Look BEFORE you leap

Look before you leap.  Not that seeing what's over the edge would change your mind about leaping.  It's just better to have all the information about what you are leaping into.  It might be a small leap where you can easily land on your feet.  It might be a long way down into deep water so you might want to dive.  Looking will let you know how to land and what preparations or equipment might be useful in the leap.



This fall I signed up for a class at TCC that is required for my transferring to Texas Woman's University.  The class is called Math of Business Analysis.  I'm not sure what made me think this would be like an Algebra application class (I guess since I did so many problems in the Spring and Summer semesters in Algebra that were business application problems).  If I had bothered to read the course description, I would have immediately known that "Math of Business Application" was a clever name for "Introduction to Differential and Integral Calculus."


It's not that I doubt my ability to take Calculus and make a good grade.  It's that Calculus scares me more than the other math classes.  You see, I "kind-of" took Calculus in high school, but I did take Algebra, Geometry, and Trig and remember some of that stuff.


My favorite teacher of all times taught my Geometry and Trig class.  She was supposed to teach Calculus, but took an administrator job.  I told her how unfair that was and how she should have just waited another year before she embarked on the journey to Vice Principal.  Anyway, this other math teacher, a very nice and kind man, was given the task to teach Calculus.  It was apparent that it had been a while since he taught or even worked a calculus problem.  He would read to us from the book, "try" to work example problems and it just never worked out for him.  Somehow I think the whole class managed to get As.


I guess if I had learned Calculus the first time, I might not be so apprehensive.  If I had read the course description, I could have been preparing myself for Calculus.  I should have looked before I leaped.

SPIDERS

Merriam-Webster’s on-line dictionary defines PHOBIA as an exaggerated usually inexplicable and illogical fear of a particular object, class of objects, or situation.  What do you call a fear that is logical?  Whatever the word is, that is how my fear of spiders would be classified.

My first spider bite was when I was in my early teens and I was helping clean my younger brothers’ bedroom.  It wasn’t any worse that an ant bite, but I knew it was the spider because I felt it and saw the spider on my leg.  I was bit again in my late teens while working at a daycare.  I was sitting outside under a tree, watching the kids.  I thought a fire ant was bitting me, but is was a spider on my ankle.  Once again, the bite was bad, just red and itched a lot.  I was bit at the zoo when I was in my early 30s.  It was a field trip with Alex’s class and this time I didn’t see it, but I felt it on my shoulder.  This bite was worse and I ended up at the doctor because it looked nasty quick.  A few days of antibiotics and a cortisone cream and it was better in a week.  I know you must be thinking, “that’s not so bad,” but then came the big one.

In June of 2006, I had just moved into an older house that I was remodeling.  A lot of bugs had been stirred up in that house by the remodel.  We found black widows and I was not happy about that, but that’s not what got me.  I was sick with my bi-annual case of bronchitis.  I went to the linen closet to get another pillow in the hopes that sleeping more up-right would make it easier to breath.  The next morning I woke up to a bump on my neck.  It looked like a pimple and I thought that was an odd place, but didn’t think to much about it.  The next day, this bump was big and it hurt a lot.  Then on the third morning, I woke up to a large black dot in the middle of the bump which was even bigger.  Of course this was on a Sunday, so I had to wait another day to go to the doctor.  Fourth morning it looks awful and I’m in a lot of pain, so I head to the doctor.  He looks at it, leaves the room, come back with a book and another doctor.  They flip pages, point, poke my awful bump and it hurts.  They then deliver the bad news - BROWN RECLUSE.  Now I’ve heard about these spiders.  Not good!  I remember my dad was bit once and it was not good.  The bite hurt and made me sick.  It opened up to a little larger than a quarter.  Since it was on my neck, in the bend of it, it made it hard to cover.  I didn’t go many places.  It took weeks of strong antibiotics, which made me sick, and pain killers, which made me sick.  The doctor called a surgeon to debris it, but the surgeon’s office never called back despite my numerous calls to the begging for some help.  I was desperate and did “surgery” on myself and after about 8 weeks it was healed.

Terminix was called out to the house and at first they didn’t believe we had brown recluse spiders since we had just moved in and our house was not cluttered.  They set rat glue traps all over the house and said they’d be back in a week to “evaluate” the problem.  SHOCK was the only thing the technician could muster when he began to count all the brown recluse spiders caught in the trap.  He counted over 50 brown recluse spiders in the traps and said that was probably about 10% of the spiders we had in the house.  He showed me how to tell which ones were brown recluse.  I was given a large box of glue traps and now I was in charge of changing them out every other day, saving the other and documenting the number and day those were collected.  I hated this.  The most we collected in a week was 75, the most in a 2 day period was 20.  They even had the Terminix entomologist flown in from wherever she lives.  She was shocked and then talked about how hard spiders are to kill with chemicals.  GREAT!!  We had weekly “dusting” of the house, inside and out the entire time I lived there.  The day I left the house, 2 1/2 years later, I still had a brown recluse problem.

I have noticed an increase of spiders in my house the past few weeks.  I’m not a little creeped-out.... I’m a lot creeped-out.  I’m hoping that the increase in spiders is due to heat and lack of water outside and will resolve soon.

My legitimate fear kicked into over drive this morning when I was in Tori’s room cleaning up her toys and found a brown recluse, very much alive and crawling away.  I can honestly tell you that the panic attack was real and I’m not sure when I can go in her room and finish the job.

Teaching a 3 year old independence???

One thing you don't do is mess with my children and do them wrong.  I turn into momma-bear protecting her cubs.  I'm learning to be better about it, but this instinctive nature will never change.

Miss Tori, at 3 years old, has moved on up to the Pre-K class at her pre-school.  They have these little blue cots that they use at nap time.  These cots are a plastic mesh and they do not look pleasant to sleep on (hot and makes kids sweat).  To eliminate this problem, I have sent a crib sheet with her everyday for the past 3 years and it fits on the cot nicely.


Tori told me on Monday that she didn't get to have her sheet.  I mistakenly "assumed" that she did not get her sheet because the teachers did not know about it - nope, they knew.  

So I was going to ask the teacher about it when I dropped her off on Tuesday, but she was holding a classmate who was new to the pre-school world and was screaming at the top of his lungs for his mommy.  I elected not to try to speak to her, because I didn't figure she could hear me anyway.  I mentioned to the assistant director that I would appreciate it if she would make sure they know that Tori has a sheet.  It didn't get conveyed to the teacher the way I meant it.  

So on Wednesday morning when I dropped Tori off, she catches me and say, "I hear you have an issue with Tori not being given her sheet."  Then she proceeds to tell me the "if she can't do it herself you need to find something else for her to use."  This makes me a little mad and I decide it's best not to reply and think on this for a while.

In the other classroom she has been in, the teacher has put her sheet on her cot while she is eating lunch.  This new classroom insist that the kids do it themselves, to teach them independence.  Here is my issue with this.... she was given her sheet on Monday, the first day in the new class, and told if she couldn't do it by herself then she couldn't have it.  How is that TEACHING independence?  Seems more like a sink-or-swim philosophy to me.  If you have never attempted a task, how can you be expected to do it independently?  I can't even get Alex, who is 13, to put his sheets on his bed without a major battle and he's been shown numerous times.



This morning I explained to the teacher that a child cannot be independent in a task unless they are taught to do the task.  I took 10 minutes out of my morning to teach Tori how to put the sheet on her cot.  By the third try, she had it down - mostly.  The teacher said she didn't realize that it was so important to me for Tori to have her sheet.  I told her that it was and that she might need help, but that she should catch on quickly how to do it herself.  She apologized and said she is still learning what each child can and cannot do.


Now, other thoughts raced through my head.  The first being - I researched daycares, childcare centers, learning centers, and pre-schools to find the one that TAUGHT children and didn't just let them play in chaos all day long.  This was a decision I did not make lightly.  I liked that this pre-school used a well known curriculum.  I've been happy with the fact that she knows her letters, numbers, colors, days of the week, months of the year, planets in the solar system, can recite the Pledge, etc.  Therefore, I expect some teaching to go on here in all aspects.  The second being - I pay you people a lot of money, so I think you can help her learn to be the "independent sheet putting on child" that you want her to be.


Hopefully Tori will get to have her sheet on her cot today at nap time.

As if I didn't already have enough to do....

So I decided I needed something else to do..... not exactly sure why.  I guess I think I might have something to say on occasion that would be "thought provoking" or something like that.

Oh, don't get me wrong... single mom, 2 beautiful children, a full-time job, part-time college student, real estate agent when people want to buy a house, it's enough to fill 24 hours.  I'm not sure how often I'll post, maybe just when something crazy happens, when I need to vent, when I don't understand....  WOW, that could be daily.