Festivus

In a rare move for me, I've been in a consistently bad mood for the past two days. See, I'm truly wired to be happy. But for the last two days, I've been a complete grump. Work has been terrible. My boss cannot type. Coupled with that fact, he is an attorney. Simple tasks, like e-mails, take 500 times longer when one is working with a non-typing attorney. It's not different than usual, but it's been bugging me more, especially since I have plenty of my own work to do. Also, I'm getting a cold. Then there is Christmas, and although I really love my family and there is absolutely nothing I'm dreading this year (I expect no family spats, etc), the fact that Christmas is coming just pisses me off for some reason. Everything ticks me off. EVERYTHING. It's been upsetting.

For this reason, I'm feeling the necessity of a good Festivus airing of the greivances a few days early, if for no other reason, perhaps this bloodletting with make me get over this craptastic mood I've been in.

So, here is where I let it all out:

To The Kid's Teacher: You belong in a 7th grade math class, not in Kindergarten. You are cold, bitchy and nothing my son deserves in a kindergarten teacher. I know a good number of teachers and retired teachers read this blog. You must know I hold nothing against teachers in the grand sense. Just this one. She sucks. She lacks basic people skills. Her grammar and spelling is embarrasing. She treats communication with parents like going to the dentist (that would be with a horrid sense of obligation, devoid of pleasure). In my observations of her classroom, she has almost no interactions with her students as people, and instead delegates the job of speaking directly, one-on-one, to students to her para. One of The Kid's friend's parent called me one night to ask me if I found her unfriendly. I told her absolutely that I did find her unfriendly, and more than that, I felt like she would prefer if parents were not part of her job at all. The Kid's Friend's Parent replied, "Phew. I thought I was the only one. I was starting to worry that it was a race thing." While general unfriendliness is always preferable to racism, I found this exchange very disturbing.

Today was The Kid's last day of Kindergarten for the first semester. I sent him off to school with little gifties for The Teacher, The Para and The School Psychologist. They were pretty minor gifts, note pads, magnets, matching pens. You know, 3-5 dollar gifts. But still, they are presents. I also sent him with a Memory Game, requested by The Teacher on the school's giving tree. Each teacher wrote down their wish list on little snowmen, christmas trees, snowflakes, etc, for things that they would like for their classrooms. I will add that on Tuesday, I sent him with another item from her wish list. Additionally, my mom contributed an item on The Teacher's wish list. He came home from school today with a thank you note from The Para. He said The School Psychologist loved her gift most of all. I asked him what The Teacher said when he gave her her gift. He replied, "Nothing. I don't know." I asked, did she say Thank you? He thought about it for a minute, and said, "Well, I think so. I mean, she should have, right?"

She sucks. The end. She's not going to permanently scar him or anything, but she's literally not who I had in mind for him. Like, I open-enrolled him at that school with The School's other kindergarten teacher, who is exactly who should be teaching kindergarten, in mind. Unfortunately, I wasn't the only one who open enrolled her child at The School. They had to hire another Kindergarten teacher, hence, THE Teacher.

Only one more semester left. We can only hope for a better assignment for 1st grade.

Grrr.

Okay, airing of the greivances is now over. Now it's time for wrestling. Where's that Kid?