The past couple of days have been really quite... uneventful. No catering gigs, no substitute calls that I wanted to take. More on that later.
Pigupdate: The guinea pig seems to have grown. Which is good. She would only eat her pig pig pellets (not poops but the pellets for food) for a couple days but last night devoured a slice of apple like it was ambrosia of the gods.
She bit Jessica yesterday, not sure why, but we'll keep an eye on over handling her. Perhaps she was just sick of all the shit. I just heard her squeak from the next room. Not sure what she's up to but it is an hysterical sound. Yesterday Doug was holding her and got up to walk to the kitchen and she started screaming. I think she was afraid she was going to fall. But you should have seen the look on Doug's face... very funny.
I bought her a permanent little wooden house to live in, as opposed to a cardboard tent. She's moving up in the world. She will probably outgrow this before I know it. But for now, she digs it... safe and she can see. I'd like to see her climb through the holes and have fun, like the pigpigpigs in the book we got. But I doubt that'll ever happen.
I took her out of her pen yesterday while I was folding laundry and let her free range on my bed. I prayed the whole time she was doing it that she wouldn't piss on the comforter I'd just washed this weekend. She did really well, hiding under the folded clothes when they did an overhang off the pile. I'd move things and she would walk around, looking for another safe place, the whole time Kinger was stalking the sides of the bed. I wouldn't let him up, so he just walked around whimpering and wagging his tail. When he can't see her he gets really nervous and starts to cry.
Kinger is right up my ass everytime I go near pigpig. I'm not sure if he is jealous, or excited that he'll get a chance to see her, or perhaps just so neurotic that he thinks I'll forget about him if he isn't right on me. He's too big for that kind of neediness.
Doug and I had a heart to heart this morning about Geoff and me.
Once I go on full fledged unemployment, next week, it'll behoove us to take Geoff out of school for more than monetary reasons.
Up until now I've been getting paid what I was earning at my last company. The 60 days paid period ends this coming Monday. It will cost us 125 bucks a week to keep Geoff in school. I'll be pulling down perhaps 550 a week on unemployment. And working a couple days a week. It'd be better for Geoff to stay home with me financially.
He's been having a tough time at school lately, has been willfully disobedient, has been behaving very poorly. His teacher said he is distracting to the class and makes it so that they can't focus on the other children's needs and that's detrimental. So we're thinking it'd be a good idea to have one-on-one mom to boy ratio action on him for a few months, and then in the summer I can pick up catering gigs during the week... but for now it would be on Saturdays. I have to talk to Catering Man about that... April, May and June scaling back to just Saturdays. See what he has to say.
After I get back from Florida, probably the week after that will be Geoff's last week at this school until Kindergarten. We decided to send him there for kindergarten because they have a full day program, which rocks, and because it would only be a little more money than paying for before or after school care for him due to the fact that someone would have to watch him when he isn't in school here (half day programs are so lame). So he'll go back in September. I have to talk to the director and let her know when Geoff's last day is. Sigh. I feel that this is kind of a drag. I want him to go to school and be with the other kids, but he's being such a little brat and is making the lives of those around him a living hell.
I don't really want to give up substitute teaching. It's fun in spite of all the shit (and pudding) that I've had to put up with. But, even though I've been told I'm the bestest substitute teacher ever, I'd rather be the best mom. And doing this is the best mom thing to do. So we'll be tightening our belts for a while, through the summer at least. And praying for a very well paying good job for me in September.
We shall see what the Lord provideth. He's done it for us before, lead us to the right things at the right times. I'm certain it'll all work out.
I have Geoff home with me today because both kids have a doctor's appointment this afternoon at lunchtime. I am picking Jessica up early. I have some work to do on the site I'm building for the small company in Revere, as I have a meeting with them this evening. I have to prep dinner so it can be 100% ready when Doug walks in the door, we can eat, and I can go. Hopefully Geoff will behave for Doug. He was horrible for him last night while I went out with my girls from the old office. Speaking of which:
Only one of the girls from our former group couldn't make it. But here we are. Names are withheld to protect the innocent. But that's my fat ass in the middle.
Earlier in the entry I'd mentioned that I didn't get any subbing gigs that I wanted. I'll expound on that now. I got called to shadow a kid from the behavioral program, going to her classes with her, and spending the day with her. Now, I'm not sure about that. I've substitute taught four days in my life, and you want me to shadow a kid with behavioral issues. Don't you think I'm underqualified? "She's not that bad. She's hardly a behavioral problem at all." Oh, okay, goofy. Why's she in a program that requires she have a shadow for all her classes then if she's hardly a problem?
I declined the offer. No way. I don't have enough experience with these kinds of kids even though my own son might just be one of them. My training is nil, I don't know how to restrain a kid LEGALLY should I find myself needing to. I'd restrain them the way my husband taught me criminals are restrained by cops, tear their rotator cuffs by pulling their arms straight back behind them. They'll stop fighting when they feel the pull. Unless they're on crack. Then they'll keep fighting. But I don't know what to do if a kid freaks in school. I don't have the requisite skills to get her to calm down. I wouldn't know what to do or say. No. Not interested.
When a kid gets a sub, it's viewed as a free for all. They take advantage. I'm not getting in the middle of that scene. No thanks.
I am not sure they'll ever call me again for the middle school because I turned this gig down twice. But, if they offered subs free training on what to do and what to expect in certain situations, then maybe I'd be more inclined. But they just throw people in there. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article I'd linked to a couple days ago has the right to be shocked. I'm shocked too. Standing in front of a class of normal, well adjusted, slightly disobedient, wanting to test the sub's limits kinds of kids with a lesson plan prepared by a good teacher is cake compared to getting me involved with kids who might just go whole hog nutty and rip my hair out of my head.
Right now I'm allowing something very foolish to happen. Geoff took the guinea pigpigpig out of her cage and is sitting on the couch with her. I just heard her squeak, and thought she was in her pen. She's with Geoff. On the couch. She seems okay, but he keeps getting up and walking away which makes me nervous so I gotta wrap this up and go police. Perhaps a good picture or two will come out of this. Otherwise, I see a bandaid in someone's future.
Gotta run. bye!
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