Rant #147: "Parent-azzi"

I've created a new word. "Parentazzi". It's a cross between a "parent" and the "paparazzi". Oh yeah. You teachers know where this blog is headed...

So I'm getting a mani and pedi the other day at the nail place next to my neighborhood. I frequent this little place. I don't dress up, I rarely have make-up on, and I'm usually one step above pajama pants and a cami. 

I'm sitting in the peace and quiet of 9:15 in the morn and a woman comes in. She seems to frequent the place as well...chatting with everyone, picking out her colors...just a loud type of lady. Well she sits down three chairs from me and proceeds to get her nails done.  My nail tech starts chatting me up, and asks where I work. In my normal tone of response when it comes to my work, I reply with a somewhat whisper..."------- middle school". 

"YOU'RE A TEACHER AT ------ MIDDLE SCHOOL?!?! Oh my gosh my daughter will be in 6th grade there next year!!?!" I smile and give the appropriate "oh how awesome!" response, as she yells at her daughter across the room in another chair that I may be one of her teachers next year. Awesome. Let's get the three other women in the salon involved as well. Everyone stare at the slummin' looking  "teacher" getting her mani/pedi on! Then the lady proceeds with the following questions:

What is your name?

How do you spell it? I want to write it down! (She types my full name in her ipad)

How long have you been there?

What curriculum do they use?

What is the schedule like?

Where do you live?

Do you live near the elementary school in ----- or on the outskirts of the neighborhood? (really!?)

Who else is teaching 6th grade? 

What are their names? 

Where are they from?

WTH?! When did Nancy Grace begin cross examination at my nail salon!?

After bombarding me with questions, she then feels comfortable enough with me to get down to the nitty gritty: Parentazzi complaints.

"I'm really excited about my daughter starting ------ Middle School next year, but you know what I don't like about the district?" No...but I bet you'll tell me! (I'm thinking this, as I smile)

She then proceeds to lecture me on evvvverrryyything she doesn't like with my district. Band, choir, electives, curriculum, bell schedule, and no athletics in 6th grade. I did feel useful as I schooled her on UIL rules (ahem section 1400(b)(3): No Interscholastic Athletic Competition Below Seventh Grade. No interscholastic athletic competition is allowed in any conference for teams in the sixth grade and below. EXCEPTIONS: Certain athletic exceptions allow sixth grade students to participate. See (2) above and Sec- tion 1478.) Thanks grad school! ;)

I listened to this woman for the next half hour. She complained about everything she doesn't like about the school district. I just give understanding head shakes as we teachers know to do, and we try to be great listeners. Meanwhile I'm trying to relax with my pedi, my hot pink flower bra straps are in full effect, makeup is nonexistent and bobby pins are holding my hair back. Dead sexy.

Then her daughter starts telling me about her 5th grade teacher and everything she didn't like about this person. I don't know this teacher, and I don't want to know anything. Apparently this teacher was mean and blamed her for everything. She wants a nice teacher. She asks if I'm nice and if I'm going to be fair. Will I be nice? I won't blame her for everything, will I? I doubt this teacher was mean. I'm sure some of the issues were brought upon herself. I say that because within this one hour I heard the mother say "shut up", "ass" and "what the hell" at least ten times in front of, or to, her daughter. Newsflash: your tween looks up to you as a role model lady. Good job there. #keepitclassy

Please stop. It's my ONE hour this week I've had to myself. I've been with my toddler son ALL week, hubs has been in Canada, and I want ONE hour of quiet, enjoyable pampering before heading back to my toy explosion living room and keeping my cutie yet active son from setting the house on fire. This mom/daughter duo need-ed-to-GO. (notice the intense syllabication there, expressing my complete frustration/head nodding)

I finally managed to use my semi-wet left pointer finger to obsessively text my friends on my cell for the next 20 minutes to make it appear as if I was super busy and couldn't really chat. I had a nice, relaxing ten or so minutes toward the end, and got up to pay. The mom then asked me how to spell my name again to be sure she had it right, because she's emailing the principal today to request me because I seem very sweet. Oh and she asked me for my principal's email too, and proceeded to ask me twenty  questions about my boss' life. Damn people.

Can't a gurl get pampered in peace?! I'm not even working yet. Teaching in my own neighborhood may be a little more difficult than I thought. 

Hey Zoe send me a big hat and some face covering shades...the parentazzi is coming.

Kyle's Craft Explosions o' Fun!

Now that Kyle is almost 18 months (OMG) we're getting pretty crafty here at the house! He's VERY active and it seems that coloring, crafts, anything of this nature seems to calm him a bit...it's awesome!

About a week ago we decided to try painting on the porch! It was our first time, so it wasn't perfect, but he sure had fun! We used flour, water and food coloring to make some paints. I used too much water as you can see, but Kyle didn't know the difference. He had a blast getting all messy! We attempted to use some white paper, but that lasted about 12 seconds. The paint washed off of the concrete...and baby...no prob. :)

Is that not the cutest face ever??

I've realized it's getting harder and harder to keep Kyle entertained. The other day when the weather was gloomy I was desperate for something fun to do inside. What did I do? Looked in the pantry. Beans...hmmm...

Yes, it was a huge mess, but he loved it! What toddler wouldn't like to play with a huge bowl of beans? He only tried to eat a couple before he learned not to do that. He isn't smiling here, but wow he was having the BEST time just making a huge mess! He was pouring the beans, sitting in them, touching, smelling them, trying to peel them, it lasted maybe 30 or so minutes! I had to continuously pick them all up and put them back in the big Christmas bowl (BTW, this isn't my bowl...if you recognize it let me know!) for him to play with all over again.

Now, THIS is by far my FAVORITE craft this week. We mixed water and corn starch, and it makes this totally weird, dry, slime gook stuff! It looks like it's dripping wet, but it's not! It's firm to the touch!

cornstarch, room temp water, coloring

This was shot just before he took his first taste of it...and it was not good! So, we got that out of the way early!

Kyle played with this for maybe 45 minutes...he loved it! We added different colors, cut it, mashed it, it was SO weird! I'm definitely doing this again on a larger scale. A huge pile of weird melting/but not really wet slime would be awesome! I took some cute video of him playing with the gook, but I haven't uploaded to our youtube channel yet.

He loved trying to swirl the coloring...we also used spoons, forks and spatulas to manipulate the gook!

We've also begun our daily coloring activity. I need to buy some white butcher paper, but until then he's loving his nightly coloring time on the coffee table...we just tape paper down and let him make his masterpieces! He even tries to copy my swirls and shapes now! Perhaps we have another artist in the family!? :)

So far, purple appears to be his fave. :)

So, I'm trying to get in 4-5 crafts a week until school/work starts in August. I'm loving how much Kyle can do now that he's getting a little older! This just gets more and more fun!

Next up...big box o' feathers and pompoms? Sounds fun!

Young Teacher Dreams: The Conversation

So yesterday as I'm sitting in a computer lab frantically typing up my org theory paper, two undergrads sit at the computers directly behind me.

As these two girls completely distract me from my work, I realize they're both education majors. They're both pretty young because I heard they haven't completed their student teaching yet.

Objective: To teach in a pretty, exemplary school :)

Over the next 45 minutes, I reluctantly listened to these girls' thoughts, suggestions and expectations for when they get a teaching position. One girl even mentioned her preference for Southlake or Northwest, because she WILL NOT teach in a "scary district with hard kids". Yeeeah...you do that. 

I'm sure most ed majors have this mentality when they're exhausted and trudging through the education courses, hoping to see a light at the end of the tunnel, but it took everything I had not to turn around and yell "TAKE WHATEVER YOU CAN GET OR YOU'LL WORK AT A DAYCARE FOREVER". 

I listened to them talk about expectations, hopes, and their understanding of education. Yes, they're probably 19 and 20, but it was crazy to listen to them. It took my entire being not to turn around and talk to these girls, hug them, something. I can't remember exactly how the conversation went down, so I'll just list all the comments I remember. Brace yourself if you're a teacher:

I hope I get a school where I don't have any duties. My friend is a speech path at --- ISD and she doesn't have bus or lunch duty. Eww I don't wanna touch dirty kid fingers! 

I want a conference period first thing in the morning. That's definitely a question I would ask a principal.

OMG I can't wait to use this cute BEE management system. I found it online and it's so cute. I'm going to do my entire room in a bee theme, and I saved all these pics of cute bee bulletin boards I'm going to do!

Yeah I can't wait to make cute bulletin boards and change them for like every holiday and season!

I really don't want to do the ESL certification. I don't want to teach kids how to speak English! Ugh...so not fair. I know it helps with jobs, but seriously, I'm not teaching ESL kids. I don't speak Spanish.

Yeah I was talking to my friend who wants to take a special education test too. Why would she do that? If you get certified in special ed then they'll put inclusion kids in your class! Stress!

What are you taking this summer? I can't wait until we work and we have summers off. Ugh I've been in summer school every year! I'm SO ready for summers off.

If we go to trainings in the summer though, you get them out of the way and you don't have to do any trainings during the year.
For sure.

Seriously, we work 24/7! At least when we get jobs the bell rings at 3:00 and the day is over. I mean, we'll have to stay sometimes for staff meetings and preparing, but not like business jobs!

I'm going to try and teach 3rd grade math. I hate literacy, it's way too hard with all the documentation, rotations and small groups. Math is so much easier.

Yeah I don't know how these teachers do those rotating learning stations in reading. I guess they spend like the entire first week of school showing them how to do it. 

I want to teach at ---- elementary in Westlake, where the crazy rich people live. I'm hoping to student teach there, because then I'll pretty much get a job there and like, all the kids are smart so it shouldn't be too stressful.

I think you get stipends for being on committees! 

I'm NOT working on weekends...those teachers are nuts.

I hope I get a principal that doesn't like, come into your classroom all of the time. My cousin's principal does these walk-through things lately where they come in with no notice and watch her.

At least we'll be off all the time for like, every holiday, while everyone else is working! 

I think I want to teach kindergarten. I don't wanna mess with grades and report cards. Plus, they're SO cute! I think that would be a good grade to start in, because ya know, they're kindergarten so it's easier curriculum and everything. 

RTI sucks, I hope we don't ever have to deal with that stuff. 

Probably not, especially if we get into Northwest or Southlake. Those kids are smart!

Dear baby Jesus, thank you for my restraint throughout this conversation. :)