"Um...I meant...."

Suddenly, Table 2 erupts into a cacophony of "ooohhh"s and "oooooo"s and "I'm tellin'!!"

Me: WHAT is going on!?

Table 2 (in unison!): M is cursing!!

Me: M, I hope that's not true.

M: (wildly shaking head)Uh, no, no! I, um, I just, um, I meant to say 'bitch.' (He then proceeds to shake his head, kinda like when you clear an Etch-A-Sketch) Um...yeah...(then he just kinda looks at me, defeated)

This all happened as we were preparing for dismissal. So after helping 32 babies put on and zipper their coats, tie their scarves, put on their gloves/mittens and hats, put on their boots....wait, where the hell was I going with this? Oh, yeah, after helping them all get ready, we started lining up, and I pulled M to the side for a second. "Were you trying to say 'pinch'?" "YES!" The look on his face was priceless!

OK, so New Principal never had anyone come to cover my class so we could talk about The Great Divide (as I keep referring to it as) so nothing was done today. I have a sinking feeling that the lists are just going to be made without my input. The plan, from what I understood, was to make the lists today, so that letters can go home tomorrow, and the 'new' classes can start Monday. (There is no school for students on Friday, because it's a professional development day.) Now, I have no idea how she plans to inform the parents of the switch.

I mentioned the possibility of children being taken out of my room in my newsletter last week, and again this week, so the parents wouldn't be caught by surprise when the switch happens. I had two parents come to me on Tuesday, demanding that their children NOT be moved out of my room. The one mom was pretty funny. She told me she planned to "march right into that office and tell them that I will pull A out of this school if he is moved out of your room!" I gotta tell ya, this is the same mother who pissed me off royaly when school started because she kept her son home on his birthday because she couldn't have a party in class. She did a few other things to bug my ass in the beginning of the year, however, over the past few months, we've come to an understanding. She actually wrote me a lovely thank you card at Christmas time to go with the pretty earrings that her son gave me. (She told me he bought them with his own money. Too cute!!) Anyway, I wish I had been a fly on the wall when she went in there!

I hope I have something to share with you tomorrow about The Great Divide. Friday, like I said, we have a professional development day. Unfortunately, I have to attend a workshop, along with about 20 coworkers, at the Double Tree Hotel in a suburb that's about 45 minutes from my house. I actually would rather be at school since I have lots of work to do. Report cards are due by tomorrow, and I'm not quite finished. I've been a DIBELing fool since we came back from break, and after doing my own kids, I had to do the kindergartners that are in the K/1 split class. I really don't want to start a full-on rant about this, but let me just say, that teacher had the balls to send me TEN kids to DIBEL today, during our rest time, which is when I DIBEL my own kids. I had planned to work on report cards today, since my kids have all been tested, but obviously, that didn't happen. Once again, I don't have a prep tomorrow, so I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to get them all done. In the ever-abundant wisdom on CPS, you can not access the system we use for report cards from home. They all have to be done at school. Have you ever heard of anything so stupid? I feel a rant coming, so I'm going to move on.

I need to get going anyway, since the groomer just called, and Buster is ready to be picked up from his Spa Day. I need to go straight from the groomer to my girlfriend's salon, for my own beautification project. I have a feeling Buster is on the winning end of this one! ;-)