This last week has really put me over the edge. Mr. A is working a LOT. That would be enough to make me tired anyway, but the girls are generally acting like whiny, cranky little hellions. They are bored and picking at each other. I am bored and out of new ideas for activities to distract them.
There haven’t been any huge disasters, but every day there have been a handful of things that are irritating. All the irritations are piling up into one crabby mama.
Today, I think I found the last two straws. First, I accidentally deleted my blog. Thank goodness for Dawn, who patiently waited for me to stop sobbing pitifully before she fixed it without making me listen to the techno-jargon of how I effed it up in the first place. If I ever had any fleeting thoughts of wanting to delete my blog, having it disappear into thin air cured me of them immediately. (**sniff** Where would I be without my blog? All alone with two small maniacs and nowhere to complain, that’s where. What a scary thought!)
Then, I walked a form over to M’s soon-to-be school to turn in a form. That is when I found out that A) the first day of school only lasts 1.5 hours and I am required to be there the entire time, B) M will only attend ONE of the next two days because they stagger start C) There is some kind of parent orientation to Kindergarten but the office doesn’t know when or where it will be because it is being orchestrated by the teachers and D) they weren’t going to mail anyone about any of this information until early next week at the earliest!
I was outraged about the lack of information that was provided to parents who are new to the school, not so much for myself, but for parents who have to request time off their jobs in advance. And didn’t they school think that people might have to make childcare arrangements around that 1.5 day/only one of the next two days ridiculousness? Maybe they might need a little notice?
Not wanting to be the troublemaker parent, I just nodded politely and said “OH! That’s good to know!” about 15 times as the secretary kept telling me more and more bits of info that they should have already sent in the effing mail or mentioned back in the spring when we were there for the try-out-kindergarten day.
I will also admit that I was seriously bummed that I have to move back my Hooray-I-Only-Have-One-Kid-Left-In-The-House party back from the 27th to after freaking Labor Day. Seriously, that is like a whole extra WEEK.
I may not make it that long.
(ALSO, I know there are still some bugs with the blog. I am working on it. Please be patient. If you need to contact me before comments get fixed you can email me at amfamblog at gmail )
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I hear you about the school. Our public school is very like that. I used to think that they were working on the theory that most families have a stay-at-home parent who can drop everything and attend events. Now I think that they are just overworked and understaffed, and don’t get organized ahead of time. But it’s crazy, how on top of it we have to be to get information ahead of time, or at all. And it’s a good school.
Hang in there.
Sounds very typical, unfortunately. I feel like I don’t know most of what is going on at my kids’ school – and I am a teacher (in a different district)!
My oldest is moving up to middle school. At the end of July, I called to ask if a supply list would be sent home. “We’re working on it – in a couple of weeks.” – still hasn’t appeared. and “You can bring stuff in at orientation.”
“When would that be? I don’t remember hearing about that.”
“UMMMM – the end of August.”
“Do you know what date so I can keep that day open?”
“No – sorry.”
Last year, there was something on the school website about the “Kindergarden roll-in”. But there was no explanation of what “roll-in” was. I found out at the last minute that for the kindergardeners, the first “week” of school consisted of one meeting with the teacher, the kid, and the parents. This meant that I had to take an extra (unpaid) week of “holiday” or find a full week of day care pronto in a town we had only been in for two weeks. It was (ahem) minorly stressful.
In other words, you are not alone, and I think that schools haven’t got a clue about people who work outside the school system and how to communicate. Be prepared to receive PTA meeting notices the *DAY* of the meeting, when you root through your kids’ packs, half an hour before the meeting starts. Needless to say, I never attended a PTA meeting last year…
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Yo — your LJ feed will probably never work again (mine won’t anyway — who knows) but then you won’t have sneaky people like me reading it on their friends page and depriving you of their page views because they’re too lazy to click through feedreader. I’m putting my big project to bed TODAY (if I make it — some stranger from another country was calling Brett’s cell phone all night and then Madison wet the bed for the first time in MONTHS so we’re sleep deprived) and if you need more help, lemme know.