Finally Friday!

I made it through another week in Englewood. Hurray! Today was relatively uneventful, which is a good thing! D.J. had a decent day, which is great because I was too tired to deal with any real problems today. He had a couple of incidents here and there, but nothing that was really upsetting. He had to be taken off the rug again at rest time, and I had him come sit next to me behind my desk while I worked. A few minute later, he says to me, "I'm stuck." I ignored him, because he's not supposed to be talking during rest time. He said it a couple more times, so finally, I looked down at him, and he held up his feet to reveal that the laces of his two shoes were tied together. Apparently, he got a little bored! Then, he tried to tell me someone else did it! What a character! Naturally, I busted him out on it right away, and he didn't even bother trying to sell me on that story. I told him he'd better figure out how to untie it, since he did it, and that actually kept him occupied for the remainder of rest time. When rest time was over, though, I couldn't get the knot out, so he decided he would just cut the laces apart. Whatever!

To be completely honest, little Miss A.W. has been more of a thorn in my side the past few days than D.J. I mentioned last week that I had her brother 7 or 8 years ago when he was in kindergarten. She's really a pistol. Her only problem is that she is the single most spoiled little girl I've ever come across. There's a huge age difference between her and her next oldest sibling, so she's basically been raised as an only child. As the mother of an only child, I can attest the fact that they are generally very spoiled. But she is to the extreme! She is the bossiest little thing you've ever met. When she's not bossing people around, she's tattling on them. She basically doesn't think any of the rules apply to her. She has lost her 'end of the day treat' almost every single day, so I'm hoping the message sinks in pretty soon. Today she really ticked me off when we were doing math. I had the kids using these plastic links to count and pattern. When they finished the chain I asked for, I had them put it around their necks, and I took pictures of them one table at a time. Well, while I was helping another child, A.W. decided it would be ok for her to pick up my digital camera and play with it!! I wanted to smack her! When I told her mom at the end of the day about it, her mother was furious, and started reading her the riot act. Naturally, A.W. started crying, and then I felt bad! My logical/teacher side was thinking, "Good, hopefully she'll never do it again." The mommy side of me felt bad that she was crying. Damn my mommy side. I immediately hugged her, and told her I wasn't mad, but I don't want her to EVER do it again, and that she needs to start following the rules. What a wuss I am! OK, I guess I'm not the bad-ass I pretend I am.

Well, I haven't said more than 5 words to the Big Cheese this week, so I'm going to let that count as today's positive thing. It's Friday, I'm exhausted, and I still have to help my son with 2 projects tonight before he goes to his dad's for the weekend, so I'll be signing off now. I'll leave you with today's quote:

We cannot hold a torch to light another's path without brightening our own.
---Ben Sweetland

Have a great weekend!