The school day was weird, and got more weird at the end of the day when I had my meeting. Mrs. Johnstone started nicely by saying there had been an issue on Thursday. She said we needed to figure out a way to move on from this. She stated everything correctly and even said that Mrs. Telford had apologized and tried to make things right. The teaching assistant insisted I followed her out of the room and was yelling at her. She also said I told her she didn’t know how to do her job. Clearly our perspectives were different. She never relented and didn’t apologize for the part she played in the situation. She would not accept my apology. Itwss decided we would move forward and at least be professional with one another. It was so disheartening to think that a grown woman couldn’t accept that I may have done or said something that I shouldn’t have. It was also upsetting that she didn’t see the part she played in this issue. So I’m finished with her for sure.
Jack had swim squad after school which meant we had to stay until after 4 pm. On the way home from school we dropped Stuart at the club. He had a meeting about the new menu at the club. I came home and fed both kids, then attempted to put Millie to bed. She’s at a very difficult age right now. I really hope these teens years are not always difficult. Wait! She’s still 5 years away from being a teen. Wow! Jack went to bed before Stuart got home. Since Stuart did a good tasting at the club he wasn’t hungry when he got home. We were in bed just after 9 pm. These first few weeks will for sure be early nightts for us.
Monday morning I got into school and took the extra brownies I had made for the Favorites party. I had enough for all the teachers and teacher assistants in my year group. Even the teaching assistant who can’t forgive me decided she would have one. Maybe she will forgive me one day. After school I helped with the basketball club. It was really fun. It’s just girls and they are Year 5 and Year 6 girls. Once we left school, because Millie had behaved so badly after school, it was decided that she and I would not go to the rugby club for Jack’s rugby practice. She wasn’t happy, but her attitude may kill me.
Stuart decided not to train so he came home after Jack’s training. Lara and Brian came over for a bit as well to ask us if we wanted to go for a hotel stay in Dubai. We decided against it as we aren’t terribly keen on leaving the kids for the evening. Plus, we are both still a bit overwhelmed with school at the moment.
Tuesday after school we had our parent meet and greet. I only had 5 parents. The further up the school you go the less parent there are. This is mainly because they’ve heard the speech and don’t care to hear it again. Once that was over we headed home. When we got into the house Jack insisted I sign his school planner. It was then that I discovered Jack had no idea how to use his planner, nor had he been writing much in it or doing the homework he was to do. He had actually forged my name in the first week of the planner. I was livid. After a shout or two in his direction, I finally sat with him and we talked through his responsibilities. We both cried and I told him I would help him figure out what he needed to do so we could sort things out. This growing up thing is hard on everyone.
Lara and I had decided we would start walking at night since we were struggling to get our lazy butts out of bed in the mornings. We started Tuesday evening. It seemed to work better as we were able to talk about the stresses of the day.
Wednesday morning we got up and talked through what Jack would do when he got to school. We told him if school didn’t start becoming a priority his sport activities would start being taken away. He went and spoke to his house tutor who told him he knew Jack had forged my name, but wanted to see if Jack would fess up to it. I call total bullshit on that. I think the Senior School has a bit to answer for. Unfortunately the teachers there are not elementary teachers, yet in so many ways these children like Jack are still very young and needy. I feel many meetings with teachers coming my way. Initiated by me of course.
After school we got home to the maintenance man coming to fix the water heater. He turned the hot water back on, or so I thought. In the end he didn’t and we would have to call him again on Thursday. When the maintenance man was finished Millie and I headed to the supermarket. We shopped as quickly as we could and then headed to get petrol. The car was nearly out of fuel. We got home and unpacked the groceries, cleaned the children, fed the children and then Stuart and I watched Dirty Dancing once the kids were in bed.
Thursday couldn’t be over early enough. At the end of the day I found out that my student whose answer to every question last year was ‘potato fork’ was coming back. Although I have the most children in my classroom, I told them I wanted him back in my classroom. I loved that kid, although most days he drove me bananas.We left right after school. When we got home, Stuart started to cook. The Raals came for dinner. Carel is Millie’s teacher. He is from South Africa and his wife Alex is from England. They have three of the cutest little girls. Ava is 5, Ivy is 3 and Una is 2 and talks all the time. They are adorable. We had a lovely evening, but when they left Millie was irritated as the little girls had ‘destroyed’ her room. I helped her to clean up and reminded her that they were much younger than she was and weren’t as good at tidying up.
Friday we were up and I worked on my lessons for next week. We headed to the club for Jack’s birthday swim party.
Our cleaner, who also waits tables at the club, put these balloons up for Jack. They say Happy Birthday Jack. It was so sweet.
The pizza, chips and cake were delicious.
He had invited boys from his rugby team and from school. He was so excited. Jack had requested that his friends not buy him a gift but consider just giving him money as he was saving up for a big item. He wants to buy either an iPhone X, and Apple Watch or a Go Pro. So we said that was fine. All of his friends gave him a card with money. His friend Zayed, who is the grandson of Sheikh Tahnoon, who rules Al Ain, gave him the equivalent of $270. That pretty much solidified his savings and now next weekend we will be going to Abu Dhabi to make his purchase, but he still hasn’t made his final decision.
After the swim party the kids, Cathy and myself headed back to our house. We ordered burgers from Hardees as soon as Stuart got home from the club. The Rugby World Cup started on Saturday so the matches were all being televised in the restaurant. He had stayed to watch the first two matches. Sean came over a little later and then we just watched Michael McIntyre on YouTube for a while. Everyone was gone and we went to bed. It had been a full day in the sun. Jack was sleeping over at Ian’s and Millie had passed out in our bed and we had to move her to her bed.
Saturday morning Stuart was up at 5:30 am. I woke up but then went back to sleep until nearly 8. I worked a bit while Stuart went back to the club to watch another rugby match. We will be in Rugby heaven for the next month at least.
When he got home we headed to the store to get Jack a gift. We were going to make up the extra money he needed for his new phone, but since he got plenty of money for his birthday, we needed to get him a gift to open on Sunday. We also got donuts for his birthday breakfast. When we got home we loaded everyone up and went to the club for the South Africa versus New Zealand rugby match. The All Blacks beat South Africa by quite a bit. We stayed for a birthday party and Jack had a moan about staying, unfortunately. I ended up grounding him from his PS4 for a week because of his behavior.
Once we were home the kids showered and Millie stalled as long as she could to go to bed. She was finally in bed just after 7. Jack went at his normal time and then Stuart went to bed. I fell asleep on the sofa as I do all to often. We would be up early the following morning to celebrate Jack’s day of birth.
No comments:
Post a Comment