Bullying

Thing 2 has told me that this school is not as on top of the whole bullying situation as our last school.  At the last school, no one messes with anyone or you get sent straight to the principal.  Period.  And you are dealt with accordingly.  I've heard tell of group meetings at that school between the parents and bullied child, and the parents and bullying child, moderated by the principal.

At the new school if someone gets punched in the stomach and Thing 2 says "Why don't you go tell a teacher?  Or the principal?" She is told "No, I don't want to be a crybaby."  If she tells a playground monitor that two kids are going at each other, she is told "They'll work it out." It is just not dealt with.  She is told not to make a big deal about it.

Fine, as long as it's not my kid being bullied.

Before school started she had worried quite a bit about it, saying she didn't want to go back to school.  I started advising her to stand up to anyone who bullies her and yell, "STOP IT!"  I said that will draw attention to you by the adults near by, and make it completely clear who is hassling whom.  And it very well might scare off any bullies.  I got quite passionate about this, and made her practice yelling STOP IT at random times without laughing, which is kind of hard for her, and I'd demonstrate it and yell STOP IT at her and upset the dog, and then we'd both laugh.  And so far so good, she's not had any problems.

About two weeks ago a little boy who used to go to this school but moved away for a year, moved back.  And the teacher sat him next to Thing 2.  We'll call him Danger Boy.   Now Thing 2 feels from experience like this school is tough on new kids.  So she goes out of her way to make Danger Boy feel welcome.  She shows him what to do, where things are, and gives him a cool eraser she had.  She is the self appointed one girl Welcome Wagon.  Imagine her surprise when he sharpens his pencil and then pokes her with it.  "What was that?"  

"Get used to it," she is told.  "I'm going to sit by you all year and you're going to get that a lot."

There was a lot of little stuff, hair pulling, hard pinching, and threats, "I'm going to be your worst nightmare..."  On the playground he doesn't play with the boys, he kind of haunts the girls who play on the equipment, particularly Thing 2 and her friends, one of whom he seems to like, sort of.  We'll call her Cutie Pie.  She and Thing 2 have been getting along really well lately.  Anyway, Thing 2 told me one of the things Danger Boy does on the playground is to spin around, and whomever his gaze fell on last he would launch himself at and knock them down.  One day it was Thing 2, and he knocked her down and rubbed snow in her face.  

That's about the time I finally started hearing about it.

I went in and talked to the teacher.  She was surprised, she hadn't seen any bad behavior in class.  She'd talk to him.  She had already scheduled a meeting with his parents over something else, she'd bring it up then.  I expected he'd be talked to sometime in the next couple of days.

Thing 2's teacher went to talk to the school counselor, who we found out later told her that sounds weird and maybe he's just frustrated from the move.  She encouraged Thing 2's teacher to talk to the teacher who had him the last time he was at school here.  That teacher said it sounded unlike him... so the incident was put off until the conference with the parents, which didn't happen because they had to change schedules.  So ultimately nothing happened.  I found out later that Cutie Pie's mom went and talked to the teacher too, but got the same results we got.

Friday, the day after the conference was supposed to have happened but didn't, Danger Boy came out for recess with a sucker.  "Oh," he told Thing 2 and the girls she plays with, "I'm going to have a sugar rush!" Thing 2's friends see that she was the last one upon whom his gaze fell, and therefore his intended victim.  "Run!"  they tell her.

But she said two things went through her head.  1) surely he's been spoken to about this, and he wouldn't dare attack her after he's just been yelled at for it.  2) I shouldn't back down from bullies, he's being mean and I should stand up to him.   So she did.  He came at her, knocked her down on her back in the wood chips around the playground equipment, then proceeded to shove handfuls of wood chips into her face.  She got them in her ears, and mouth, and hair.  She seemed unclear as to if he held her hands down, or if she fought back so ineffectually but eventually some 5th graders yelled at him and might have approached him but I don't think they had to drag him off of her.  He stopped and stood up.  Thing 2 stood up, shedding wood chips, and stepped into his face and said softly but very seriously "STOP. IT."  then turned and walked away.

She and Cutie Pie waited until recess was about over, then went in and talked to the teacher.  Thing 2 was unable to talk because she was going to cry, but Cutie Pie told their teacher what had happened.  Then the two girls went out to the pick up area, where I was waiting for her.  Thing 2 was very quiet and said she just wanted to go to the car, where she suddenly broke down sobbing and told me what happened.  I got her out of the car and marched back to where the principal was doing crossing guard duty, and told him.  He said he'd just heard about it, but that Thing 2 would "not be placed in that situation again."  I wished later that I'd had the presence of mind to ask how in the world he'd just heard about it...

Later that afternoon I had worked myself into a snit.  I called my sister,  who works as a counselor at an 8th grade center to ask what course I should take.  Do I demand he's suspended?  Expelled?  She said I could demand that he be moved to another class... I asked about taking a restraining order out on him, and she said there are a couple of kids with those in her school, but it's so hard to keep them apart.  Feeling like I had a reasonable demand, I wrote to the principal, the teacher, and on my sister's suggestion, the counselor.  I almost immediately got a reply back from the principal, reminding me he just learned about this...

I emailed Cutie Pie's mom and sent her the letter to keep her up to date.  She said Cutie Pie was really upset and told her all about it.  Then she said she is social with the family of Danger Boy, and she said they'd be horrified to learn what their son had been up to.  We exchanged several emails back and forth, she said Danger Boy had pushed down another friend of the girls in this group, and had kicked her.  It would appear she never told anyone but Cutie Pie's mother.

By the time Monday rolled around I had spent most of my free time fretting over this whole incident.  I had decided to go talk to the teacher, to make sure that Thing 2 was safe at school.  Hubby was in town and went with me.

Now it would certainly seem that the boy and his parents should have been involved long before he was, and I'm surprised the principal wasn't involved sooner as well.  But I really like this teacher, and she explained how she had talked to the counselor and the previous teacher, and was going to talk to the parents but it didn't happen.  Also her email had been down all weekend and she wasn't able to reply to me.  But she said she and the principal were meeting with Danger Boy shortly, and his parents were coming in after school.  Thing 2 and he were now seated at opposite ends of the classroom, and for the next week he would be having indoor recess, and he'd be eating his lunch in the office.  The words "Zero Tolerance" have been bantered about, which I am fine with.

On Tuesday I got a phone call from Danger Boy's father.  He was apologetic, and polite, and embarrassed.  He mostly talked about when Thing 2 had been poked with a pencil, and the wood chip incident.  I didn't feel like it would be appropriate to list every little hurt she'd suffered at the hands of his son, but did indicate she wasn't the only one, and that the mother of the other little girl might be able to tell him what some of the other kids had experienced.  He did indicate that he had told Danger Boy that he could go the whole day without actually touching, let alone hurting, another kid in the class.  I thought that sounded good.

Wednesday I got another email from Cutie Pie's mother indicating that Danger Boy's mother had called her to find out what was going on.  I wish I knew when they had talked, whether it was before or after I'd talked to the father.  Because I think he might have been more apologetic if he knew the extent of it.  Apparently Danger Boy's mom said he'd told her he "bumped into Thing 2 and that she might have gotten some wood chips in her hair."  In other words they were being polite about it, but they seemed to be under the impression that a few little random behaviors were getting totally blown out of proportion.  Thankfully, Cutie Pie's mother said she corrected her pretty strongly, and told her how her daughter was traumatized by watching Danger Boy shove Thing 2 into the wood chips and ram them into her face, and how she'd choked and swallowed a couple.  She reported Danger Boy's mother had been shocked and very upset.  Good for her.

Today coming home from school Thing 2 told me that Danger Boy gave Cutie Pie a necklace, that had an owl on it.  You don't need to have anything more to do with him, I told her.  You don't need to be rude, but you can be nearly rude.  You can avoid him all you want.  

"I know," she told me.

I know it's not in her nature to hold a grudge.  If this little boy wants to play with them, I suspect the little girls will let him.  But I have told her to be on her guard with him, if he threatens her or attacks her at all again, to shout it loudly to the principal, her teacher, or me.  I don't know what they'd do, but they'd better do something.  And with how outrageous his behavior was since the moment he got here, I suspect he won't be able to turn it around overnight.  We'll see.

There was a flyer that came home sometime this week.  The counselors from the elementary school are meeting at the high school for a parent's forum about bullying.  I don't normally have time for evening meetings, but I think I may have to make a special effort to be to this one.

A better year

Whew I'm so far behind!

Last year, the last 18 months, maybe, was so awful.  I knew at the time things were hard, but didn't realize how hard until things got better.

When I say hard, I know on the grand scheme of things, it wasn't that hard. We didn't lose a family member, no one went postal... so many worse things could have happened.  I read a "ScaryMommy" confession page and was frankly horrified at some of the people's confessions, how miserable people are.  I am not that miserable.
 But on the day to day dealing with things scale, things were hard.

Mostly due to the move.  It started with house hunting taking up more and more free days.  Then getting our house on the market.  Then we were getting ready to move.  Moving was a little special slice of hell that I have only recently been able to talk about without tearing up.  But we moved, and school started.

Then we launched into construction.  Which, while I'm not actually doing the construction myself, involved more time and energy from myself than I had anticipated.

I knew changing schools would be hard, but we'd heard great things about the schools up here.  However, the school we left was really wonderful, and it's hard for anything to compare.  We have since learned that in 4th grade, the grade Thing 1 was going into, there's one teacher you want, one teacher you can endure, and two teachers you do not want.  She got the one you can endure.  At a time when she needed more help and support than any other in her life, she got a very firm disciplinarian.  It was a super hard year for her.
And a super hard year for her translated to a really difficult year for me.

But.
Recently things seem to be going better.
We're practically done with construction, the "three week" project that has taken five months might be done before the snow falls... or it might not.   We might be able to get some plants in this fall... or not.  Whatever.  It is moving forward again.

The other day when I was asking Thing 1 how her day went, she said, and I quote, "School was the best part of my day."  This wasn't some horrible day, either.  It was a half school day, she'd had a playdate with a friend she rarely sees, and we'd gone out to dinner.  But she'd just had a really fun day at school.  She loves her teacher, who doesn't believe in loading down the kids with tons of homework THANK YOU!!!
Thing 2 won the 4th grade teacher lottery, and got the teacher that everyone wants. This woman has the kids who tested into the accelerated program.  Thing 2 did not, yet the teacher told me Thing 2 out performs the other kids almost all the time.  She loves Thing 2, and Thing 2 loves her.

The garage is done, both cars fit easily into it, and even with the garage door down there is almost a car and a half length on one side, a little less on the other side because the stairs cut into it.  The construction there was completely worth it.

Finances  haven't been bad.  Every time I've needed money it seems to appear.

It's just a better year.

Bless the German Police

Hubby was in Germany last week, and Sweden the week before that.  He was supposed to return today.

Last night as he was packing up his stuff before he went to bed so he could be ready for his 6:00 am taxi to the airport, he found that he couldn't find his passport.  It was 3:00 pm for me, and I was just getting ready to drive down the canyon to pick up a couple of little girls for a sleepover.

He texted me in shock.

Over the course of our evening of playing, pizza, watching a movie, and getting four little girls arranged on their sleeping bags and figuring out who got which air mattress, I was texting back and forth with Hubby and scouring the internet trying to figure out what to do, which was not much.  He was searching the internet and calling anyone he could get a number for. Since it was about 9:00 pm on a Friday night when he realized it was gone, it was hard to get anyone to even answer their phones. Anyone who did mostly assured him there was nothing they could do, and he should call back at 8:00 am on Monday.  He tore everything he had apart several times, but couldn't find his passport.  It wasn't misplaced, it was gone.

I have his birth certificate and his expired passport and sent him images I'd scanned with my phone, but two days ago my computer died and it's the only one I can get scans from my swell printer off of.  (I'm using one of the many mac laptops we have around the house that Hubby no longer uses).  His birth certificate is a copy of a negative image and I was worried it would be illegible in the phone scan.

It was looking more and more like would be there at least all weekend, and quite possibly until Monday or even Tuesday.

On line all the advice he could find said don't bother coming to the consulate without an appointment, and the first available appointment for passport services was Monday October 8th.  You can put in an emergency request once you already have an appointment, so he made an emergency request on the heels of his October 8th appointment.

Hubby flies so much he's a Delta Unobtainium member, but when he called Delta they said don't even bother going to the airport, there's nothing they could do and his best bet is going to the consulate at 8:00 am on Monday.  Nevertheless he got up super early and took the shuttle to the airport.  He texted me from the shuttle at 6:30 am his time, 11:30 pm my time and I thought he was wasting his time.  But of course I didn't tell him that then.  He said his only hope was someone at the airport could help.  I understand feeling helpless and like you want to do something, even if you're spinning your wheels, it's certainly better than sitting around. He was booked on a 10:15 am flight.

He texted me half an hour later from the Frankfurt airport and said it looks bad.  He was pretty sure he could fly out Monday, though, and people were being super nice and helpful.

He texted me again  half an hour later saying it was looking like he might be able to fly out that day.  He found someone to help him.  "German waiters are notoriously bad at customer service - but the German police at the airport are incredible.  Really helpful."

He also texted that he had a slightly awkward conversation trying to explain to a very nice German policeman where he remembered the name "Patton" from.  heheheheh

But then he sends me a photo of a very official looking document with his picture on it and color shades like you see on passport pages.  I don't think it's a temporary passport, but it is a very official looking document.  He has one more document to sign and then he's going to sprint down to check  his bag

At 1:15 I get a text that he should make his plane, and I think he stopped texting because he didn't want to wake me.

He landed in Atlanta around 2:00 East coast time and called.

He said that the customs people told him they'd never seen a document like what he had before.  I'm amazed they let him through.  Apparently the people who gave him the document said he might have to pay some sort of fine.  He said he was getting very tired of telling the whole story to every official who had to look at his documents, but he didn't have to pay a fine and everyone let him through.

He said the birth certificate and expired passport scans helped a lot, they helped verify he was who he said he was.

He also said he somehow got connected to someone who happened to be answering their phone at 8:00 am in the consulate office, and that person knew someone who worked with the USO or some other military branch... but it seems the people who really got the job done was the German airport police.  I think the document he has was either issued by them or issued because they got someone else to do it.

And so thanks to the very wonderful German police, Hubby was able to make his original flight and come home on schedule.  We'll go pick him up in about five hours.

I had visions of him acting out a scene from Casablanca, wandering the halls of the consulate in black and white, getting shuffled from one bureaucrat to the other, trying to get another stamp or signature on some temporary document, which turns out to be the wrong one.  Hoping to get on that plane....

I'm so glad he's coming home! 

Flags

Thing 1 was born 11 years ago today.  Someone told her it was her golden birthday.  She turned eleven on the eleventh.

The boy scouts came by last night and put a flag in our yard.   I was momentarily baffled.  I was on the phone with Hubby when they drove up, and he reminded me that the next day, today, was Patriot's Day in addition to being our daughter's birthday.

I commented to Thing 2 that as long as we live in Utah, both girls will get flags in our yard on their birthdays.  "Yeah," she said, "but her's is a bigger deal.  And people don't really remember my birthday.  Everyone remembers hers."

"She doesn't get a parade, though..." I told her.

They had a good day.  I dropped off mini mechanical pencils for her to pass out to her classmates.  The school going "no treats" cramps my style.  I spent quite a bit of time searching the closeout aisle in the office supply store trying to find something I could afford that wouldn't make my kid a pariah of uncoolness.  "Tape?  You passed out rolls of scotch tape on your birthday?"  I felt I'd scored with the brightly decorated mini mechanicals, and Thing 1 reported later everyone thought they were great.

I offered to take the girls to the State Fair, after school, but Thing 1 opted to come home and do her homework and just hang out here, and have pizza and a movie night instead.  Maybe we'll go to the fair on Friday.

She went to bed happy.  

July is history, and we're marching through August

The suggestion I heard about writing down on the calendar what we did each day is proving beneficial.  For me, more so than for the girls.  I feel like I've been totally busy and it's nice to know why.  


It took me an extra week to get the new garage door.  I PAID for the garage door toward the middle of June, and was told it would take two weeks.  Two weeks later I got a call for final measurements, not to schedule an installation.  Two more weeks, I was told.  When those two weeks came and went I started calling, and was told it was scheduled to be delivered to their offices the last part of July, and could be installed some time after that.
The installation was scheduled for last week.  The garage door guy came and told me the opening of my garage door was screwy, the cement foundation is in the way of the track, and there's a trim piece missing on my wall that will be easier to install before the door goes up.  I called the contractor, who came over and ended up being kind of nasty to the garage door guy.  He said he had deliberately not installed the trim piece, would do that after to give them wiggle room on the door.  He insisted there was enough room on the cement foundation to lay the tracks for the door.  He called into question the installer's experience.  Repeatedly.  With increasing volume and vehemence.  It started getting a little tense.  The garage door guy insisted he couldn't install the door until he had his boss's approval of the opening.  The contractor told him to stop giving us excuses and either install the door or go away.  He left.  I asked the contractor what was eating him and he again insisted everything was fine with the wall, the guy should just put up the door.  Anything that was wrong could have been fixed while he was unloading.  Whatever.


The middle of the next week the manager himself came and installed the garage door.  I apologized for my cantankerous contractor, who was there when the installer guy got there but left.  The garage door went up and it is beautiful!  There is so much light now in the garage! !

  And the windows are so pretty! 

Other than that, we've been having a good summer.

We saw the fireworks on July 3rd at Bountiful.  They were amazing!  We've gone every year since we moved back here, they're great!
Thing 2 was invited to walk in the local 4th of July parade with the other Spelling Bee participants.  We ended up on the wrong side of the street, but she had a lot of fun and we learned how to go to the parade:  
1) don't bother with the boy scout pancake breakfast - eat before you go, or bring something to eat there.
2) arrive early, and stake out your spot for the parade. If you bought tickets to the breakfast (See #1), unless you get there super early, chances are you won't want to fight the crowd anyway. 
We ended up sitting behind someone else, with people kind of pushing by behind us through the parade.  It was fine, but next time we'll do it different.
 
One of the highlights of the summer was being invited to my brother's wife's family lake lot.  We got to ride in the boat, the girls got to ride the tube, 

and we all went wake surfing.  My oldest niece can get up on the surfboard with someone else in front of her, she took Thing 1 and 2.  It was fabulous!    Look at that smile!

It was too windy to get any good skiing in, but we did do a little sailing.  My brother and I took out my two girls and his youngest, and they got to hang out on the trapezes, and ride the pontoons.  Not a really strong wind, but perfect for three little girls who don't need a really wild ride to have a ball.  I didn't get any pictures, though.  The only down sides of the day were 1) Hubby was out of town 2) Thing 1 got sunburned.  I swear I put on sunscreen repeatedly, but the tops of her legs got kind of fried.  So the next day when we were going to go horseback riding, she would whimper when I tried to rub lotion on her, and I figured she was too uncomfortable to go riding.  So she had to stay home.  Thing 2 had a marvelous time, though, we went on a trail up the mountain and went for longer than we normally have before.

Thing 2 had a summer camp, catching frogs and bugs and lots of activities, she had a ball.  It was run by our favorite babysitter, who has been living in Hubby's office for the summer, to be closer to this eco center where the camp was held.  Thing 1 has a robotics camp there next week.
She had a pop-up book class this week that went pretty well.
One of the neighborhood moms has set up a schedule of things for the moms and kids to do once a week.  We made it to a couple, not a lot of people come but that's fine with me because I feel it gives my girls more face time with the kids who are there.  And I like the mom who arranged it and enjoy talking with her.  One that was a big hit was the Hill Air Museum.  I thought the girls might find it less interesting, but they loved it.  I enjoyed seeing some of the planes I used to work with.

We've been driving down to my brother's house (30 minutes away) for swimming lessons from one of my nieces, because their pool is salt water and doesn't turn Thing 2's hair green, and the girls get the bonus of being able to play with their favorite person in the world, their cousin who is right between them in age.  They've been taking Spanish lessons from my cousin, but she's moving to Spain in a week so we had to stop the lessons.  I'm sad the Spanish lessons are over, but it will make it easier to have that one day a week back to ourselves.
Still two and a half weeks left of summer, but I wanted to catch up.

Sleeping Buddies

Thing 1 became attached to a stuffed Eeyore beanie baby when she was little.  She slept with it until it became sad looking and abused, very Velveteen Rabbit real.  She has since adopted other special stuffed animals.  Not every one that passes through her hands makes the cut, but enough do that she has a sizable pile that sit on the top bunk who are possible sleeping companions.
In order to not offend anyone, Thing 1 started keeping track in a little log she drew up and kept by her bed.  She listed the name of each stuffed animal and gave it a tick mark on the grid each night she slept with it.  She faithfully noted and rotated and the stuffed animals for a couple of years.

I haven't seen the log lately, and she seems to be choosing her sleeping companions based on the mood of the evening.

Thing 2 goes in phases.  She picks an animal and sleeps almost exclusively with it and only it for a couple of months.  For a long time now it has been Princess, a stuffed horse my sister gave her when she turned two. Horses have always held a special place in her heart, and I think she feels the largeness of the stuffed horse provides a sort of barrier between her and any intruders who might pose a threat to her at night.

June is in the bag

It's hard to draw a good line between keeping the kids from getting bored, and letting them have enough time to goof off.  If I totally let them go, they end up feeling their summer is wasted.  If I schedule and monitor them, they haven't had enough free time and are mad that they didn't get to relax.

I was going to write down what we did each day, so I can wave it in their faces when the tears come for "Back To School" night that "The whole summer is GONE and I didn't do ANYTHING!!!"  I haven't kept up with this, either.


I vowed we'd go through the multiplication and division flash cards every weekday morning.  We started really well, but have been slacking off.  In fact, I should break to go do that this minute...

There are two weeks in the middle of June that I can't exactly account for...  I do remember that we met with the weekly playgroup at Chuckee Cheese, just my girls and the girls of the mother who's been arranging things, all of whom I like, so I was fine it worked out that way.  We spent a weekend at my mother's while Hubby had a conference, and celebrated Father's Day at my brother's with a big pool party.  Between Spanish lessons (see below) and birthday parties for their four summer born daughters we've spent quite a bit of time at my brother's, often playing in their pool.  The real bonus here is it doesn't use chlorine in the filter and so it doesn't turn the girls' hair into straw.

The first week of July was pretty busy.  My cousin is teaching the girls and their two cousins Spanish on Mondays at my brother's house (it's roughly halfway between her house and my house), and my mother arranged to take all the girls who could go to the new Natural History Museum.  So after Spanish we went over to the museum, and had a nice time looking around there.  Thing 1 got very excited and wants to make some Native American crafts of her own.  Then we met the dads (my brother and Hubby) at the Old Spaghetti factory for dinner.  
Tuesday was fireworks!  My brother lives right by some of the best fireworks in the valley, and walking from his house means we can avoid parking and traffic nightmare.  He hosts a party in his back yard, which is a little hard for the girls since all the other participants are neighbors, and they all know each other.  But it all turned out okay when the cherished cousin came and snuggled between them to watch the fireworks.
Wednesday was the 4th of July parade.  Thing 2 got to walk down main street with the other spellers from the spelling bee.  It was a busy day, and Thing 2 had a great time waving to people and spelling out words like "PARADE!" that they'd shout at her.  The only problem came when Hubby's cell phone died after he walked to the end of the parade to meet Thing 2 while I stayed with Thing 1 and watched the parade, we hadn't made plans on where to meet, and I ended up walking to the end of the parade where I thought he'd be while he walked back up to the top of the street where we'd been...  Finally he stopped in a boutique and borrowed their phone to call me.
Thursday... Hubby fixed the mower and mowed the lawn.
Friday we went to a matinee.  Tomorrow my folks will come down and we'll celebrate Hubby's birthday.  We celebrated Father's Day last Saturday by having breakfast downtown, then going to Costco where Hubby picked out a bigger TV that will just fit the space in the redone basement. I hadn't really planned that, but kind of half expected it.  So his father's day and birthday presents are combined.  I feel it's fair that I can fall back on electronics for presents for him, since he's so hard to shop for, and he falls back on jewelry for me.  And he doesn't just buy department store jewelry... he buys jewelry store jewelry.  The really nice stuff.  Not that I am complaining, it's just that I can never match him for dollars spent, the best I can do is something like this, let him buy a major electrical whatever for the house and tell him it's his.  But I feel like it's cheating because we all use it.  Not like the jewelry he buys me, which I don't share.


And while it's just a boring recounting of last week, it is an entry, and I'm looking to rack up accomplishments, so there's one.  Boring yes, but done?  YES!!