Day 6

Things have been....I don't know....odd (?)....at the Hell-Hole so far. I still only have 20 babies. Ha! ONLY!! If I thought it would stay that way all year, I would promise right here and right now to NEVER, NEVER, NEVER complain about the Hell-Hole for the rest of the year. But, I'm sure that's not the case, so I plan to continue my complaining ;-)

I have some interesting characters this year already. One of my boys came to me from a therapeutic school. WTF was his mother thinking?! Why, oh why would you take him out of that school to bring him here!?

Another of my boys has some serious issues. Developmental delays, for sure, among other things. His brother was in kindergarten a couple of years ago, and was in Dori's room. She worked her rear-end off all year trying to get this child staffed and into special ed to get him some help. She finally got him placed in a therapeutic day school, but his mother never took him. The mom used to come sit with him most days, which I think actually made it worse because he would pretty much do whatever he wanted and she allowed it. She very much babied him, and I see she's doing it with his little brother, too.

So far, she stayed in my room yesterday and today. His first day was actually Friday, and she didn't even bring him to class. His older brother, who I believe is in 6th grade, brought him. This baby then proceeded to scream bloody murder because he didn't want his brother to leave. He was screaming so loudly, that Big Cheese heard him all the way from his office and came down to see what the hell was going on. I know I've mentioned before that Big Cheese doesn't have much patience for this kind of stuff, so he immediately started yelling at this child. He then took him out of my room, and sent the brother up to class. I have no idea what he said or did, but about 5 minutes later, Big Cheese brought him back, and he seemed to be OK. At least for about 10 minutes. Then the screaming/crying started again.

I eventually had to have our security guard take him for a few minutes. He brought him back after a while, and things seemed ok for a bit. We went to lunch, then off to gym. Well, half-way through my prep, there's a knock at my door. I open it and this baby is standing there with his brother. Apparently D.B. took off out of the gym, which you may recall is on the 4th floor (!) and somehow, found his brother. So, his brother brought him to me! Well, I had just about had enough, so we all went down to the office so we could call mom. Naturally, no answer. Big Cheese happened to come in the office, and saw D.B. and asked what the problem was. I told him how he took off from the gym (which makes me wonder when the hell the gym teacher was gonna let me know about it...) and he told the brother to take him right back up there and bring him back to the gym. Yay, Big Cheese!

After gym, we were going to have quiet time, and D.B. started his screaming again. He kept trying to leave the room, and obviously I wasn't going to let that happen. He finally threw himself on the carpet, and then screamed/cried himself to sleep. Thank goodness! The rest of the afternoon went so smoothly! The rest of the babies were so funny. No one wanted to wake him up, so they were extra quiet, even during centers.

I realize this sounds like I didn't have a lot of patience for D.B., but remember that in between all this fun, I still had 19 other babies to take care of, assessments to administer, teaching to do, 100 bathroom breaks to take, all without any assistance. We don't have teacher aides AGAIN this year, so this is just really way too much to deal with for one person. Believe me, I would have loved nothing more than to take D.B. aside and talk him through his fits, and try and make him more comfortable, etc. But, how do I do that without ignoring the other 19? The answer is, you don't! Thankfully, I only have 20 instead of the usual 30, cuz then I'd really be screwed!

I found out today that this mom has 7 sons, and they are almost all this way. The talk around school is that she did a lot of drugs when she was pregnant, or more precisely, she just didn't stop doing them while pregnant. So very sad... D.B. has only been with me 3 days, so I'm curious to see how the rest of the year will go. Hell, I'm curious as to how the rest of the week will go, since Mom said she isn't coming tomorrow.

There are many other things I wanted to write about tonight, but I'm too beat. I actually was able to get up a few minutes early this morning and stuff my crockpot with deliciousness, so I had my sister, two nieces and my dad over for dinner tonight. I haven't cooked like this since probably before we opened the bar. (Chicken w/mushrooms, onions and diced tomatoes, steamed broccoli, cauliflower and carrots, tomato and basil salad, tossed salad, whole wheat pasta and the most delicious Butterfinger cake for dessert) Yesterday was my sister's birthday, and the Butterfinger cake is one her favorites, so this was sort of a birthday celebration, even though we all went out for dinner last night. Today is my mom's birthday, so we sang to her, even though she's in Italy. Then, my niece started crying because she misses her grandma! Ah, good times, good times...

Anyway, I have many, many dishes to do, so I'll tell you about the rest of the babies next time.

When teachers are mad, they don't blink.
---William, age 12