15. No means No!

What another day at work. I'm blogging now at the end of the day so I don't accidentally forget while WoWing it up tonight, but today was insane. This afternoon at one point I had one of those out of body experiences and saw myself in a movie - I stopped and put a hand to my head while ten 6 and 7 year old kids were all asking for my attention at once. I can just see the blurring, the voices of "Ms. Livermore? Ms. Livermoooooore!" in the background. Man. Barb was "sick" today, and she was supposed to have a sub, but I guess they couldn't get one or something because she definitely didn't. Then I got a call from the office saying that my usual Friday volunteer wouldn't be in again until December because she's now on crutches. Ouch. In both senses. So that leaves Tuesday AND Friday with no morning volunteers, and now that art's done, I'm getting a buttload of kids coming to me in the afternoon too. I felt so awful the whole time cause kdis come in and are either standing in line for ten minutes at a time or sitting there with their hands up for 5, waiting for me to go check their work. But what am I supposed to do?? WHY did both orange and yellow have to be sent at the SAME TIME this morning! And figures the one morning that there's pretty much no badges up on the badge board because instead of staying an extra 15 minutes like I usually do here yesterday afternoon to put up badges, I went home on time to play some WoW. Usually I ave time in the morning to go add badges to the badge board too, I didn't think anything of it. This was the first morning I had kids coming to me about no badges. That was intense.

Of course later, Mary, one of the other paras was just like "Why didn't you tell them you were full? Just send the kids back if you're overloaded." Heh. Oops. Duh, right? Well, I don't even know if that would work, because every time Barb tries that, the teachers are all "no, they're not, go back". Poor kids. I don't mind the afternoons as much because then I can at least have a little more easy-going conversation with the kids. JK, one of my favorites, brightens my day every day.. He comes on in to do Spelling Blaster every afternoon and hell, I don't even have to do anything with him. I give him a smile and a nod, he goes on back to his computer and just opens the program up and gets going no problem. It's brilliant. Plus the kid's just a cool guy. I used to play catch with him on the playground at recess and his mom volunteers every Wednesday morning - she's a pretty cool lady, so I guess it makes sense!

I was definitely in a Mood after lunch though. DST (Super Sweet Teacher is now Disturbingly Sweet Teacher) catches me while I'm handing out phone messages and asks me if I've taken pictures to send to the ita foundation people yet. What? Pictures? When there's a newsletter coming out in a week and a half, a play being put on in the same amount of time, you're sending me all thirty of your kids at once for 20 computers and I was supposed to be taking pictures since you mentioned it briefly as a 'what if' in passing yesterday afternoon AFTER making me send and format and edit your e-mail??

I said No.

And then I walked away.

1. Daddy, our baby's gone...

As I start off this blog, I'm not really sure what it'll become. I have a LiveJournal, but it's full of emo and rants and things very personal that I'm not particularly wanting the world at large to see. But I wanted to try NaBloPoMo for a month now that I've got a job and things to actually talk about every day besides trivial online drama or my own little mind. So I decided to start anew, with a blog rather than an LJ.

So anyway, I'm now working in an elementary school as a paraprofessional - Colony 1 computer tech. It's fun! I feel like it's my first real adult job - hell, I even get insurance! And the kids call me Ms. Livermore. I'm officially an Adult. Colony 1 is Kindergarten and 1st grade so I've gone from working with middle schoolers and high schoolers at the summer camp to the tiniest of the tiny. It's different - crazy - but not in a bad way. Just different. I've adjusted well enough, I think, instead of saying "Holy Crap" I've forced myself to say "Holy Cow" etc.

One thing I've found is similar whatever the age group, though - Parents. As horrible as a kid can behave, the parents take an entirely different skill set to deal with. Some are great! They volunteer and help with all the kids and have senses of humor and low and behold - their kids are usually great too. But there are the parents who either think their kid is God's Gift to the world and can do no wrong, so their kids end up being spoiled brats who don't think they need to follow the rules everyone else does. OR they're clingy, nosy, and hover around when they should really be letting us do our job and end up with oversensitive, babied children who are used to special treatment. It's ridiculous. We have a boy in our colony whose mother volunteers, which is great and all... but I never see her with a child that's not her own. She just follows him around all day! He comes outside late to recess, and if the kids do, they're not supposed to be able to go up to the big playground, they're supposed to stay back on the small one with the kids who chose to because they've missed the bell to go up. Teaches them to be on time and not dawdle getting their stuff together or in the lunch room. He comes out late, so we say he has to stay down, and his mom's all "Oh, I'll just take him up..." Lady, our inconvenience isn't the point here. We're trying to teach the kids the importance of being on time.

Then today, he comes in to play computer games, which the kids are allowed to do in the afternoons IF they have all their work done and have a computer pass. Well, they said that the substitute didn't know where the computer pass was, so that's all well and good, I set him up on a computer - and his mom follows him in and sits down next to him to play together. Bleh. I want to eyeroll a little bit but go on with my work when later it's time for his gym class, so i tell him it's time to stop and go to gym - he proceeds to have a fit if his mom won't come with him, which she won't because it's gym. But the fact that because his mummy wouldn't go with him he decided that meant he just didn't need to go - he said he was going to go home early with her and that gym and music weren't important. I winced. What an arrogant little turd. He's the type who argues with us over everything, and I know it's because of this. I hope he ended up going without his mum and if not that he doesn't get a bloody grade. It's ridiculous! You'd think parents would be easier to deal with, but the fact that you have no ability over them, can't hold them accountable - as bad as a kid can be, you have the power to do something about it. Parents know they can get away with it all... and I've come to really detest the ones who do.