Friday, February 19, 2010

Other people's kids

Since I am trying to become an educator, I do my best to have patience with all children that I come into contact with.

Even MY kids.

I try to see the best in all of them, and treat them accordingly.

That being said, there are some kids that I'd like to smack upside the head. Especially the one's who are jerks to my kids.

Not that my kids are angels all the time. Oh no, I have lost track of the amount of times that one or more of my kids have done something cringe-worthy or made me just /facepalm.

And before I plunge headlong into this rant, let me first say that I know part of this is due to the fact that I don't know other people's kids as well as they do, so therefore their behavior could be completely normal for them, or due to some other unknown factor.

The tween diva is in 4th grade. While I know things have changed since "my day" in elementary school, I was wholly unprepared for the selfishness, the cliquishness, the pettiness, and the all out "Mean Girls" attitude that I have seen from some of the kids whom she's gone to school with over the last 4 1/2 years.

She's been in two different schools in the same town. She knew almost next to no one from preschool who went to her 1st school. She made a few friends, but she's had the unfortunate honor of losing friends at the end of every year, due to them moving, just switching schools, or HER switching schools. As such, finding new friends has been difficult. Before this year, I could count on one hand the amount of times she'd been invited to playdates, parties and sleepovers - in 3 years. Between K -2 grade, she came home more often than not, crying over how someone wasn't her friend anymore or how someone said something really mean to her. Now, she also has quite a few social issues. She's socially immature for her age, and as such, can take things to the extreme. But, even I can't explain some of these things away with that issue.

As her current teacher put it, my daughter is just "on a different wavelength" than most of the other kids her age. She has speech, reading, writing, and social issues. But, she's not cognitively impaired. She has the dubious honor of being one of the first kids in her class to need a bra, and she's also one of the tallest kids in her class. Her shoe size is just two 1/2 sizes away from my own. I said she was 10, right? Yeah, you can see how this might become a problem.

With the exception of a few kids, she's treated like a virtual pariah by the rest of the entire grade. She'll come home and tell me about how some kid on the bus told her than he didn't want her sitting by him because she was weird. She was told the other day that using her finger to help her keep her place while she was reading was dumb, and it was bugging someone. She's been told (at a birthday party no less) that the reason why a particular girl was being mean was because "I never told you I liked you, so why should I be nice to you."

WTH??? Where are these kids getting their lack of social graces?? I know that kids have differences in likes/dislikes etc., and I know that every kid is not going to get along with everyone else. I've tried to explain this to her, and she understands that even though someone isn't her best friend, that doesn't mean there's something wrong with her.

Of course, try getting a sobbing 10 year old to grasp this when she's being called names for still liking Disney Princesses.

And the worst part is, while I want my child to grow up and mature like the rest of her peers, I don't want it to be because of peer pressure. It's a fine line parents walk when it comes to what they expose their children to: do we try to keep them at a lower level of maturity in order to avoid the questions we're not sure we want to address? Or do we assume that eventually they'll grow up so why not treat them as such now?

Since the tween is our oldest, I have no model to look back to, to make sure I'm doing the right thing. Both hubs & I are firstborn, and as such we were also our parents' guinea pigs. There are many times when I feel like I've failed her, in many different areas.

And the idiocy of other people's kids aren't helping matters.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Like nails on a chalkboard

I consider myself to be a pretty tolerant person. I don't hate any one group of people, or really any one group of anything. I may not love it, or understand it, but I don't hate it.

With the exception of the sound of people chewing food. Loudly.

I love most things about my husband. Even the things that I don't particularly favor, I can handle, because I love him. And I KNOW there are things about me that drive him up the wall. That's what a relationship is about: finding a balance.

That being said, there are times when I could just scream at him,"Will you PLEASE stop chewing your food like a g*ddamn cow???"

People are loud and noisy. It's just part of being a walking, talking, sentient being. We fart, we burp, we laugh, we cough, we cry, we blow raspberries on other people's stomachs. Some of these noises are pleasant, some are not, but necessary so we don't explode or die from our lungs filling up with phlegm.

So, when I'm sitting at the table, trying to read or study or even surf the Internet, and it's quiet..and peaceful..and my husband sits down with a bowl of something, and proceeds to chew it so loudly, I'm surprised our sleeping children aren't awakened by the jackhammering that his mouth is doing, needless to say I can get a little irritated.

And he wonders why I always have my earbuds in.

It's not like my ears are that sensitive or that he's extremely loud. I think it's just one of those things where it REALLY bugs me. Like bad drivers, or whiny children.

Come to think of it, a lot of shit bugs me.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Miss me? Yeah I thought not.

So...yeah.

It's been awhile.

I'm not even going to make up some wonderful, fantastic excuse. Cause I don't have one.

Suffice it to say, the last 6 months were abnormally stressful.

And let's leave it at that.

Things are better now...ish. I'm still very ready to yank all my hair out due to the amount of things I have on my plate, which are on the verge of falling off and rolling under the couch, never to be seen again. But, at least now it's only one of us who's doin' the yanking, instead of two.

I'm now the only one in college, as the hubby gradumacated last semester. But, I'm also now a full-time student, along with working more than part-time. And our kiddos still have things to do, places to be, etc.

To be honest, I don't know if I even need to continue this blog, as I doubt anyone reads it. But, I will most likely keep chuggin' along.

Because this is cheaper than therapy.