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must be the neighborhood
Aug. 7th, 2008 01:39 pmThis morning I walked Casper to kindergarten (after a nightmarish night of child-tending and general awakeness, and hauling her little sack-hound ass out of bed at 7am for the first time in, well, possibly ever) and met some neighbors, and the dad of the family turns out to be the long-time manager/lawyer/advisor of REM. So of course I had to come home and look him up, and of course I have been terribly earwormed with "Radio Free Europe" ever since.
mr. flea is getting a little paranoid about the extreme friendliness/nosiness/gossipy nature of the neighborhood. It is a little funny to meet the manager of REM and find that he and his wife already know about you (your name, ages of your kids)! But they do live across the street from the twins' grandmother, so actually I knew about their 5 year old daughter, too.
The drop-off went okay. Casper was fine, found the classroom herself, and seemed normal - cautious at a new experience, but generally self-assured. I signed her up for after-school, which runs 2:30 to 6 and is only SIX DOLLARS A DAY. Her teacher seems to be the last-minute hire, and is newly minted and newly married. I got this from another mother in the class, who was having a restrained freakout in the hallway (out of the view of teacher and class) about the fact that Between The Lions was on in the class at drop-off, and Demon Television, and "the kids are ready to learn, and she hasn't got her head in the game," and "crayons and paper, all she needed was crayons and paper." None of the other classrooms in our cluster had the TV on, and most of them did have crayons and paper out, and our teacher did seem a little more concerned with paperwork and forms than with the kids, but that seems more like first day new teacher jitters than anything to freak out about. I'ma wait and see how things develop. I agree it would be nice to have a more experienced teacher, but let's not judge this one on the first 5 minutes of the year, eh? (Also, her outfit was better today - capris and a cotton blouse and sneaker flats.) And, incidentally, Between The Lions is a formal part of the curriculum, and it was off at about 5 minutes after we got there, when kids were still coming in.
mr. flea is getting a little paranoid about the extreme friendliness/nosiness/gossipy nature of the neighborhood. It is a little funny to meet the manager of REM and find that he and his wife already know about you (your name, ages of your kids)! But they do live across the street from the twins' grandmother, so actually I knew about their 5 year old daughter, too.
The drop-off went okay. Casper was fine, found the classroom herself, and seemed normal - cautious at a new experience, but generally self-assured. I signed her up for after-school, which runs 2:30 to 6 and is only SIX DOLLARS A DAY. Her teacher seems to be the last-minute hire, and is newly minted and newly married. I got this from another mother in the class, who was having a restrained freakout in the hallway (out of the view of teacher and class) about the fact that Between The Lions was on in the class at drop-off, and Demon Television, and "the kids are ready to learn, and she hasn't got her head in the game," and "crayons and paper, all she needed was crayons and paper." None of the other classrooms in our cluster had the TV on, and most of them did have crayons and paper out, and our teacher did seem a little more concerned with paperwork and forms than with the kids, but that seems more like first day new teacher jitters than anything to freak out about. I'ma wait and see how things develop. I agree it would be nice to have a more experienced teacher, but let's not judge this one on the first 5 minutes of the year, eh? (Also, her outfit was better today - capris and a cotton blouse and sneaker flats.) And, incidentally, Between The Lions is a formal part of the curriculum, and it was off at about 5 minutes after we got there, when kids were still coming in.