This one is for Stacy :)

Life has been very domestic lately. I'm looking forwards to the weather getting nicer so I can get out in the yard and garden again. The deck(s) need to be re-done this year and I'm daydreaming about how nice that will look. I bought myself a climbing (red) rosebush and an obliesk trellis for my birthday last week, and spray painted the patio furniture to hide the rusted bits.

See?? Domestic.

I had my first experience with a bad teacher this month. I never really thought about things like that before being a parent. What should I do when one of my children aren't getting the attention they deserve from an instructor? How sticky do I want to be on the subject? I mean I don't want to be one of those sports moms who demands the best from both the coach/teacher and the poor kid, but on the other hand if I'm paying money for a class, the teacher damn well better know my child's name after two weeks.

The story was better told when I was all riled up about it, but here goes.

T and L were both in Yellow Seahorse swimming lessons last quarter. L's 4th time through and T's 3rd. This isn't uncommon as the point of the class is to get them comfortable putting their faces in the water and floating before moving on to any actual swimming. It usually takes a few runs through before a kid is ready mentally and physically. L passed the last class and T was only needing to work on back floats. With a little more work she would have it. So T was registered in Yellow Seahorse again and L is on to Orange Jellyfish. This quarter L is doing great in his class.

T on the other hand was put into a class of 4 kids, her and 3 younger boys (a set of twins and another). These little monkeys had never been through the class before and from the first class screamed and clung to anyone they could (parents, lifeguards, instructors) instead of going in the pool. I'm not joking, if I was the parent I would have taken it as a sign that my child wasn't ready and go back to weekend visits to the pool for a bit. Especially after it continued for the next few classes as well. ALL THREE BOYS DID IT!!! So while the boys were freaking out for a half hour, the instructor was (a) trying to calm them down (b) ignoring T or (c) going through the paces with T but her attention was on the boys.

I walked into the class last week a couple of minutes late and waved the teacher to the side of the pool to come get T as is required for safety.

She looked at me funny and said, "Is she in this class?"

She's so lucky I didn't scratch her eyes out.

I marched into the lobby and laid everything out for the receptionist who directed me to the Head Lifeguard who directed me back to the receptionist and T is now registered in a much quieter class with an instructor who actually looks her in the eye and talks to her. She is focusing on T's back floats because she actually reads her class notes.

The worse part in this is my own complacency. I should have moved her sooner. The class was obviously going to be bad from the first day, but I like to see how things settle instead of jumping the gun. Next time I'll know better. There is usually a lesson to be learned where there is adversity, but if I am paying $50 for a class I want the lesson to be the one I'm paying for, not a philosophical one.