Thursday, June 21, 2007

Updates on the last post and the last year

1. Just like Auntlyh, I have now been blogging for a year (thanks for the reminder) but stuff has been going wrong for a whole lot longer. Just thought I would mention a few highlights that predated and led to the inception of the blog:
* The summer day that the entire basement filled with bees.
# The day that I learned from the furnace cleaning man that the previous owners used to house at least 250 guinea pigs in our basement.
$ The six long months we spent potty training Henry.
! The time in January when Henry locked me out of the house when I was ten months pregnant and not wearing a coat.

Sweet, sweet memories.

2. A few clarifications about the last post. Because LHM and Auntlyh both seem curious, here is a picture of the grill:
As gas grills go it really isn't all that big, but compared to the last grill I purchased (a Smokey Joe), it seems huge. I purchased the Smokey Joe at Ann and Hope in Boston in 1994, and I must have brought it back to my apartment in Brookline on an MBTA bus because I don't think I could have ridden with it on my bike.

Kitten number one is no longer "Sugar Ray" because my dad can't remember that either. He is in some sort of name limbo between "Puffy" and "Stubby" and my mom is trying to tell me that she has settled on his name being "Sugarpuff," but she will call him "Puffy." I am find this incredibly funny, but feel sorry for the cat. And I am not going to call him anything at this point.

I also wanted to clarify why we were trying to get Henry into a gifted and talented program in Kindergarten. We aren't crazy parents. Other kids in the Henry's school who are a tiny bit ahead of him academically are in the program, or are getting to go read with the first grade class while he languishes because his teacher doesn't give a shit. I don't care how his reading needs get met at school so long as they get met.

Plus we have friends whose kid is in another school, same district, who is in the program and has gotten to do fun things like put on plays in a small group setting. Something that would be great for Henry, or any bright kid. I also think ANY parent wants what is best for their kid and hopes the teacher does too. Sadly I have yet to find this to be true in any of Henry's classroom settings. We chose to live in the suburbs for their supposedly good schools and I have been nothing but unhappy with them this entire year. And then I have to listen to the school tell me how great they are.

Having said that __ ending my rant __ Cary felt the letter from the gifted programming specialist was less of a brush off, than I did. And Henry's teacher is nasty, but she didn't give some kids gifts and not others. She also didn't bother to help us figure out where they were from or choose to explain any of this to Henry.

3. If anyone is still reading, I have a new review on Venuszine.com, and you can read it here.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Even if the teacher didn't give the mystery gifts herself, I still think she's a bad teacher for allowing whoever to give out gifts to some kids and not to all of them.

It's *Kindergarten* for heaven's sake ... she should have known that an inequity like that would cause hurt feelings. They're too young to think that the unfairness is okay because it comes from another mom and not from the teacher.

I say BOO on that lady, and good riddance to her when she leaves.

Anne

P.S. You'll have to tell me the guinea pig story. You know I'm a *huge* animal person, but 250 guinea pigs grosses me out a little bit.

Auntly H said...

So there's one thing she didn't do completely wrong; I still don't like Henry's teacher.

Happy Blogiversary!

JSE said...

God, I'm so glad I don't have to deal with this yet. I think I might delegate it to Tanya, who has more experience in the K-12 education field than I do..