JuJuBee

No Child Left Behind, Unless We Forget to Mention it

Ok, I KNOW. Two posts in one day, JuJuBee must be smoking some sort of something over there, blah blah yadda yadda. It's just that, something is bothering me. I'm here to see if this is something that would also bother you. I don't necessarily feel like I need to be justified in feeling bothered by this, but it's nice to have some sort of agreement from the webernet masses that I am indeed not crazy, or irrational...or even maybe just being a bitch. Not that I would consider the webernets as a voice of reason or sanity, but YOU, yes YOU are a nice normal person. So...

We've known for awhile now that our LittleJuJu has been having some speech problems. Nothing major. Your typical "R" issues and "F" being confused with "TH" sorts of issues. Not a problem, very common, blah blah. So the school's speech pathologist calls me last week to let me know that LittleJuJu's teacher had come to her expressing some concern about the "r" sound and asked if she could fit him into her schedule one day a week. Ok, cool. I'm glad he will be getting the help he needs. Not sure why I haven't heard from his actual teacher regarding this issue, but whatever. Of course I don't mind, go forth and fix the "R" problem! Hurray!

So then we get a letter (in the mail) from the school's principal explaining that LittleJuJu has been recommended for some extra help from the Academic Intervention Services (AIS)  and enclosed are three different  instances where he will be needing help, two seem to be speech and one math. There are three different levels of assistance available ranging from low-intensity to high-intensity. TWO of the THREE instances mentioned are calling for high intensity help.

Why the fuck are we just now hearing about this? There has been no communication from his teacher, be it in writing or orally that she has had any concerns that his work was less than acceptable. We thought he was pretty damn good at math. We have never seen a test or a worksheet proving otherwise. Hey, I'm not too proud to admit when my children need help. I'm glad that there is a service available to him and hopefully we can nip this in the bud before it gets worse, but why? Why did the teacher not talk to us about it? I feel extremely let down by the school district. We heard over and over about what a great school he was attending. We had a bad feeling about this teacher when we met her at open house last month, and this just...I don't know. I'm so upset about this lack of communication from her.

Am I overreacting? What would you do in this situation?

Wait, We Sell Guns Too. Did Ya Need One of Those?

I'm not a fan of  WALM-ART. I go there only when I need to. Unfortunately the need to go there has been twice in the last four days. Needless to say, I have had my fill and am WAY over my WALM-ART quota for the month. Maybe for the year.

I stopped in (if by "stopped in" you mean I dragged both children and my huge uncomfortable belly into the store after spending 20 minutes circling the parking lot for a space that would not cause me to walk my huge belly farther than a 3 mile distance...why the hell can't they have just ONE of those "Expectant Mother Parking" spots when they have 2000+ handicap spots??) to pick up a booster seat for my car. I've been breaking the law and driving around with LittleJuJu in the backseat secured only by a seat belt for too long now. His booster is in Mr. JuJu's car and I'll be damned if I can ever remember to grab it and put it back into my own. So what the hell, I buy another one and we both win.

So we go in, I find ONE booster seat in stock, throw it in the cart and make my journey up to the checkout to pay and hopefully get out before the kids start their kid crap:

Can I have this? I NEED this! Oh my god, Billy has this, can I get this? YOU ARE NO FAIR. I'm hungry, can I get a candy bar? WHY? You are so mean to me. I never get anything anymore. I bet BabyJuJu can have something, she gets whatever she wants. OHHH, can I have THAT? WHAT? No? Fine. I am not eating my dinner. I mean it. I don't care. Can we just GO? I hate this store.

YEAH ME TOO.

So after we get home and do homework, eat dinner, play with some toys, watch some TV, I notice that LittleJuJu is playing with something. It looks like a credit card. So I go over, thinking that it is one of the gazillion fake promotional cards that we get in the mail and I give to him to play with. I grab it to check and to my HORROR, I see that it is a WALM-ART gift card. I scan my brain trying to place it. Hoping and wishing that there was maybe one tucked away in the desk or in a drawer that I had forgotten about and never used. I couldn't come up with a logical reason that my son would have this on his person. I asked where it had come from.

"I found it."

"You FOUND it?"

"Yes."

"Where did you find it?"

"I dunno."

Ok, so there is my answer. He stole it. My son stole this card from a store. Great. Peachy. I am raising a felon. Not even a SNEAKY felon. He was laying on the couch just PLAYING with it, right in front of me! Like, LA-TI-DA....Lalala, looky what I've got! Wee, so much fun playing with this card, it feels so smooth across my lips...look how I can bend it just so and shoot it across the room...Lalala.

My little shoplifter. Who thinks that because it was not a toy or candy, that no one would mind that he took it...and it was laying on the floor. I mean really, MOTHER. The FLOOR.

So on top of the two visits in four days, I had to make the pilgrimage BACK into retail hell and find an employee who seemed to know where she was (no easy feat) and force my son to admit to what he had done and apologize. Do you know what that bitch said to my son as he handed her the card?

She said, "Oh it's OK, Honey. Thank you!".

After I picked my jaw up off of the floor, I grabbed his hand and rather loudly told him that it was indeed NOT OKAY and headed out the door.

I'm just...speechless. Really.

Has your child ever stolen anything? How have you dealt with it? I'm thinking I would have loved if the security guard at least would have come over and scared the boy some. Nothing! She thanked him and said it was okay! I'm speechless.

Not Complete

I knew I would be enjoying the peace and quiet while the boy is vacationing with his grandfather (my stepfather) but I wasn't quite prepared to miss him so much already. I left him on Friday afternoon. It is only Monday morning. Someone explain.

Mr. JuJu and I attended a wedding on Saturday. One of his assistants married a lovely girl and they had a lovely reception with lovely music and lovely cookies. I'm sure the alcohol was quite lovely as well, but I wouldn't know anything about that. I'm also sure that the people who could find a babysitter were having a lovely time being child-free, but again, I would know nothing about that either. We took the baby along and believe it or not, she was an angel. She ate and smiled and flirted and danced and made it to 10 pm before we had to head toward the crib. It was a nice evening. I missed my boy. I kept thinking how he would be a perfect age to take to a wedding. He'd behave at the table and have fun dancing and make me laugh. So, all was not complete, but still fun. I managed to fit into a size 6 dress in my closet, and that my friends, a wonderful evening doth make.

 

For the Ladies (and men if they feel so inclined to discuss)

I had a discussion today with a friend...she and I have different views on an issue that is swirling around in her marriage. I told her I would throw it out there and see what comes back.

To the point without a lot of back-story and details and mess: Her husband called an ex girlfriend yesterday and while that in of itself is certainly not a big deal, he kept it from her. As in, she knew, she gave him an opportunity to say something about it and he flat out sorta lied. From there it went to, "Oh, you mean who did I talk to yesterday? Well, you didn't say 'yesterday'..."

It's not the first time this has happened.

Do you think she is justified in feeling somewhat betrayed, or is withholding information in your marriage and or relationship  not at all like lying?

Talk amongst yourselves...I've got a poopy diaper to change.

Another Blogger Baby!

Please go and welcome a new angel into the world! Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Jazzy!

Anthropophobia

God invented caller I.D. for a reason. I personally could not live without it. I can't even comprehend picking up a phone without knowing who is on the other end. What if it is some ex-boyfriend that you don't want to talk to, or a sales call, or those annoying university calls begging for money on Friday evening at 8:59 pm? Isn't it just so much easier to let the machine pick it up?

Someone needs to invent a visitor I.D. We have one of those ugly steel front doors with a tiny peephole. You really have no way of knowing who is ringing the doorbell without looking through the peephole or sneaking a peek through the window beside the door. I can never look through the peephole because I feel like the person on the other side can see my eye and that freaks me out. I don't like to look through the window because it is obvious when the curtain is moving and the blind is separated by 1/2 inch, that I am indeed home and just trying to see who is out there. Why not just answer the door, you ask? Same reasons as above. I cannot say no to people and if you are a door to door salesman, chances are that I will buy something from you. I got this from my mother who once bought a Christmas tree from a traveling Christmas tree salesman who knocked on our door. We later found out that the trees were stolen. Better that I just pretend no one is home.

Last evening a man rang our doorbell. A hush fell over the house as we tried to decide whether to open the door or not. Mr. JuJu determined that the man seemed to be going door to door and that we should just ignore the bell. He was more than likely trying to sell us insurance or cleaning supplies that we don't need. Ok then. We quietly waited for him to go away. Once he left the neighbor's house and continued on up (or down?) the street, we found that he had left a pamphlet in our door with a personalized note hoping that we would be voting to re-elect him Mayor of our city in the upcoming November election. That's right. The Mayor was at our home and we hid from him.

I missed my chance to ask him why there weren't any black people living in our community.