These photos were all taken last weekend--as soon as I chose pink, pink appeared. The first is of the ceiling at our neighborhood Associated Grocery. The second is the wall of the new "Cafe Victoria" at our parish, St Mary Magdalen Orthodox Church. And the third is the sidewalk in front of a building a few blocks from us, on a rainy morning.
I fired another nanny yesterday. This is my third, and each time it takes less courage and involves fewer days of cringing dread. However, this time it didn't actually take--that is, when I fired her, she penitently asked for another chance. And I said I'd think about it and call her later in the evening. Which I did, and then I called and said I'd give her two trial weeks. Because I like her, and Ike likes her, and she sings and cooks. All this came about because on Wednesday she lost track of Isaiah at the playground for such a length of time that his friend's dad became concerned that Ike had been forgotten. After a fruitless search for the nanny, he decided to bring Ike home himself. Luckily, before this happened, Isaiah spied the nanny on the far side of the playground where she was talking on her phone. She says she told Ike where she was.
I am happy with myself, though, in my handling of the situation. And if things work out better from here, I'm doubly relieved. I don't want to have to search for yet another nanny, and I dread introducing yet another new caretaker into the kid's lives.
I also attended a tour of the Public School across the street from our house yesterday, trying to make a little headway into the deeply competitive New York school situation. I've already signed him up for PreK there next year, although there is only a 1 in 5 chance of him getting into the program. This is supposedly a very good public school, people move here for the school. We did. But while the school has lots of light, dedicated teachers, and charming classrooms, I left with some trepidation. Homework starts in kindergarten and by the third grade, children have an average of 1 1/2 hours of homework every night. After second grade, the students only have 15 minutes of recess a day. Good Lord, only 15 minutes! They study all day, with only a tiny blip of outdoor play, and then come home to an hour and a half more of studying! I just think not, I cannot stomach it. It's not that I loved recess when I was in public school, it's just that I remember recess more than I remember anything else I learned. There was something very educational about the being turned out on a lot of blacktop with a horde of hoodlums. You learn to play four-square and dodge ball without your teacher explaining anything. Some ratty boy steals your shoe while you're up on the jungle gym, and your little sister chases him down and recovers your shoe. (This actually happened to me, by the way. And if you know my sister, I'm sure you can just imagine it.) Or you wander off to the stairwell and dare each other sneak off to buy candy at the little store down the street. Fifteen minutes is not enough time for such developments.
I am going to have to look into a more recess-friendly, less-homework-heavy, option. Who knew that when it came to finding a school for my son I'd be most concerned that he plays more and studies less?
For next week's Photo Friday, I have two ideas: shadows, diptychs. I'm going to do shadow diptychs, myself.
2 comments:
Your images are great-- very sophisticated and understated for a theme that can go in so many different predictable directions (like, er, mine), but that's exactly what I would expect from you.
My favorite is the middle one. A piece of art within a piece of art. I think the pink of the wall is just lovely.
Pink is a challenging color for me, but I finally was able to come up with something (of course late again, but at least fresh and new).
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