Californiablonde
Well-Known Member
It's been awhile since I have been to this site due to being on summer break and having a nasty virus on my computer at home. Normally I come here from my computer at work but I still have two weeks of summer vacation, so right now I am borrowing my boyfriend's laptop. Excuse me in advance for any typos or punctuation errors as I am not used to this keyboard yet. I just wanted to give a little update on all of us.
difficult child finally finished summer school, thank God, but barely made it. Her teacher is a hard *ss and is very obviously not used to difficult children. difficult child had a little tantrum in front of him the first week after she found out how much work she had to do. She screamed and hollered after the teacher told her that her first week of work was incomplete and she wouldn't be getting any credit for it. She yelled at me and told me she didn't give a f*** about graduating and the teacher was so shocked that his mouth dropped open. Getting difficult child to get the work done was like pulling teeth. Summer school is independent study over here meaning that I had to push her to do the work at home and she would turn it in once a week. Getting her to do the work was next to impossible. Finally the teacher relented and accepted partial work and agreed to give her credit for the class. She was also supposed to take PE but she refused to do the required writing assignments so she failed and will have to take an extra semester in her junior year. difficult child says she's fine with that but I know come her junior year she will be complaining. Of course that's her problem and I am going to sit back and let her suffer the natural consequences. I am just very happy she managed to pass the English class.
As for easy child he is doing well and has suddenly hit puberty full force. His feet seem to have doubled their size in the last few months, his voice has deepened quite a bit, and he is starting to get a few pimples. He stayed with me for two weeks this summer and we had a great time going to the zoo, a water park, and the county fair. I was a little sad to see him go but financially I couldn't afford to take him longer. Last Monday I had jury duty and I suddenly got a text from his dad "telling" me I need to take him back to live with me. He says that having to take him to daycare before school then pick him up after work is getting to be a hassle. I was incredibly upset. He has only had him since April, and these are things he should have thought about before insisting on taking him in. I have had to take not one but two kids to before and after school care while working full time and I managed for 8 years. When asked why his wife, who doesn't work and has kids that are already grown and out of the house, can't take him to school and pick him up after, was told that's not an option. easy child says that all summer she has done nothing but sleep in till noon and play games on the computer. So she thinks that because easy child is not her biological kid, she isn't obligated to do anything for him.
I am in no position to take easy child right now otherwise I would have agreed. There is no on site afterschool daycare in the city we now live in, and I would have no way of transporting him to an afterschool program. And our place simply isn't big enough. I moved into a one bedroom apartment and now that my kids are teenagers it would be inappropriate for them to share a bedroom. There simply isn't enough room, and his dad has a four bedroom house. To take him back I would suddenly have to move. I told his dad that right now I can't do it, and he is incredibly p**sed off at me. He has daycare for my son at the school he attends and he has a lot more room so I don't know why he is so stressed about having my son, who is the easiest kid on this planet. It doesn't sit well with me to have easy child living in a place where he is resented so I am considering moving again by next semester to take him back in. Right now money is an issue and I don't have even close to enough to pay for a deposit on a new apartment so I will have to save money. I am just angry that his dad impulsively took him in and now says he can't handle it. Other than that easy child still loves his school and is happy where he is at.
As for me, I start work again in two more weeks and I am terrified. The first two weeks back to work are hell. Every year it is my job to call all the parents/friends/family/relatives of the kids who never made it to school and find out what happened to them. The principals are all breathing down my neck because they need to get numbers on how many kids will end up attending for the year. Phone calls give me incredible anxiety. I have about a hundred phone calls to make every day for two weeks straight until the no shows are eventually dropped due to lack of attendance. I dread this every year. I know I will get through it like I always do but it's still two weeks of nerve wracking anxiety and I hate it. I am also nervous about starting back because I will be finding out if my supervisor got the job she applied for at another school. Part of me is hoping she got the job due to her previous behavior towards me. The other part of me hope she stays, because in my mind the new supervisor may be worse.
My current supervisor has me call all the parents of the truant kids about once a month. That one day a month is usually hell on me, as I stated previously phone calls give me an incredible amount of anxiety. But at least it's only one day a month. Some attendance supervisors want phone calls to be made to all the absent kids every single day. I couldn't handle it if that is what my job would require. I am hoping my new supervisor, if I get one, doesn't require me to make daily phone calls. If that does happen, I will start to hate a job that I currently love. And I've had jobs I've hated before and I was miserable and full of anxiety on a daily basis. So right now I'm trying to think of the best and enjoy the rest of my vacation. Summer school is over with, thank goodness, so now difficult child and I will have nothing to do but relax and enjoy it. So that about sums up what the summer has been like for me. Just wanted to say hello to everybody and give an update.
difficult child finally finished summer school, thank God, but barely made it. Her teacher is a hard *ss and is very obviously not used to difficult children. difficult child had a little tantrum in front of him the first week after she found out how much work she had to do. She screamed and hollered after the teacher told her that her first week of work was incomplete and she wouldn't be getting any credit for it. She yelled at me and told me she didn't give a f*** about graduating and the teacher was so shocked that his mouth dropped open. Getting difficult child to get the work done was like pulling teeth. Summer school is independent study over here meaning that I had to push her to do the work at home and she would turn it in once a week. Getting her to do the work was next to impossible. Finally the teacher relented and accepted partial work and agreed to give her credit for the class. She was also supposed to take PE but she refused to do the required writing assignments so she failed and will have to take an extra semester in her junior year. difficult child says she's fine with that but I know come her junior year she will be complaining. Of course that's her problem and I am going to sit back and let her suffer the natural consequences. I am just very happy she managed to pass the English class.
As for easy child he is doing well and has suddenly hit puberty full force. His feet seem to have doubled their size in the last few months, his voice has deepened quite a bit, and he is starting to get a few pimples. He stayed with me for two weeks this summer and we had a great time going to the zoo, a water park, and the county fair. I was a little sad to see him go but financially I couldn't afford to take him longer. Last Monday I had jury duty and I suddenly got a text from his dad "telling" me I need to take him back to live with me. He says that having to take him to daycare before school then pick him up after work is getting to be a hassle. I was incredibly upset. He has only had him since April, and these are things he should have thought about before insisting on taking him in. I have had to take not one but two kids to before and after school care while working full time and I managed for 8 years. When asked why his wife, who doesn't work and has kids that are already grown and out of the house, can't take him to school and pick him up after, was told that's not an option. easy child says that all summer she has done nothing but sleep in till noon and play games on the computer. So she thinks that because easy child is not her biological kid, she isn't obligated to do anything for him.
I am in no position to take easy child right now otherwise I would have agreed. There is no on site afterschool daycare in the city we now live in, and I would have no way of transporting him to an afterschool program. And our place simply isn't big enough. I moved into a one bedroom apartment and now that my kids are teenagers it would be inappropriate for them to share a bedroom. There simply isn't enough room, and his dad has a four bedroom house. To take him back I would suddenly have to move. I told his dad that right now I can't do it, and he is incredibly p**sed off at me. He has daycare for my son at the school he attends and he has a lot more room so I don't know why he is so stressed about having my son, who is the easiest kid on this planet. It doesn't sit well with me to have easy child living in a place where he is resented so I am considering moving again by next semester to take him back in. Right now money is an issue and I don't have even close to enough to pay for a deposit on a new apartment so I will have to save money. I am just angry that his dad impulsively took him in and now says he can't handle it. Other than that easy child still loves his school and is happy where he is at.
As for me, I start work again in two more weeks and I am terrified. The first two weeks back to work are hell. Every year it is my job to call all the parents/friends/family/relatives of the kids who never made it to school and find out what happened to them. The principals are all breathing down my neck because they need to get numbers on how many kids will end up attending for the year. Phone calls give me incredible anxiety. I have about a hundred phone calls to make every day for two weeks straight until the no shows are eventually dropped due to lack of attendance. I dread this every year. I know I will get through it like I always do but it's still two weeks of nerve wracking anxiety and I hate it. I am also nervous about starting back because I will be finding out if my supervisor got the job she applied for at another school. Part of me is hoping she got the job due to her previous behavior towards me. The other part of me hope she stays, because in my mind the new supervisor may be worse.
My current supervisor has me call all the parents of the truant kids about once a month. That one day a month is usually hell on me, as I stated previously phone calls give me an incredible amount of anxiety. But at least it's only one day a month. Some attendance supervisors want phone calls to be made to all the absent kids every single day. I couldn't handle it if that is what my job would require. I am hoping my new supervisor, if I get one, doesn't require me to make daily phone calls. If that does happen, I will start to hate a job that I currently love. And I've had jobs I've hated before and I was miserable and full of anxiety on a daily basis. So right now I'm trying to think of the best and enjoy the rest of my vacation. Summer school is over with, thank goodness, so now difficult child and I will have nothing to do but relax and enjoy it. So that about sums up what the summer has been like for me. Just wanted to say hello to everybody and give an update.