Part Two

Okay. Where was I?

So, I dragged my little kids into the school way fricking early thirty minutes before school started to chat with Jacob's teacher. Trying to have a serious conversation while also trying to keep a two year old out of twenty little desks is harder than you might imagine, but it can be done. Barely.

The teacher, as suspected, had no idea of the events that transpired the day before. As much as I wanted to go bat shit crazy on her and demand an explanation and some sort of repercussion for the accused, I didn't. I was a teacher. I never really wanted to do much for the parents who went bat shit crazy on me so I kept it together. I think the teacher was pretty amazed that a fight had happened without her knowledge, but not too terribly surprised. In my heart I guess I wanted her to say she'd call all those rotten heathens kid's parents and tell them all they were no longer welcome at their wonderful Christian school because, DANG, it's a Christian school and their kids are just not exhibiting Christian behavior so, too bad, it's time for ya'll to go. But in my head, I knew she'd do just what she did. Discuss it with all involved. Document it. Go on with her day with maybe wider eye open. I mean, she wasn't even there. What could she really do about it? I've been on her end before. There's not much you can do without proof. Parents, you see, can get a little cranky where their kids are concerned. Go figure.

But she did give me the name of the recess teacher and told me to talk to her. And to go ahead and talk to the elementary principal. And the school principal if I had too. Which is what I did. Or, rather, tried to do.

I had to wait until after lunch to talk the recess teacher I was told since, well, recess is after lunch and that's when she comes in so that's what I did. At 12:45 I went back up to the school and out to the playground to find four recess teachers sitting in chairs that weren't there the day before in a deep discussion. Two of them with their backs to the actual playground. You know, the playground they were earning money to watch.

So I drag my little children to their pow-wow and ask them where I could find Mrs. K. Funny, but they had no idea where Mrs. K was. I'm not even sure they knew who she was, which is odd since that's exactly where the elementary principal said I could find her. Interesting.

So I go inside and tell the office that she wasn't out there and, of course, they are pretty confused and I ask if I can just wait on her to be done and, well, I could, but I'd be waiting there until 5:00 since she had all the other recesses as well as after school care but did I want to leave her a note? Oh, hell yeah I wanted to leave her a note! So I did. I left her a note. I asked her to call me after 5:00 so we could arrange a conference at her convenience.

You know she never called.

But when Jacob's teacher loaded him into the car at pick-up that afternoon she told me she'd talked to the other boys who told her they were just trying to play with Jacob. She figured then and there they were lying because at no point in the entire year did they ever try to play with Jacob so she punished them with no recess time and were informing their parents. She also said she had a long talk with Mrs. K before recess who backed up the "we-were-just-playing" story and let her know that she needed to keep a better eye on all the kids. I'm guessing that serious discussion they were all having on the playground was probably about me because if I've figured correctly, my posse and I came trotting up about ten minutes after the teacher gave her the smack-down.

And in the car on the way home I asked Jacob if the kids had bothered him and he seemed pretty happy and told me that he was able to play without having to worry about being pushed off the swings or pulled off the monkey bars so it was a good day, except, well, for the part when Mrs. K. took them out to the playground and stopped them before they went running off like a pack of wild dogs to tell the whole class:

"Don't play with Jacob! He'll just tattle on you and you'll get in trouble so stay away from him!" "Now, go play everybody. Have a good time!"

At least this is what my son relayed to me.

I'm kinda inclined to believe him since Mrs. K hid from me just a few minutes later.

But, you know, I'll give anyone the benefit of the doubt, although I doubt she'd tell me the truth, so the next day when I hadn't heard from her I went to the principal and asked to speak with her. Told her my son had an issue on the playground and I wanted her take on it. I was told it was her day off so I could leave a note to have her call me. I laughed.

But I left my note. And let the principal know that I was still waiting. And waiting.

No. She never did call.

I'd like to say I kept after her until I finally found her and went bat shit crazy on her ass, but I didn't.

I got busy. I got tired of trying. I forgot about her.

I like to think that maybe Jacob misunderstood what she was saying to the other kids that day, that surely she wouldn't be that childish, but how can I know? Even if she were to ever call me, certainly she wouldn't own up to that.

So the last week of school my mom took the little two and I was able to do all the last week of school crap stuff without having to drag the others around.

There was a swim party/field trip to a classmate's house.

This is Jacob flinching while Bully 1 and 2 throw food at him. I guess they figured I wouldn't see them behind the camera.



And this is Bully 3 thinking no one can see his attempts at kicking my kid while he's underwater.



So the next hour was spent with me walking around the pool giving all the bullies the evil eye while all their mommies just gabbed and laughed and had a grand old time!

And after they realized I was onto them, they stopped and Jacob was able to have a good time:



I had to do the same at field day.

My kid won't be doing field day next year. Not so much because of the kids, well they were pretty bad, but the parents were pretty awful too. It's just sad when a dad can't accept that it was his kid who dropped the baton and gives his kid a high five when he yells out to everyone that Jacob lost the race for them. And his kid did drop the baton. I have it on video. But it's just a fricking second grade race. Why the heck does it matter?

So, YEAH! Summer's here. We are bully-free and loving it!