I'm not sure "thrilled" can even express enough how I feel about Anna's current school year coming to an end. Her teacher, Ms. A., wasn't as bad as we'd fear she'd be, but by that standard I mean Anna didn't end the year dumber than when she started.
Anna thrived DESPITE the crappy clasroom structure that lacked any kind of discipline, real curriculum, and parent communication. It was disorganized, cluttered, chaotic at times, and had kids who made me stare at their parents wondering "WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG HERE?!"
Moral of the year: the world is full of messy people. This is where they start.
I can no longer recommend this school to anyone who may be considering sending their child there. Her teacher, Ms. A was one thing, though, and that was on the kids' level. The drawbacks: she sucked at any kind of parent communication, didn't like responsibility of being a staff member, and lacked discipline techniques.
Friday marks Anna's last day. Amen to that. Next week she goes to stay with my mom in Austin for a week (nobody comment on this to have to make me actually think this through and change my mind, please). When she gets back, she gets four weeks of morning camps that range from learning about animals to learning about chemistry. Afternoons will be alternated with me, Paul, her current school, and TJ. That's June. In July she starts a full-time camp at the school next door to hers that looks totally fun. This may seem like a lot of change all at once but we'll see what she's made of. Plus one of her friends, Emma, is going to be on the same schedule, same camp, so she'll have a little friend there along with her.
Bring on summer!
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
My Jon Bon Jovi story
Last week we got a last minute invite to see Jon Bon Jovi live here in concert in Houston at the Toyota Center. Paul works closely with a coach year round at one of the local high schools who had coached one of Bon Jovi's football teams in the past and so knew him personally. He got Paul and I free tickets, just about 5 rows back, which was pretty neat. I'm not really a Bon Jovi music fan but still the tickets were free and well, it IS Bon Jovi.
Coach also got us and a handful of others back-stage passes to meet Bon Jovi in person before the start of the concert. That was pretty neat, especially since I'd never gotten to do the "back stage" thing before...and this was BON JOVI, American icon. When he first came out to meet us he did seem tired (or high, I thought...NAHHHH...) and wondered out loud later how he found the energy to perform when he seemed so wiped out.
ANYWAY, because I was just coming off of NASA-loving Seth Green and LeVar Burton, I asked Bon Jovi what I thought was a benign enough question, which was if he'd ever had the chance to tour NASA during any of his Houston visits. It wasn't too far fetched, especially since I knew he was on the President's council for investigating what children's community programs were working and what wasn't in the cities he was touring in. He'd met with mayor Parker the day before over this. When I asked my question, he just GLARED at me long and hard like I was CUH-RAZY and I should know better (who let the geek in? I'm THE Bon Jovi, you little freak!). It was a long enough pause that I thought for a second, OMG, did I ask a politically incorrect question? WHAT IF HE'S ONE OF THOSE SPACE PROGRAM HATERS?! Yes. I was apparently uncoool. But at least he followed up with the fact that he doesn't get to tour much while on tour, going to so many places so quickly and yadda-yadda-yadda...and I was like "Oh, right, sure, um, of course" and I did NOT say "Well Bono and Aerosmith did it..." which would be bad because this was Bon Jovi's concert and I was backstage before it and well, you know.
And that is my Bon Jovi story. Later I learned that he'd done some PR affair where he did meet some of the STS-132 shuttle crew or something so I'm sure he's not a NASA hater. I just need to remember the next time I'm in the presence of a major rock star to maybe just keep my mouth shut and ask him to just sign my boobs.
Coach also got us and a handful of others back-stage passes to meet Bon Jovi in person before the start of the concert. That was pretty neat, especially since I'd never gotten to do the "back stage" thing before...and this was BON JOVI, American icon. When he first came out to meet us he did seem tired (or high, I thought...NAHHHH...) and wondered out loud later how he found the energy to perform when he seemed so wiped out.
ANYWAY, because I was just coming off of NASA-loving Seth Green and LeVar Burton, I asked Bon Jovi what I thought was a benign enough question, which was if he'd ever had the chance to tour NASA during any of his Houston visits. It wasn't too far fetched, especially since I knew he was on the President's council for investigating what children's community programs were working and what wasn't in the cities he was touring in. He'd met with mayor Parker the day before over this. When I asked my question, he just GLARED at me long and hard like I was CUH-RAZY and I should know better (who let the geek in? I'm THE Bon Jovi, you little freak!). It was a long enough pause that I thought for a second, OMG, did I ask a politically incorrect question? WHAT IF HE'S ONE OF THOSE SPACE PROGRAM HATERS?! Yes. I was apparently uncoool. But at least he followed up with the fact that he doesn't get to tour much while on tour, going to so many places so quickly and yadda-yadda-yadda...and I was like "Oh, right, sure, um, of course" and I did NOT say "Well Bono and Aerosmith did it..." which would be bad because this was Bon Jovi's concert and I was backstage before it and well, you know.
And that is my Bon Jovi story. Later I learned that he'd done some PR affair where he did meet some of the STS-132 shuttle crew or something so I'm sure he's not a NASA hater. I just need to remember the next time I'm in the presence of a major rock star to maybe just keep my mouth shut and ask him to just sign my boobs.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
The Forgotten Birthday photos
I use my iPhone so much to take pictures these days because it's quicker and easier to post than the "old" camera and its sim card. With the iphone I can just post it anywhere at anytime and with this sim card...well, gotta find the camera, eject the card, pull out the laptop, find the photos I want, transfer, wait...wait...wait...configure the blog layout, then success!
So I forgot about these until I saw the camera laying there today and decided to take a look at what was on the card. Sweet birthday photos from Anna's 4th birthday in March on the overnight camping trip to Brazos Bend. Lovely!
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Anna in action
This morning I was ironing my pants.
Anna points to my thigh and says, "Mommy, what's wrong with your BUTT?"
Me: "huh?"
Anna, pointing: "What are all those BUMPS?!"
Me: "That's cellulite. You'll get it when you're older."
Several notes to self here.
**************************************
On the ride to school this morning, Beat It came on the radio.
Anna: Momma, is that MICHAEL JACKSON?!
Me: What?!
She said it's Beat It. Apparently the Bad Influence kid in her class loves MJ. I guess he can't be all that bad. Except couldn't he at least picked "Ebony and Ivory?"
She asked for another MJ song but I told her Daddy has tons. Not mama!
Anna points to my thigh and says, "Mommy, what's wrong with your BUTT?"
Me: "huh?"
Anna, pointing: "What are all those BUMPS?!"
Me: "That's cellulite. You'll get it when you're older."
Several notes to self here.
**************************************
On the ride to school this morning, Beat It came on the radio.
Anna: Momma, is that MICHAEL JACKSON?!
Me: What?!
She said it's Beat It. Apparently the Bad Influence kid in her class loves MJ. I guess he can't be all that bad. Except couldn't he at least picked "Ebony and Ivory?"
She asked for another MJ song but I told her Daddy has tons. Not mama!
Monday, May 2, 2011
In other news...
Back to the real world, happy to be here.
Incidentally I Started up Spin class again this morning after 3 weeks off the bike. I think I'm drained today now for it. And I am still around 12lbs heavier than I was this time last year. Who knew all that exercise would make me add 4 lbs. to where I Started out trying to lose. Oh well, it's so insane I'm beyond comprehending those kind of numbers.
Of course first thing before spin class the buzz on the news station and a text from my mom was that Osama bin Laden was killed. And that's the extent of any of that discussion for the day. Strangely, it was not of much talk around any water cooler or anything else for that matter. My personal thoughts: yay I guess but I'm not sure it will have much, if any, impact on stopping the massive terrorist cells over in places that hate us. These days they're probably younger, bigger, and more bad ass anyway than the old fogie Bin Laden was. I think it's part of the world we live in. But hopefully this will bring some closure to the 9/11 families at the very least. I'm not sure. I frankly just don't know.
In matters I do have a better (somewhat) understanding of...last week I kept getting reports from Paul that Anna's afternoons at school were not good reports from her teacher, and that the evenings weren't much better. Complete with knock-down, drag-out fights with Paul and then apologies. But it's like she was pushing buttons on authority and I was sure that when I got home to have a talk with her about how it's better to be a good person, yadda yadda yadda, that she'd recover and move on. So we had a good little discussion. Or so I thought.
Our take on part of this is that there are a few holy terrors in her class who are FLAT OUT AWFUL in terms of behavior. We've seen first hand the effects it has had on the otherwise good kids in the class. They see this little jerk getting away with murder and the best behaved kids pull that same crap right in front of my eyes. Both Paul and I have told them if they keep it up we're telling their parents! Anna's teacher does very little to actively squash the madness from this one particular brat who instigates fights and chases and overall poor behavior from others in the class. And Anna is I think picking up on the fact that this brat gets away with it and so it's time for her to test the water.
The thing is she gets her little butt into trouble at home for this, and at school the teacher tells us of the latest crap she's pulled and does little more I'm sure during the day to check Anna on it at school. So once home, the fun stuff and activities get taken away for that. Last week she lost some privileges with Paul. Tonight she lost going over to TJ's house to play while I was teaching (instead she did time at the clinic with daddy). She totally hated losing out on the fun, pitched a sad, sad fit, promised to behave tomorrow and it seemed to hit home but I guess we'll see how tomorrow goes at school.
The thing is we've thought about confronting the teacher on this, particularly letting on that we feel like half of this is a result of the fact that it's apparent to Anna the classroom is in chaos with this other kid in there, and that if he can do it, she can do it too. But instead, there are just 4 weeks left in this class and we've decided to use this as some kind of learning lesson for Anna (and us). Call us naive, fine. But we're using this short remaining period to try to teach Anna that just because the kids in her classroom act like that, doesn't mean she can too. We're using it as a way to teach her not to follow, and that it's not acceptable to act like a little brat. In the real world, you don't jump off that bridge because the village idiot did. OK she's only 4 but she's impressionable all the way around. She gets it.
We'll see if she implements it :)
Incidentally I Started up Spin class again this morning after 3 weeks off the bike. I think I'm drained today now for it. And I am still around 12lbs heavier than I was this time last year. Who knew all that exercise would make me add 4 lbs. to where I Started out trying to lose. Oh well, it's so insane I'm beyond comprehending those kind of numbers.
Of course first thing before spin class the buzz on the news station and a text from my mom was that Osama bin Laden was killed. And that's the extent of any of that discussion for the day. Strangely, it was not of much talk around any water cooler or anything else for that matter. My personal thoughts: yay I guess but I'm not sure it will have much, if any, impact on stopping the massive terrorist cells over in places that hate us. These days they're probably younger, bigger, and more bad ass anyway than the old fogie Bin Laden was. I think it's part of the world we live in. But hopefully this will bring some closure to the 9/11 families at the very least. I'm not sure. I frankly just don't know.
In matters I do have a better (somewhat) understanding of...last week I kept getting reports from Paul that Anna's afternoons at school were not good reports from her teacher, and that the evenings weren't much better. Complete with knock-down, drag-out fights with Paul and then apologies. But it's like she was pushing buttons on authority and I was sure that when I got home to have a talk with her about how it's better to be a good person, yadda yadda yadda, that she'd recover and move on. So we had a good little discussion. Or so I thought.
Our take on part of this is that there are a few holy terrors in her class who are FLAT OUT AWFUL in terms of behavior. We've seen first hand the effects it has had on the otherwise good kids in the class. They see this little jerk getting away with murder and the best behaved kids pull that same crap right in front of my eyes. Both Paul and I have told them if they keep it up we're telling their parents! Anna's teacher does very little to actively squash the madness from this one particular brat who instigates fights and chases and overall poor behavior from others in the class. And Anna is I think picking up on the fact that this brat gets away with it and so it's time for her to test the water.
The thing is she gets her little butt into trouble at home for this, and at school the teacher tells us of the latest crap she's pulled and does little more I'm sure during the day to check Anna on it at school. So once home, the fun stuff and activities get taken away for that. Last week she lost some privileges with Paul. Tonight she lost going over to TJ's house to play while I was teaching (instead she did time at the clinic with daddy). She totally hated losing out on the fun, pitched a sad, sad fit, promised to behave tomorrow and it seemed to hit home but I guess we'll see how tomorrow goes at school.
The thing is we've thought about confronting the teacher on this, particularly letting on that we feel like half of this is a result of the fact that it's apparent to Anna the classroom is in chaos with this other kid in there, and that if he can do it, she can do it too. But instead, there are just 4 weeks left in this class and we've decided to use this as some kind of learning lesson for Anna (and us). Call us naive, fine. But we're using this short remaining period to try to teach Anna that just because the kids in her classroom act like that, doesn't mean she can too. We're using it as a way to teach her not to follow, and that it's not acceptable to act like a little brat. In the real world, you don't jump off that bridge because the village idiot did. OK she's only 4 but she's impressionable all the way around. She gets it.
We'll see if she implements it :)
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