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Oct. 19th, 2011 01:51 pmLast Saturday's soccer game was unpleasant. The weather was chilly, and the wind was strong. We were actually lucky that there was a game at all, though. The schedule handed out at the start of the season said that the game was to be at Southeast Park. At twenty minutes before game time, families from our team started showing up. We couldn't find the field. We couldn't find the referee. We couldn't find any sign of the other team.
The adults all stood around wondering what was going on while the kids played on the playground and the coach made phone calls. Right about at game time, the coach came and told us that the game had been moved to Tappan. We all hiked back to our cars and headed for Tappan. Most of us arrived about fifteen minutes after the game should have started.
I was concerned that the referee would simply cancel the game. Rec & Ed schedules a lot of fields fairly tightly, and a game starting at 1:15 is likely to be followed by one at 2:30. Fortunately for the team, there apparently wasn't a game after ours. We started late and finished late, and no other teams showed up to wait for the field.
After the soccer game, we went out to get haircuts for Scott and Delia. Delia'd been talking about cutting her hair for a while. I'd never been certain how serious she was about it, but I wasn't against the idea. When her hair is long, it's harder for her to take care of, and she won't let me brush it. She also has the sort of hair that, when long, looks unbrushed about ten minutes after brushing. Her hair now comes to just below her ears. I think the cut suits her (I'm not allowed to call it 'cute.' She hates that word). We're all still getting used to it, and I'm having trouble identifying her at a distance because I keep expecting more hair. She is already talking about growing it back out. We'll see.
From there, we went to Target in search of a new jacket for the girl. We found one, black, faux leather. Delia liked it in the store, hated it at home, then decided it was okay after all. We have no idea what was going on with that. I looked at jackets, too, but nothing was what I'm looking for. (I have a windbreaker and a long down coat. I want something midway between, something with some substance but that isn't all the way to a winter coat. Right now, I get by by stealing Scott's jacket when he's not using it and by layering a bright red fleece under my light blue windbreaker when I have no other options. It's moderately warm but quite ugly.)
Sunday, I did laundry. Scott did the grocery shopping and worked on Delia's Halloween costume (she's going to be Toph from Avatar: the Last Airbender). Delia had a friend over to play.
Nothing much happened Monday (except that teachers called Delia's haircut 'cute,' irritating her).
Tuesday was my day to volunteer in the school library. There's still a lot of shelving to do, so I was quite busy. The kids were doing their last day of the MEAP (state mandated standardized test). Delia's comment on the math section was that it was easier than she expected. I hope she did well.
In the evening, Delia had basketball practice. The coach has scheduled two practices a week for this week and next. Delia wants me to go away during basketball practice, but there's really nowhere for me to go. As the weather gets nastier, the notion of going home for fifty minutes becomes less and less appealing.
The school was having a town hall meeting that started halfway through Delia's practice. I planned to go to it, so I arranged that Scott would pick Delia up from practice. The meeting was sparsely attended but had more people than the last town hall I went to last year. I think this time there were as many parents as staff members, maybe even one or two more. This meeting was about PBIS. I forget exactly what the acronym stands for, but it's a program for encouraging and reinforcing good behavior in kids. A staff committee spent last year figuring out reasonable expectations for the kids' behavior, putting together a matrix by place within the school and listing expected behaviors in three categories-- Respect, responsibility and safety. They've got signs with listed expectations posted in various places in the school.
PBIS is state mandated. It includes giving little rewards to the kids who behave well. At various times throughout the day, teachers give out tokens for good behavior. A kid can earn up to forty tokens in a week. Each Friday, the kids can use their tokens to buy cheap little prizes-- hard rubber balls, stickers, finger puppets, that sort of thing. Any tokens they choose not to spend, they put into a classroom pot going toward some as yet unspecified treat for the class. The school is still working on figuring out things the kids will think are treats that also don't cost much money.
Today, I'm marking time. In about half an hour, I have to retrieve Delia from school so that I can take her for a flu shot. She is unenthusiastic, but I don't think she'll give me a hard time on the bus. The fact that it's raining is unfortunate. We're going to be walking a good bit, not to mention waiting for the bus. There's basketball practice again tonight. As soon as we get home from that, Scott's Babylon 5 game will start. I'll barely have time to think. I've just taken a lorazepam to short circuit the massive anxiety I'm feeling over the flu shot expedition. I hope it works.
The adults all stood around wondering what was going on while the kids played on the playground and the coach made phone calls. Right about at game time, the coach came and told us that the game had been moved to Tappan. We all hiked back to our cars and headed for Tappan. Most of us arrived about fifteen minutes after the game should have started.
I was concerned that the referee would simply cancel the game. Rec & Ed schedules a lot of fields fairly tightly, and a game starting at 1:15 is likely to be followed by one at 2:30. Fortunately for the team, there apparently wasn't a game after ours. We started late and finished late, and no other teams showed up to wait for the field.
After the soccer game, we went out to get haircuts for Scott and Delia. Delia'd been talking about cutting her hair for a while. I'd never been certain how serious she was about it, but I wasn't against the idea. When her hair is long, it's harder for her to take care of, and she won't let me brush it. She also has the sort of hair that, when long, looks unbrushed about ten minutes after brushing. Her hair now comes to just below her ears. I think the cut suits her (I'm not allowed to call it 'cute.' She hates that word). We're all still getting used to it, and I'm having trouble identifying her at a distance because I keep expecting more hair. She is already talking about growing it back out. We'll see.
From there, we went to Target in search of a new jacket for the girl. We found one, black, faux leather. Delia liked it in the store, hated it at home, then decided it was okay after all. We have no idea what was going on with that. I looked at jackets, too, but nothing was what I'm looking for. (I have a windbreaker and a long down coat. I want something midway between, something with some substance but that isn't all the way to a winter coat. Right now, I get by by stealing Scott's jacket when he's not using it and by layering a bright red fleece under my light blue windbreaker when I have no other options. It's moderately warm but quite ugly.)
Sunday, I did laundry. Scott did the grocery shopping and worked on Delia's Halloween costume (she's going to be Toph from Avatar: the Last Airbender). Delia had a friend over to play.
Nothing much happened Monday (except that teachers called Delia's haircut 'cute,' irritating her).
Tuesday was my day to volunteer in the school library. There's still a lot of shelving to do, so I was quite busy. The kids were doing their last day of the MEAP (state mandated standardized test). Delia's comment on the math section was that it was easier than she expected. I hope she did well.
In the evening, Delia had basketball practice. The coach has scheduled two practices a week for this week and next. Delia wants me to go away during basketball practice, but there's really nowhere for me to go. As the weather gets nastier, the notion of going home for fifty minutes becomes less and less appealing.
The school was having a town hall meeting that started halfway through Delia's practice. I planned to go to it, so I arranged that Scott would pick Delia up from practice. The meeting was sparsely attended but had more people than the last town hall I went to last year. I think this time there were as many parents as staff members, maybe even one or two more. This meeting was about PBIS. I forget exactly what the acronym stands for, but it's a program for encouraging and reinforcing good behavior in kids. A staff committee spent last year figuring out reasonable expectations for the kids' behavior, putting together a matrix by place within the school and listing expected behaviors in three categories-- Respect, responsibility and safety. They've got signs with listed expectations posted in various places in the school.
PBIS is state mandated. It includes giving little rewards to the kids who behave well. At various times throughout the day, teachers give out tokens for good behavior. A kid can earn up to forty tokens in a week. Each Friday, the kids can use their tokens to buy cheap little prizes-- hard rubber balls, stickers, finger puppets, that sort of thing. Any tokens they choose not to spend, they put into a classroom pot going toward some as yet unspecified treat for the class. The school is still working on figuring out things the kids will think are treats that also don't cost much money.
Today, I'm marking time. In about half an hour, I have to retrieve Delia from school so that I can take her for a flu shot. She is unenthusiastic, but I don't think she'll give me a hard time on the bus. The fact that it's raining is unfortunate. We're going to be walking a good bit, not to mention waiting for the bus. There's basketball practice again tonight. As soon as we get home from that, Scott's Babylon 5 game will start. I'll barely have time to think. I've just taken a lorazepam to short circuit the massive anxiety I'm feeling over the flu shot expedition. I hope it works.
