Summertime, summertime

Our usual spring gloom has lifted, and summer has at last arrived. With it, a couple of awesome things - today, the start of my summer schedule which means sleeping in another hour, and this weekend, discovering that after seven years I can finally enjoy the pool with the boys. I’ve hardly stepped a toe in the pool in all these years I’ve had small  children; finally I feel like the boys are big enough/pool savvy enough to be able to safely be in the pool with just me there. Water wings help them doggy paddle around, and they’re getting more and more comfortable putting their heads under water. Summers are going to be dramatically different from now on.

On the last day of school I wrote the dismissal time down wrong and was sitting at home when I got a text from the after school pick up lady saying Bobby was crying and wondering why I didn’t pick him up. This after days of telling him I was going to pick him up on his special last day. Ughhhh. I felt terrible. Hopefully the ice cream we got later made up for it.

The next day a group of us got together at a local park as a little kick off summer celebration. I chatted with the grandmother of one of the nicer boys who always comes to the school functions, and she told me a harrowing story. Apparently the boy actually started kindergarten the year before but they pulled him out of school because the teacher abused him - kicked him repeatedly while he was sitting on the floor, and apparently has been known to slap and pinch other kids. According to her, police have been called, but all the kids swear nothing happened; this teacher refuses to have assistants in her class or to allow parents in the classroom. I was horrified and am still shaken by it. The poor kid, and the other kids-! I’ve seen this teacher and I’ve got to be honest - she’s got the crazy eyes. I’m so glad Bobby dodged that bullet! However, I still have Theo to worry about. If I find out he has been assigned to her class I will do everything in my power to have him transferred - even if it means keeping him at his ETK school for a second year. There is no way I’m exposing him to that! I had an abusive, shitty kindergarten teacher, so HELL no.

We are going to have one of Bobby’s friends over next weekend. Having other kids over is WAY out of my comfort zone, but I know it’s something I’m going to have to get used to.

In mother news, we got a hold of her building manager in Rio and he said he just saw her and she just got a food delivery. So, she’s hardly in a heap on her floor. She ignored emails from my sister and cousins and friends; she is just isolating. This may have been another in a series of false alarms. It does become a boy who cried wolf situation after a while.