school student, I have an iPod.

I’ll admit I took a long time to warm to the craze. It’s not that I have anything against music. I happen to love it. It’s just that I couldn’t see spending $100 + dollars on a device to play my music when I already have CDs, a discman and an MP3 player. Granted my MP3 player only holds like 10 songs (it’s from like 1999 or so), but I really like those 10 songs, so for the longest time I was content to listen to them over and over and over again. They are the perfect length for a workout and even though it wasn’t planned that way, they are even paced perfectly for a warm up, long walk/jog and then a cool down. I figured it was fate.

Suddenly though, I find myself with a little money to spare. Everything in Florida has finally worked itself out, so in anticipation of my inheritance check, my husband and I went on a mini-shopping spree. I got my 80 GB iPod, a cute “stereo” to hook it up to and a car adapter thingy so I can play it in the car. My husband actually got the better end of the deal as he got an XBOX, two controllers, some super long cable, Call of Duty 4 and a pre-order of GTA 4.

I haven’t quite figured everything with my iPod out yet, but it’s silver, skinny and so far I’ve filled like 2GB of the 80 available. I’m waiting to devour my dear friend Eee’s computer so I don’t have to upload all of my CD’s. We have some similar tastes afterall and since she’s already done the work it seems silly for the work to get done twice. Plus she offered to let me cannabalize anything her boyfriend has. He ows more music than anyone else I know. Not that I like 90% of it. Free music is free music!

I’m about to get kicked off so my darling  husband can geek out with XBOX online. No worries though, I have songs to upload and music to tune him out with.

I love this modern world!