So this is why they have sympathy
I teach 8th grade. This is not generally as hard a job as everyone seems to think it is. I'm organized, I plan well ahead, I keep my kids busy with a
lot of fast moving assignments that are relevant to their grade level. I have very high standards. I abhor busy work.
I like to think I'm relatively good at what I get paid for.
But I don't get paid extra to do what I did yesterday. Yesterday afternoon I had 17 students in my room that were on restriction. That means they didn't get to take part in the school-wide festival. And it means that the vast majority of them are screw-ups. They're on restriction because of consistent behavior issues. Or because they have flunked several classes. Or because they defaced or lost books. Or a combination thereof. Of the 17, 5 worked my last nerve to a fray.
The rules for a restriction room are simple and spelled out on the board:
1) They cannot leave the room. This includes bathroom trips. They were to have taken care of that at lunch. This is direct from the principal.
2) There is to be no talking or other communication. (HA! And again I say HA!!!!)
3) They are to remain seated at all times.
4) They are to keep busy in some way. (This one is a fucking
joke because if they kept themselves productively busy, they wouldn't
be on restriction.)
By 30 minutes into a 90 minute session every one of the rules had been broken several times. Except the leaving the room one. But they tried like hell on that. These kids asked to go to the bathroom no less than 12 times in the first 30 minutes. That's always the game of the day - whine and bitch and moan about not being able to go to the restroom. They argued that it's against the law. That their parents were going to call. That it wasn't fair (that one is the teenage mantra, isn't it? How unfair the world is. Don't I know it. I was saddled with
you wasn't I?) One girl started telling me about how her
mother is a lawyer, and her
uncle is a lawyer and her father is a
police officer and was going to come arrest me in
handcuffs. This from a sixth grader!
God, was I ever scared. These pillars of society! After lil ol' me!
The bathroom rule is because restriction kids have a nasty habit of 1) disappearing if you let them leave without an escort and 2) using the bathroom as an excuse to wander around the school for 20 minutes. Also, with only a minimum of adults actually in the building, they tend to deface things in a heartbeat.
It usually takes the first 30 minutes to settle a group down to the dull simmer that a restriction room always is. At that point we've pinpointed the assholes. Yesterday I kicked two of them out for being completely disruptive. They were making it their goddamn goal in life to try to make me angry. The first went to the office. The second I sent to the teacher next door. It was amazing that as soon as I sent the second kid out, the room quieted. I find it an interesting dynamic that one person can so direct the bad energy in the room. I also find it amazing how really
horrible children can be.
I was actually asked yesterday, by one of the assholes, "Are we making you mad?" He was visibly disappointed when I told him no.
I did have to institute a new "rule", which was that I was not answering any more questions. Because they are the same damn questions again and again and again.
"Why am I here?"
"Can I go to the bathroom?"
"Can I get a drink of water?"
"Can I go to another classroom?"
"Can I go to my locker?"
"Can I go to the bathroom?"
"Can I go to the bathroom?"
For the first one, they know exactly why they're here. It tells them on their appointment slip. As for the others, the answer is no because of rule number one. It's that easy. So I refused to take any more questions because what they really are is openings for stand-up comedy.
At about 60 minutes, the whining starts.
"I'm
thirsty!"
"Why don't
you take us to the bathroom?"
"Why can't we
talk?"
"I gotta go to the
bathroom!"
"I hate this room!"
At the same time, the pen clicking, fart noises and tongue popping starts. Because all middle schoolers regress to about 6 years old and stay there for years. That idiocy I ignore until it gets out of hand. It's better if they think they can't rile me. If they think they can, that becomes the new game.
By an hour and fifteen minutes in, everybody's ready to kill everybody else. I want to throttle a small group of kids and they're shooting all daggers at me with their eyes. I swore at the beginning of this year that I wouldn't offer to host any more restriction rooms. But then I broke my leg and since I've come back, I can't stand for the hour and a half that a different type of supervision assignment would require. Yesterday's was the second in a series of three of these goddamn nightmares that I'm part of.
I need a bottle of vodka to fortify me for the next one. Or at least the promise of a good Grey Goose martini after school. I think I deserve it.
Labels: I'm a glorified babysitter some days
She hates me and I'm not too fond of her either
This was a hellish morning. And it started at 2:45 am.
I kind of need to start at the beginning, with a little background. Had I been blogging here all along we wouldn't need this but, well, here we are.
Last fall I sustained a ridiculously serious injury. Serious in that I broke a leg, required surgery and was basically on my back for over three months. Ridiculous in that it happened because I tripped. I know -
so stupid. I wasn't wearing heels, I wasn't rushing down (or up) a flight of stairs, I was on level ground. In tennis shoes. Stone cold sober. It is still difficult for me to believe that I broke a bone, let alone broke it badly enough to require surgery. But I did. Now I have a three inch plate in my leg and seven screws to match. I am a TSA screener's nightmare.
My daughter was 4 months old when it happened. That is
not the time to break a leg, in case you were wondering. I actually assume you're smart enough to figure that out, but the Internet is a strange place so you never know.
Anyway.
So I broke my leg. Seven months later I'm still having chronic pain in both the leg that I broke and my lower back on that side. Whether the back pain is the result of a secondary injury from when I fell, the six week interval from the time that physical therapy (PT) was requested and the time that my worker's comp insurance got around to approving it (more on
those assholes in another post) or something else, we may never know. And nobody but the insurance gives a shit anyway. The fact is that I am often in crippling, gasping pain that prevents me from walking a single step until I take both muscle relaxers and Vicodin.
I'm a laugh riot these days.
The other thing you should know is that my mother-in-law has been visiting this week. In general I get along fine with her, though I find her... quirky. The AnonaDad does too, so I know I'm not just nuts. Her visits are always punctuated with some level of weirdness but we never acknowledge it. The AnonaDad sort of stays out of the way, though I don't think he's aware he's doing it, and I wind up playing hostess. An uncomfortable, stressed out, annoyed with her husband hostess.
The AnonaGirl's first birthday party is this weekend and the AnonaDad and I have been working for
months on our house. It's been stuck in the 70's since... well, the 70's and we were able to refinance recently and pull out a chunk of money. We got the AnonaDad a new car and have been pouring the rest into the house. Now that we're just days away from the party we still have a long list of things that need to be done before The Party.
So there has been
that additional stress.
Everything went to hell last night. Mother-in-law, who has her own issues walking, wanted very much to buy AnonaGirl her first birthday party dress. So off to the local mall we went - AnonaGirl (who had been kind of cranky and sleepy all day), my mom (who watches AnonaGirl while I'm at work), Mother-In-Law and me. Within the first 8 minutes, Mother-In-Law wanted to sit down. My own mom and I were on a hunt - when we go bargain shopping, it is nothing less than a well-executed attack - so we left Mother-In-Law and AnonaGirl on a bench (MIL requested that, so don't think we just abandoned her) and hit the stores as quickly as possible. Found some great bargain clothes, but not the party dress of our dreams. We all finally wound up at one of the anchor stores and picked up a cute, though by no means perfect dress. Had I been able to shop around more, I would definitely have picked something else, but MIL leaves this morning, so we were out of time. When you're trying to keep everyone else happy, often your own happiness takes a back seat.
With all the hurrying around the mall, my bad leg was taking a beating. I have a terrible habit of not taking care of myself physically until it is
way too late, so I was sort of a wreck when we finished. But, dress found, AnonaGirl, MIL and I headed home. Once there, I got AnonaGirl fed, changed for bed, rocked, read and sung to and tucked in with a kiss.
I was ready to cry I was in so much pain.
AnonaDad, on the other hand, was busy pulling the first set of his famous ribs from the oven. He's making them for the party, and he needed to cut them up, make their sauce and put them in bags to wait for Saturday. Thus he asked me to drive his mother back to his brother's house.
Which I did. And picked up some dinner on the way. And I only slightly cursed AnonaDad's name. Because hey, no rest for the wicked, right?
When I got back, AnonaGirl was in her crib having a meltdown. AnonaDad informed me that he'd already gone up to try to settle her down, but no dice. His duty for the evening done, I guess, I went up to try to soothe the baby. It only sort of worked. Mostly she wanted to play and goof around, so after 15 minutes I put her back in her crib and returned to my now cold hamburger and fries.
Finally, after another 20 minutes or so, AnonaGirl quieted down and I figured we were done. She's a good sleeper, generally, and once she goes down, she stays down.
Generally.
We watched a little TV and I retired by about 9:45. AnonaDad sleeps downstairs because he snores really loudly and I can't handle sleeping on the couch at the moment (it throws my already fragile back out). Things were quiet about an hour later and I got to sleep at around 11.
Cue the screams at 2:45 am.
AnonaDad later claimed that he was awake every time the baby started crying last night, but that is patently untrue because I heard him snoring through most of it. I'm not saying he's lying. I'm sure he thinks he
was awake every time she started winding up. He just... missed a few times. By sleeping through them.
AnonaGirl stayed awake from 2:45 on. I tried everything I could think of. Rocking, walking, patting, singing, feeding her a bottle, Tylenol for teething pain, "sleeping" with me in the big bed, TV on, TV off ... and on and on. None of it worked. When she wasn't screaming in frustration and exhaustion, she was crawling around the bed looking for something interesting to do.
After 3 hours I was ready to kill someone. Oddly enough, it wasn't the baby. Unfortunately, it was my husband. When he finally came upstairs at 5 am I was in tears, the baby was in tears and the cats were in hiding.
First thing he said was, "What's wrong with her?"
"If I knew," I replied with gritted teeth, "I would have done something to fix it."
"Huh?" I think he still had an earplug in.
"What?" I snapped, with a baby screaming in my ear and trying desperately to escape my evil clutches.
"WHAT?" he yelled.
"I've been up since 2:45 so don't you dare yell at me!"
It only got better from there.
This is the sort of situation my husband and I are bad at. We fall into a very crummy pattern of trying to outdo each other in the Martyr game. It goes something like this:
- I've been awake since 2:45 = +2 points
- Well I was awake every time she screamed so I'm not rested either = +1 point
- I got up with her and carried her all over hell and creation to try to calm her while you never once came upstairs and offered to help = +3 points
- I have a job due today that I didn't get done yesterday because I was so tired from cleaning the floors = +4 points
- I have to go to work and stay awake for 8th graders who have summer fever. There is no possibility of a nap for me today because I don't work from home. You've taken a nap three times this week. I... cannot. Ever. +Infinity points because it's my blog and you have to admit, that's a shit situation.
It's childish and petty and I wish we would stop it but I've tried to broach the subject with him and he doesn't think we do that at all. What do you do with that?
AnonaDad took the baby and got her dressed while I hobbled around getting dressed. The damn shopping trip had killed my back, so I was a mess. By the time I got downstairs AnonaDad was making coffee and the baby had already pooped in her new diaper. I could not possibly carry her back upstairs, so I had to ask AnonaDad to do it.
I hope never to hear another repetition of The Great Diaper Changing Horror of 2008. AnonaGirl screamed and tried valiantly to roll off the changing table. AnonaDad, never too patient when the baby freaks about diaper changes anyway, absolutely Lost. His. Shit. He yelled at her, swore at her and his tone was ridiculous. It only wound up the baby more. Finally I dragged my sorry ass upstairs and took over.
"Oh right! Oh that's great! Come save the fucking day!" he snapped as he stormed out.
So that was nice.
Once I had the baby changed, dressed and calmed down, I got to try to explain to a wound up AnonaDad that he needs to be the adult when she goes ballistic like that. Yelling at her only makes it worse. You'd think that would make some sense, but what I got instead was a laundry list of all the things the baby was doing that made him mad. So... it was AnonaGirl's fault that he couldn't stay even somewhat calm? I dunno.
Somehow I got her into the car and we drove to my Mom's. For her parting shot, as I was giving her a goodbye kiss, AnonaGirl swept my sunglasses off my face and threw them on the tile floor. Where they promptly broke.
And I really liked those sunglasses, too. Which is more than I can say for my husband and my daughter at the moment.
Labels: Bitch and moan
I'm probably not a very nice person, when you think about it
I have to be honest here - that's the whole point of keeping this blog. I'm a pretty passive-aggressive person. I don't like this about myself, and I am working on it because I'm aware of it, but it's still true. I'd rather drop hints and be disappointed than say right out what I want and be disappointed. I don't like conflict, though I'll fight like a bitch when it comes my way - especially if I feel I'm somehow getting screwed. And I tend to think I'm being screwed more often than I actually am. I have sort of a knee-jerk reaction to any whiff of injustice. Sometimes that's useful and sometimes I wind up embarrassed.
My husband, the AnonaDad, is very much the opposite of me in this regard. He wants to have everything above board and talked about, and he assumes the best of intentions with regards to everyone. While I'm skulking about trying to determine if we're being taken advantage of, he's busy having completely open heart to heart conversations and trying to work things out. On the surface this makes him seem like the sane one in this relationship, and he often is, but his tendency to assume the best has definitely resulted in some bad deals. For instance, when he was wrongfully sued a few years ago (the AnonaDad runs his own business from home, by the way), he wound up telling his insurance rep far more than he should have because he thought the rep would be acting as his lawyer. Then the rep turned around and denied coverage (we got that overturned but it was a scary time). The actual lawyer wound up telling him what I always tell him. Answer ONLY what you're asked and do not volunteer more information than that. EVER.
We've overpaid for many a used car because of AnonaDad's willingness to assume good intentions, and I've let myself be pressured into a couple of situations that, left to my own, I would have stood firmer on. Then weeks later something goes sour and I kick myself because I should have just said no and AnonaDad kicks
himself because he shouldn't have been so nice.
The thing is that I'm torn about his niceness. He really
is nice. He's sweet and friendly and wants to know people for who they are. He's the only person I know who, when taken to a strip club for his bachelor party, wound up finding out the life story of his lap dancer. My father really liked him for that.
The flip side of all that niceness is that when it comes to good-cop bad-cop situations, I am invariably the bad cop. This gets old after a while. And I worry sometimes that it's going to become more and more difficult to present a united front to our daughter. I don't always want to be the bitch; I get enough of that at work. It's one thing to have a room full of middle schoolers giving you the evil eye but it's going to be far more devastating when it's AnonaGirl.
All this is leading up to something, I swear. We recently had some very expensive work done on our backyard. It included pouring a significant amount of cement. The job was finished about 5 weeks ago and this past weekend we noticed no fewer than 8 long cracks in the newly poured concrete. That's not right, is it?? I mean, I don't expect it to last forever, but shouldn't it last more than a month without cracking?
We immediately called the guy who did the work but it's now five days later and no return call from him. I have the very ominous feeling that we may have to get nasty with him to get anything done (I'm not even sure what
can be done). I'm not looking forward to dealing with this, because I can foresee a lot of bad copping in my future. We had to pull a lot of that shit with this guy to get the job finished and I don't relish doing it again. But I also know that AnonaDad will be way too understanding if I don't push this. He'll listen to a snowjob explaination and tell me all the reasons we're wrong to keep pushing and we'll have a big fight over something that should be easy for us to be united about. It's not the first time we've passed this way.
It may be a very long summer.
Labels: Bitch and moan
Start at the Beginning
First posts are a bitch. It's all the boring who's who and what's what that only a few people will bother to go back and read anyway. Introductory posts don't really tell you who I am anyway - my ongoing posts do that. But here are the vital stats, for what they're worth:
- I'm a woman.
- I'm in my mid-thirties
- I have a one year old daughter who shines like the sun in my life. I will refer to her as the AnonaGirl here.
- I have a husband, the AnonaDad, who I love dearly and because we've been together for over 13 years, can drive me crazy with the merest flick of his hairy wrist.
- I maintain a separate blog in which my identity is completely open. My friends and family read that blog so I have to be cautious with what I say. I've started this blog so that I have a place to write where I don't have to censor myself.
- I am a middle school teacher. Mostly I like it. Some students are simply awful to have in class. I don't plan to sugar coat that fact here. If you're of a mind that all children are marvelous and some are simply misunderstood, I expect I will wind up offending you eventually. Some students are assholes, just as some adults are.
- I live on the West Coast of the USA.
That's probably enough for now. Coming soon - tales from the in-laws. Stay tuned.
Labels: Who ARE you?
