I dig seagulls. I dug this one through the slat boards of a lifeguard tower.
My middle girl is doing great (and sends effusive thanks for the gum wrappers!). Thank god for the right doc/pill/time combo. She feels so good right now she's talking about trying out for the soccer team, which would make me an official member of the club I have been an honorary member of for so long now - soccer mom. On the same hand, things are going very well for oldest girl, who got into all the classes she wanted to and is having a blast learning her chosen field.
On the other hand, my son has a bad sub (who will be gone soon as mediocre teacher on maternity leave comes back) and a new bus driver this year. This new driver showed up at our place ten minutes early and got loudly angry with my son because he wasn't ready to go. He didn't get angry with me, mind you. I ran out there and asked him to hold on, told him my son (who I then had to rush through a procedure which has a necessary order to it) was on his way out. The driver just smiled at me and didn't say a word. He waited for my son to get on the bus and for me to go inside, then he went off on my son.
Now, my son has been taking that bus for several years and we've never had a problem. My son gets up at X in order to have enough time to watch his show and eat breakfast before he gets ready in time for the bus. He has to watch the show - it's how he transitions from the idea of 'home' to that of 'school' and without it, he would have a very hard time. So he gets up at X, watches the show, gets ready for school, we meet the bus on time and this has worked for years.
Enter new bus driver who doesn't want to parallel park in front of our place on busy street. He shows up early and wants my son to be ready and instead of getting in MY face, the stupid son of a bitch waits till he gets my kid on the bus and has pulled away to go off. Coward motherfucking coward sack of shit. Coward piece of mother fucking dog shit on my shoe.
Between that and the teacher who is new and needs to be reminded how to handle the kids she has presumably already been trained to handle and my son is having emotional meltdowns. I have to be very careful how I proceed from here, because I have learned that if I piss off a teacher (or a doctor, or a bus driver) they won't say anything to me, they take it out on my kid.
How then to respond? How to gently get the idea across to teacher and bus driver that my son has someone looking out for him, someone not always nice and more than willing to get your job if you hurt him without saying I'll get your job if you hurt him, especially this early in the year? With a full year ahead of us, I have to make friends with these virtual strangers, make friends and project respect for them when so often all I feel is contempt for their ineptitude. It has to come off as me understanding there has been a misunderstanding and being terribly willing to come to an understanding, etc. Kissing ass is a skill I wasn't born with and one which I have had a very hard time trying to perfect.
I enlisted the help of his homeroom teacher (who I have great respect for and with whom I have developed a very good relationship, thank god) in dealing with the sub and called the school to help deal with bus driver. They reassured me they would not use my son's name, contacted the bus company, found out that the bus driver had broken any number of rules the day he went off on my son and gave me the assurance that the driver will be dealt with.
That's great, as long as they keep my kid's name out of it. Otherwise, what will happen is mom takes son to school from now on. In a perfect world, I would be able to trust that any adult charged with taking care of my child would be decent and fair and kind, but this is not a perfect world and sometimes, it's easier just to do it yourself than to trust in the kindness of these virtual strangers.
