Friday Musings

Well it has been a couple of weeks since I blogged.
Patrick has settled in fairly well to his new school. He has been there 2 weeks now. I got 14 texts from him the first day. He was lonely and lost most of the day and someone took his bag instead of their own. I've spoken to most of his teachers and they seem to think that he is going okay. He was in a fight in class the other day. The guy had squirted him with water earlier and Patrick had told him to get over himself. The guy then decided to invite himself into Patrick's maths class (apparently this is an ongoing problem with the teacher having to spend the first part of every lesson finding out who shouldn't be there and sending them on their way to their own classes) and starting carrying on and Patrick retaliated. Kids from another class had to come and break it up. Patrick had to write a report of the incident but nothing else has been said or done.
Nicholas has been wonderful at home but his teacher has pretty much had enough of him. He talks in class and he has to have the last word on everything. She is at a loss of what to do with him and wants us to take away his privileges at home (we'd already taken away all his computer time). I had an interview a couple of weeks ago where she said that he had started to answer back like his mates did (and yes Nicholas chose to be friends with the 2 worst behaved kids in his class). So when she gave him instructions he would answer her with yeh and ok instead of just doing them. He was also talking a lot in class. I said to her that I had spoken to Nicholas and he said that the other kids were talking to him and he was answering them or telling them to be quiet and he was getting in trouble. She agreed that this was the case but she had spoken to him about ignoring them. Well apparently this did settle down for a while but has escalated in the last week to the stage where she can't take it anymore and has exited him 3 times for what she calls rudeness. When she says Nick get on with your work he is not supposed to say yes or ok he is supposed to just get on with his work. Nick believes that she picks on him and his 2 mates (how many times have I heard that while I was teaching). The next step as far as the teacher is concerned is suspension. So we've had a long chat with Nicholas and hope to see some improvement.
Applied at Coles Supermarket for casual work (6 to 8 hours a week) and got it about 3 weeks ago but have been waiting for everyone else to finish their online inductions (all others were school kids except 1 lady) so that we could go to our store induction. Went for 3 hours on Wednesday night. Typical of all the garbage that has to go on legally now. Union Rep spoke and got us all to join up. Joined the super fund and discussed the staff club. Watched videos on the use of chemicals (as checkout operators we only use one of them), what to do in a fire and in hold ups and all the ways the store can find out if we are stealing from them and filled out work sheets on each of them. Ran out of time to do the ones on the sale of tobacco products and how to pack the customers bags. Also didn't have time to do the store walk to show us where all the departments were and the emergency exits and where to enter the store if we are on opening. Hopefully we will get some training on how to use the registers before we are unleashed on the public.
Dave's mowing is going well. He is continuing to receive new clients from the Government Housing group that he mows for and some new private ones as well. The regularity of mowing properties is slowing down as we head into winter but with the introduction of new clients our income isn't decreasing. He pinched a nerve or something in his back (in the shower not at work) last week but it coincided with heavy rain so he did not miss any work.
Gotta go just got a phone call to say that Patrick has been suspended for 2 days for the fight and I have to go pick him up.