Ever been so tired emotionally that you just don’t think you can keep it up anymore? That’s where I was.
Yesterday afternoon Ethan told me that he had had a problem at school with a teacher. This is a PE teacher who has some serious issues and is not being asked back next year. My mom had a recent run in with her and apparently that sent her off gunning for Ethan. That is over simplifying it, a lot, but I’m so worn out that I just don’t feel like dredging up all the details.
So I ended up on the phone with this woman who alternated between insulting me personally and saying things like, “you’re attacking me” and “you are just being mean” every time I reminded her that I wasn’t calling to hear about her church youth group or what she felt were her numerous other good deeds, I was calling to discuss the issue with my son and find some sort of resolution.
She admitted to referring to her students as “turds” but felt this was perfectly fine because she didn’t call my son a “turd.” She told me that she wasn’t coming back next year and already had another position so there was nothing I could do to her. Not that I was threatening to do anything, but she was obviously making a show of the conversation for whomever was in the room that she kept laughing, mocking me, and repeating (albeit entirely manipulated and out of context) things I was saying to.
I’ve never in all the years I have been having parent/teacher conferences, including all my years as a student, witnessed a teacher behave in such an inappropriate and unprofessional manner. It reminded me of arguments I had with my girlfriends in junior high.
She kept saying that I had a problem with her because my mother had a problem with her a couple of weeks ago, then she would repeat portions of the conference between my mother, the school counselor and herself.
When I wasn’t completely dumbfounded by the sheer amount of stupidity and lack of basic communication skills I was busy redirecting the conversation back to the situation at school and Ethan.
I’m apparently going to have to really watch out for her… she’s definitely has some sort of persecution complex that borders on sheer paranoia. She has no problem lying and does it with very little effort, it’s absolutely appalling. The situation is resolved now, but I have to worry that she’ll be looking hard to nail Ethan for just about anything now.
She’s never been a very good teacher and I wasn’t impressed with her behavior or conduct last year. This year she spent several days allowing the kids to listen to ipods and text msg (when both items are NOT allowed on school grounds) while she laid in the gym floor after announcing she had a kidney infection but had taken too many days off (she won a trip to Las Vegas) and couldn’t take any more.
Still, the conversation was emotionally draining because it’s hard to try to communicate with someone who has the maturity level of her peers, and by peers I am referring to all the 8th grade girls she hangs out with during lunch and after school because the adults on campus apparently don’t want much to do with her.
After all was said and done… I ended up home alone last night because Mike and Ethan were off doing something. The dog knocked something down in Ethan’s room and I swear it sounded like something coming through the window which sent me into a mass panic, the neighbors next door (after the house has been vacant for MONTHS) were doing something in their driveway and smacked something into the side of our garage, which again managed to scare me half to death.
In between calls to school and being scared out of my mind, I was chasing around the resident toddler who managed to get the lid off of a childproof prescription bottle… all pills are accounted for, thank God. She dumped over a container of change, stood up on a laundry basket and fell over dumping the laundry and herself into the entertainment center.
By the time Mike got home my nerves were absolutely shot. It didn’t help that we went to bed bickering at snapping at each other.
In short, it was just another day of being mom.
I’m so glad it’s Friday.
