Parent/Teacher Conferences

Charity is the winner. Yes, we were trying to figure out the schedule for Parent/Teacher Conferences. The confusion started with the official school calendar that we received the first day of school. It had the conferences down for October 28. The week Jay was gone to convention we got a note sent home saying the elementary conferences were the 28th and 30th, with ours being 6:45 on the 28th. I had assumed Jay would have the same schedule so I wrote him off as being gone from home Tuesday and Thursday. Monday morning Jay called to ask if I knew that he had conferences that evening. I got concerned that maybe I had down the wrong day for Cade’s conference, but I had the right date for that. So then I thought Jay also had them Tuesday night, until I looked at the schools website Tue afternoon. The school calendar had them for Mon and Wed nights. Great, the only night we were going to be home for the week (Wed) appeared to be taken by the conferences. That’s what prompted our confusing text conversation. We got it straightened out, we are home tonight and we made it to Cade’s conference last night, Tuesday the 28th at 6:45 pm.

So how did the conference go? I’m sure you all are wondering…
It went fine. No, we didn’t get any glowing reports of how great of a kid Cade is, how great he does in school, how unique his personality is, etc. It wasn’t like last year. His teacher showed us his report card, told us his grades and really didn’t elaborate much on anything. I’m not taking that personally because I think that’s just the way she is. I think Mrs S has been doing this for so long that she knows he’s a normal 1st grader. I’ve already e-mailed her once about him and school and when she didn’t respond in 12 hours Jay went in and talked to her. Mrs S first words to him were “Jay, he’s doing fine”. We got the impression she thought we were worrying over him a little too much. Sorry, but we’ve never done this parenting thing before. Anyway, he got E’s (which is excellent) on his spelling, reading and classroom behavior. He got S’s (which is satisfactory) in writing, math and listening/responding. This is where you can tell Jay and I are on different wave lengths when it comes to education…..

Since she didn’t really elaborate on why she gave him an S in those areas we tried to drag it out of her. Jay is really concerned about his math. Since I was never good at math and I'm surviving working with loans, it’s not one of my top list of things to worry about with Cade. So while Jay jumped in to ask her about his math and what we need to do to help him and how much he needs to know by the end of the year I sat there and wondered about the listening/responding thing. I can’t remember exactly how it was listed on the report card but the term they used had me thinking Cade wasn’t getting along well with others. It seemed like Jay and Mrs S went on forever about the math thing and all I wanted to know was do the other kids like my baby. I mean we have a 6 ½ year old who is an only child who plays by himself in his own little world ¾ of the time, he as an unusual infatuation with the Civil War, is extremely anxious and today for Red Ribbon hat day he couldn’t decide between his Civil War hat and a boat captain’s hat. Yes, I was concerned that Cade was not relating well to the other kids in his class. What if the other kids were making fun of him? All of this was floating through my head while Jay talked Math. Then there would be a break and I would try to ask my question but Jay would beat me to it with another math thing. Ahh, finally they quit talking math and I was able to ask my question. I’m still not sure what she was looking for from Cade on the grade card criteria, but he is getting along well with the other kids. He does have someone to play with at recess. What a relief.

Jay and I both have our obsessions – he isn’t too concerned about him fitting in, but he wants him to know how to add and subtract. I don’t care nearly as much about if he can count to 100 by 5’s, but I don’t want the other kids making fun of him. I’m not saying I want him to be popular or to do whatever it takes to be with the “in” crowd. I just want him to be accepted and to be friends with a wide variety of kids….and I guess knowing a little math wouldn’t be too bad either.

These are the times I jump back and forth between these two prayers:
1. God, if you’d give us another child at least we wouldn’t be as obsessed with every move Cade makes.
Or
2. God, I know why we only have one child. We couldn’t handle obsessing over two, Cade keeps us both busy.