6 posts tagged “school”

Well, today is the first day of school up here in the frozen northern wasteland called Canada. My oldest is starting grade 1 today (half day today). Which means I get 6 hours of time almost to myself for the first time in 5.5 years! Woooooo.

Don't get me wrong. I love my kids. I don't really want to be one of those parents on my facebook page who is constantly going on about every moment they get away from their children. I'm excited for my daughter, because I know she enjoys school (so far). And I get a little more uninterrupted time for work related stuff! Working from home is not easy with small children.

The other one will be starting preschool this fall, mon-wed-fri mornings for 2 hours. This week is just an open house / orientation meet and greet, and next week she has her gradual entry, then the week after that she starts her preschool officially. So that will then become 3 days a week with 2 whole hours to MYSELF!!! What will I do? Probably work... preferably nap! lol

Garden is going gangbusters out there. Tomatoes are ripening daily. And the deer like the taste of squash flowers... buggers. I dont think I am going to get a single pumpkin this year. I had like a half dozen flowers going ... before the deer ATE THEM ALL.

You can see the size of the zucchini I just pulled out of our garden. We've always managed to get nice ones. Other plants like pumpkin or potatoes are hit and miss every year, but these always do well. The hard part is finding enough recipes to use it in. I bake a lot of zucchini bread in the early fall.

And here is just what I have in the way of tomatoes in the fridge. There are still tons out in the garden. And this is even after I used a bunch in last night's dinner! Time to make soup today I think.

:D

This fall I am planning on canning as well. Can't let all this go to waste. We've been giving some away but still... the bulk of the tomatoes will probably ripen at once.

I need more coffee....

all for today!

I had this odd dream last night, that I can mostly remember. I have this project today that I need to compile and make installs for so that the company I work for can test out some bug fixes. I said I could do it before 2pm, which is when our Australia office comes online. I dreamt that it was noon and I had forgotten all about it and there wasn't enough time for me to get everything done and I was really really worried.

Anyhoo.

For some reason my alarm didn't go off this morning. I thought I had set it. So the kids came into my room at a little after 8am. And I usually get up a little after 7am. Well. We had to get dressed, hair brushed and some food in the kids within a 20 minute span so we could get in the car and I could get my oldest to school.

And when my oldest wakes up, from overnight sleep or a nap.. shes pretty much useless for 20 minutes. She isn't a morning person and she'll start crying if she has to do anything other than sit and watch a cartoon while she eats. I can't get her to speak words half the time. So you can imagine how fun that was this morning.

So now I am on edge thinking I have forgotten something else important!

First a little history.

My oldest is in Kindergarten, in an English class. Since I live in Canada, a lot of the schools offer French Immersion starting in Kindergarten or Grade 1. Both my brother, MJ, and I were in French Immersion since Kindergarten through to Grade 12 (Actually, I think MJ switched out in Jr High).

We registered my oldest a little too late last year, and the 2 French Kindergarten classes were full up. So she is in an English class. No big deal. One of the mom's told me about an informational meeting for parents to sign their kids up for French. And that she had her son on the wait list to get into the grade 1 french class. Apparently those who start in grade 1 develop at roughly the same rate.

So I went to this meeting last night, at 7pm. Lee suggested I take my youngest, since I was going to run to the grocery store after. I didn't think the meeting would be too long... but it went almost an hour and 20 minutes. The representatives from CPF (Canadian Parents for French) talked, the principal talked, a few of the teachers talked, and a couple parents talked, all bestowing the wonderful virtues of having a child in french. For those english parents who were on the fence, I'm sure it was all helpful. But since I already pretty much knew it all, I was just waiting to know where to sign. My youngest didn't do too bad, she wandered around, read some books (since we were in the library).

Well. The representative from the School Board talked last. And I found out that I basically have to camp out for 24 f*cking hours in front of the School District office in order to have a snowball chance in hell of getting my child into french. This goes for the parents of children who will be starting Kindergarten too.

The office starts taking registrations starting at 7am on April 1st. But it's a first come first serve, and they start handing out numbers, like in a bakery, the day before at 8am!!! Previous years, parents literally camped outside to get a spot. And this lady tells us that the parent who got the last Kindergarten space, got her number at 3pm the day before registration. Apparently we can't get our number and leave either. We HAVE to stay there.

Those parents who couldn't get their child into french went on the waiting list for Grade 1, I mentioned. And because the grade 1 classes are allowed to be a little larger than kindergarten, there are several open spaces for children. But when I asked the lady after the meeting about it, to see if I actually have to stand in line, she said that there were a lot of children on that wait list and all the open spaces are gone.

So ... since Im not a caring enough parent to forsee this and camp in line to get my child into french... she has to wait till Grade 6 when she can enter a new program called "Late French Immersion". That class, after a few years, merges with the "Early French Immersion" kids, and most do very well.

Regardless of all the crap I just mentioned... Me... standing in line from 8am March 31st to 7am or later April 1st is not possible. First I have to take my child to school on the 31st and pick her up. So I wouldn't be able to line up till after 11am. Then I have to sit there all day with 2 small kids??? Lee could take them home when he gets off work at 5. But he has to be at work at 7am, so I'd have to either leave, or he'd have to bring the kids to me when the Reigstration Office opens... and still get my oldest back to school at 8:40 am.

Oh, they do have this sibling registration thing too, which is new. Once you get your first child into french, then any siblings can automatically go into it. So I guess my youngest is shit out of luck too.

How the F*CK are parents suppose to DO this????

I remember our dad saying that when they went to sign me up for Kindergarten, the French Immersion program was just being introduced, and they needed to fill spots, so they asked if he wanted to put me in French instead of English. So he figured why not!

Nowadays, its the cool thing to do I guess, and only parents who really love their children would go this far.

In my opinion, that is no more pathetic than rich parents registering their child at conception for kindergarten because if they do not get into the right private, prestigeous, school right off the bat then they wont be able to go to the right schools later on, then university, then have a future.

I saw that on Law & Order and other New York based shows.

Or, how about no more pathetic than trampling another parent to get the last Tickle Me Elmo, or Cabbage Patch Doll.

So now I'm livid... This was just last night and I'm still pissed. I went to the grocery store after and it was the shortest shop I ever did. I didn't waste time browsing, just grabbed everything I needed (milk, bread, fruit... basics)

Not so much that my oldest can't get into french... but the whole evening of waiting and hoping to find out at the end that it's a f*cking 3 ring circus so your child can learn french. The french program is only 6 years old here too... as opposed to 28 years old where MJ and I grew up. And the district can barely pay the teachers they have, so there's no chance of having another french class added on to accomodate the demand.

So I guess It's up to me to teach her. I took french immersion for 13 years. I can still speak it and understand it, although I am rusty. But she does know a bunch of Spanish, thanks to Dora the Explorer. So I might get some spanish books and teach her more of that. If she wants to do french later on, then hopefully she'll already know 2 languages, because after that its suppose to be easier to learn more.

Phew...

That was my day.

Where's the beer.

I ask him why he made it snow so god dammed much over the weekend.

That barbecue was cleaned off yesterday morning. This is what it looked like this morning when I went to take my oldest to school.

My youngest wont walk in snow that is more than 2 or 3 inches deep. She starts to whine... a lot! So I opted to drag her on the sled which was harder than it sounded.

The roads were all plowed... onto the sidewalks, and no one had been on the sidewalks yet by the time we left for the normal 5 minute walk to school.

So we ended up plowing our own path, with our boots. I had to abandon the small wooden sled half way there (buried it in a snowbank to  hide it) because it was too small to properly plow a path. It kept tipping. I carried my youngest on my shoulders for half the walk.

When there was a beaten down path, I let my youngest walk on it, but since it was only wide enough for one, I had to walk in the deep, fresh stuff. The snow was up past my knees on the paths and areas that never saw plows, and halfway up my shins on the sidewalk here.

You can see my oldest in the above picture attempting to create her own path.

It took an hour round trip to get to a school I can see from my bedroom window.

I got a whole hour to rest when we got back before we had to go back out. I had to find new pants, and snow pants. We took the larger, longer, plastic sled, so I could drag my youngest again. It worked much better at carving through the snow.

I dragged them BOTH home on that sled, but it was all flat or slightly downhill. Someone had used a snowblower to clear about 60% of the sidewalks between our house and the school. On the downhill portion of the sidewalk I hopped on the sled and we rode the hill down. :) that was fun.

I hurt.

That was a total of 2 hours of walking/dragging/carrying

Not sure if MJ has as much snow as we do...

I would have drove, as it would have been faster, but the landlords haven't plowed and we probably wouldn't get the car far down our driveway. And I wasn't walking on the road that had been plowed, because there is just enough for 2 cars to pass, on the road past our place, and it's very busy at 830 in the morning. We wouldn't have made it 10 feet before being hit by one...

I sure hope more snowblowers come out before tomorrow. I'm not doing that again.
 

I got my oldest's first ever school photos. What a nut.

First one reminds of of one of MJ's early school photos

So my oldest has been going to kindergarten for over 2 weeks straight now... which means 2 walks a day to go drop her off and pick her up. Now the walk isn't that far, but it's on hilly roads,  both ways, and the first week I thought I would die each time I got home, especially since the worst hill is the first part of our driveway. This week it has been much much easier to do all the hills and I'm not crawling into the foyer when I get home.

But, I haven't weighed myself in 2 weeks. Honestly i am scared to get on it one morning and see that I have NOT gone down in any weight at all after 2 weeks. It may be too early to tell. I haven't tried to go for longer walks after I drop off my daughter because when I did that last tuesday-ish I ended up with a nasty migraine for 2 days. My legs were sore, and I think it traveled up my spine into my neck and brain. Probably my shoes, which are too tight and rub my pinky toes raw.

I got new gel-like insoles for my other comfy shoes and my feet are much better. Maybe next week I'll try walking further, pick up the mail on the way to or from drop-offs or pick-ups. That should add 20+ minues to a walk.

I might weigh myself tomorrow... see if there is ANY noticable difference in the needle on the scale.

Here's hoping