Soooo. . . . .

I once again tormented our practice administrator to rearrange my schedule to be able to attend the Back to School Ice Cream Social at Wicoff Elementary School this afternoon, and

a)  Thea spent at least an hour this morning having tears and angst over having to visit her new school;

b) having 71 lbs. sitting on one's lap to be comforted eventually will make not one but two legs go numb, more so because another 35 lbs was trying to get in on the lap action;

c) 96 degrees is 96 degrees, even if there is a bit of shade;

d) an ice cream social, in my mind, is not those little cafeteria cups of chocolate/vanilla ice cream that were probably manufactured when I was in elementary school, circa 1968;

e) Thea is in the largest of the five 2nd grade classes, which is a really brilliant decision on the part of those who make that type of decision, a new child coming from a private school who has never been in a room of more than 13 or so children, genius, pure genius;

f) her teacher did not make a brilliant first impression in her welcome letter; numbers below ten should be spelled out, even I remember that little composition factoid, and I wasn't won over by actually meeting her as she seems to have few skills for drawing out a shy child;

g) did I mention it was 96 degrees?  And there were a few hundred noisy children, and their parents and siblings?  It was like being at Chuck-E-Cheese, if Chuck-E-Cheese was relocated to Hades;

h) and despite two potty trips before leaving for the event, Micah sounded the "I have to go potty" alarm; I found an officious looking person carrying a clipboard and asked her where the restrooms were and was told, "Oh, you'll have to find the Dr. Wellborn (the principal) because the building is not technically open."   You. Must. Be. Joking.  An event with several hundred little bladders running around and there is no provision for restrooms?  Really?  And I'm supposed to find a man I've seen once four weeks ago out of a crowd of 400 to 500 people while dragging around one child who doesn't want to be there and another doing the pee-pee dance?  Thank you very sparsely. My irritation with this place deepened about a dozen notches.

i) I went to talk with the woman manning the Girl Scouts table, and she wanted a completed contact form and to have the parent check off a volunteer position box; I'm not even sure if my child is interested and she wants commitment;

i) and even though the event was only an hour, Thea was begging to leave by 2:30 pm, and I could not really see much of a reason to stay.

Thus ended our first encounter with the larger Wicoff community. 

The only good thing to come out of it was that a boy who went to kindergarten with Thea will be in her class, and Thea perked up slightly when I told her she could speak Chinese with Brett and no one would know what they were saying.

Beach Babies

Random photos of a vacation in progress. . . . .

Boys at the Beach

I wish I had pictures or video of tonight, but it actually was sort of nice just to be in the moment.  Micah and I were the advance troops heading to the beach house to get set up for everyone.  Thanks to horrible traffic, we made it to the real estate office at 4:50 pm (it closes at 5 pm) to pick up the keys.

We just had gotten the car unloaded when Shannon and Willi came over.  Willi is about three months older and several inches taller than Micah, but four years old is four year old, and boys are boys.  They were in competition over toys, racing through the house, playing outside and actually helped me make up a couple of the beds - and then they rolled and bounced all over it.  Fortunately the boys seemed to enjoy each others company and I actually got to enjoy being around another grown-up after four or more hours of "Are we there yet?" from my traveling companion.  (Note to self:  Next time put the Thule on the CRV, it holds up to 35 lbs - I think he'd still fit.....)  The balloons they give to children when leaving Grotto's were a nice incentive for Micah (they only give them to kids who eat well....another fabulous moment of emotional blackmail.)

After dinner, we went to the boardwalk for frozen custard.  Thanks to parking karma and a residential parking permit, we got a spot one block from Kohr's.

After we were back from the boardwalk, Micah and I went to the grocery store, with every other vacationer trying to get a jump on laying in supplies for their week at the beach.  I think we've got most of the basics covered - at least we won't starve for the next couple of days.

Steve just called, the rear guard is arriving in the next few seconds.  Yeah!  Family week at the beach starts now.  Boy passed out on the sofa, he was holding out to see his Daddy, Thea and Oma, but sleep finally won.

The humidity here is making wonder how the BAHA will do.  I remember the hearing aid dehumidifier, for a change.

Tomatoes on the Brain

 A co-worker has had a bumper crop of grape tomatoes and has been bringing the excess to the office.  I can't resist, and have eaten enough to almost make my self ill.  Mostly because I've been using salt a little bit more than I should.  I have got to stop before I swell up like a tick.

It's one of the few reasons I like NJ:  Jersey tomatoes.

Finally the Weekend!

Glad this week is over.

Today was the day that I finally got my Amazon gift certificate from QuantiaMD.  Unpacking all the books from the move with more to come still when the storage unit is emptied and also with having gotten rid of quite a few books prior to moving, the lightbulb finally went off:  I have more books than the average person and they take up a lot of space and they are damn heavy to haul around.

So before lunch I checked my email, found that the gift certificate had finally been processed and off to Amazon I went to buy a Kindle.  Unfortunately, Kindles are on back order and the shipping date for today's orders is September 10.  I am excited to have something that can have a stack of books queued and waiting to be read, though the  whole delayed gratification stinks.  Having just finished Leslie Chang's Factory Girls: From Village to City in a Changing China, I am picturing what will become my Kindle being assembled and tested in a generic electronics factory in a city like Dongguan by some young woman who may have left her home at a very young age to go to work, live in a factory dormitory and who is constantly looking to move on to the next, better job.  I just hope she's not daydreaming as she assembles mine because I did not purchase the extended warranty.

Meanwhile the kids finished the week at Princeton Friends' Camp.  It was Greek Gods week, so the camp held an Olympic games.  Thea's team (Team Hera) was ahead on Wednesday when I picked them up, but today at dinner she said that Team Hera lost.  One more week at camp, and then the countdown starts for the school year. . . .

Thea will be in second grade at Wicoff Elementary School just down the road from home, teacher is yet to be named (and subsequently Googled). There will be five second grade classes this year.  Micah will be in the integrated preschool also at Wicoff.   The four-year olds attend the afternoon preschool session; the district has half day programs preschool and kindergarten, which is just perfect for a family with working parents (not).  So whereas last year Micah logged an hour on the road, but spent a full day at Summit and then an hour to home, he will now go to Beth Chaim's preschool in the morning, get picked up by the school but there and transported to Wicoff and then at 2:50 he will ride the bus back to Beth Chaim for aftercare.  Yes, the West Windsor-Plainsboro school district does not have aftercare available to preschoolers.  One more reason to further expand my burgeoning dislike for the district.

What this means for Micah is that in terms of distance he will be within a much smaller geographical area, but Micah will likely spend just as much time on the road as last year.

And once more I am beginning to wonder why the hell did we move?

End of the Week Photos

Zizo Soccer Camp ended today.  By bribing Thea with having Chinese food for dinner, I got her to pose with the group for photos.  I should have thrown in a pack of Pokemon cards so she would smile.

With Coach Zizo

Micah, photographed by his sister

Micah, photographed by Thea

Thea, photographed by Micah

It's a clownfish life for us,

it's a clownfish life for us,

in the water we play games,

soon everyone will know our names,

it's a clownfish life,

bloop, bloop.  

The kids are back at Princeton Friends Camp for the next two weeks, so we haven't heard the last of the songs from community yet.

Why I really despise the school district we live in . . .

. . . for participating in killing the Princeton International Academy Charter School and its Mandarin-immersion program for the 2010 school year:

On Friday, Steve took Thea and Micah to the playground at Wicoff Elementary School to burn off some energy after he picked them up at their camp programs.  Also at the playground was a grandmother and her grandson, the grandmother did not speak English. She however did speak Mandarin.  Steve pushed Thea to talk with her, and the woman seemed impressed at Thea's Chinese - and Thea spoke to her about Micah's hearing aid, his surgeries among other things.

Thea has been in Mandarin-immersion since mid-2007 at Ying Hua.  If all was right in the universe and good always triumphed over evil, the Plainsboro Zoning Board of Appeals had some backbone, and the West Windsor-Plainsboro School District didn't have a $100,000/year salaried public relations hack (when it doesn't yet have full-day kindergarten), Thea would be starting in second grade at PIACS and her Mandarin-immersion education would go forward uninterrupted.

Instead, and despite PIACS being put on a one-year fast-track for opening in Fall 2010 by the NJ Department of Education, the Princeton Regional and WW-P school districts have decided that they want no further charter schools opening in their respective domains and put a significant effort forth to stop the process.  (For this year.)

PIACS is re-grouping to open in 2011, but its charter school application is for Kindergarten through second grade, so unless the application can be amended to include additional grades, Thea is still out of luck since she will be entering third grade in 2011.

And to add to Friday's warm-fuzzy tale of Thea and the Chinese grandmother, today when I picked her up at Ying Hua's, the Wu Laoshi (who has known and taught Thea in aftercare since her pre-Kindergarten days) told me that Thea was her assistant teacher today, helping the younger students learn to count.  (While we were talking in the car on the way to pick up Micah, Thea spoke proudly of how smart 'her' student was and how quickly the student was learning.)

All of this adds up to my blood pressure hitting the boiling point at the sabotaging of my child's education.

Thanks to the WW-P school district, the Plainsboro Zoning Board of Appeals and all those uninformed souls who chose to believe the misinformation campaign waged against PIACS.  If I could sue you or otherwise make your lives miserable, I would.