Tuesday – Miss Mackenzie
Mar. 31st, 2009 02:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermore.
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My son's new afternoon teacher asked to speak with me when I dropped in to pick him up yesterday evening. The woman who watches the kids in the pick up room had just greeted me with a frown to let me know that, while my son had a "good" afternoon, he'd just bitten her, the teacher. I went back to his classroom to pick up any papers that might be there for me to take home, and met Miss Mackenzie, still there from her first day on the job.
"I need to speak to you," she said.
I must have flinched, because she said, "No, it's okay. I just need to speak with you."
As soon as the mother of one of my son's classmates left the room, Mackenzie shut the door. She is a dark haired girl, maybe 20 years old. She has a slight accent from somewhere in the northeastern United States. A baby slept in a carrier at her feet, and through her t-shirt Mackenzie still looks soft in the abdomen from her recent pregnancy (you have to have seen a new mother's newly deflated belly to know what I'm talking about). Her brown eyes are large and doe-like. I shouldn't have been nervous what this girl half my age was about to say to me, and I wouldn't have been if I'd paid attention to her energy: she is what I call "very, very, warm."
Not everyone knows what I'm talking about when I say I feel a person's energy. The best I can describe it is then when I talk to people they either feel warm, cold, or neutral to me. Cold people will always cause you trouble, and should be avoided. Every person I've ever met who felt "cold" to me (no matter how "warm" they tried to act) has turned out to have an evil streak. Neutral people are, surprisingly enough, almost as much trouble as the cold people. They are usually crazy and the net effect of having them in your life is just the same as if they were evil- they mean no harm but they cause the same damage. Most people I meet are lukewarm to moderately warm, and thus decent. Once in awhile you come across a person who is extremely warm. Standing next to them is like standing next to a psychic space heater. Mackenzie is one of these people.
"I want you to know he's wonderful," she told me.
"He just bit..." I didn't know the name of the stern-faced woman that he bit, so I just pointed in that direction.
Mackenzie shook her head. "He was trying to take a toy from another kid, and she grabbed him and tried to throw him in timeout. He was trying to get away from her. I called him down here and asked if he would help me straighten up the room, and he said 'sure.' Then he told me he was hungry, and I said, 'Oh, I can do something about that,' so I gave him some mandarin oranges I had in my bag, and he was perfectly fine with me. He was great."
I wanted to hug her, but didn't know how she'd feel about that. Anyway, it was too risky of an idea. As warm as she was I'd want to keep hugging her, which is just plain awkward when you have only known a person for 5 minutes.
"We had a great afternoon. No problems. He likes to play by himself and sometimes the other kids will try to bother him to see if they can get a rise out of him. Then they yell at [Sweet Pea] and don't even bother yelling at the kid was throwing stuff at him. It's crazy." She told me that she had two brothers who have Attention Deficit Disorder, so she knows some kids need a little extra attention. She didn't even consider my son that much trouble, since his only requirement seemed to be that he be allowed to play by himself when he doesn't feel like interacting with other children.
I told her he is an introvert, and this puts him at odds with the other kids some times, when they don't understand his need to step away from them.
"On the playground he just sat on my lap and talked to me the whole time," Mackenzie said. "In fact, he asked me to marry him!"
My mouth dropped open in bemused astonishment. He could only have known Mackenzie for an hour or two when he made the decision she was the one he wanted to spend his life with.
Mackenzie laughed. "I told him I was already married."
"To who?" my son asked her.
"To my husband," she told him.
"Well, what's his name?" Perhaps he thought he could negotiate for her hand and convince her current spouse to let her go.
I regarded my would-be daughter-in-law and my would-be step grandchild, only 4 years younger than the man who just made a move on his mother. I couldn't help but grin. My boy has good taste, even if his timing is bad. Of course he needs to get his education -- starting with Kindergarten -- out of the way before he sets his mind on marriage. But I can't fault him for trying.
"Don't worry about him so much. He's a good boy. He's going to be fine."
It made me wonder what they had told her about him before she stepped foot in the classroom. She must have expected the worst, and when she didn't find it she felt the need to tell me they were wrong.
The daycare director has requested a meeting with my husband and I this week to discuss my son's progress. I was dreading it. After speaking with Mackenzie, I'm feeling better armed.
People have come to expect the worst of my little boy, and he has given them what they expect. On the same day a lukewarm person told me he was trouble, Miss-warm-as-the-sun Mackenzie told me he's wonderful. If there's one thing I've learned over the years about these psychic space heaters, it's that you can believe what they tell you. It's part of what makes them glow so warmly.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * # * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *
.
.
My son's new afternoon teacher asked to speak with me when I dropped in to pick him up yesterday evening. The woman who watches the kids in the pick up room had just greeted me with a frown to let me know that, while my son had a "good" afternoon, he'd just bitten her, the teacher. I went back to his classroom to pick up any papers that might be there for me to take home, and met Miss Mackenzie, still there from her first day on the job.
"I need to speak to you," she said.
I must have flinched, because she said, "No, it's okay. I just need to speak with you."
As soon as the mother of one of my son's classmates left the room, Mackenzie shut the door. She is a dark haired girl, maybe 20 years old. She has a slight accent from somewhere in the northeastern United States. A baby slept in a carrier at her feet, and through her t-shirt Mackenzie still looks soft in the abdomen from her recent pregnancy (you have to have seen a new mother's newly deflated belly to know what I'm talking about). Her brown eyes are large and doe-like. I shouldn't have been nervous what this girl half my age was about to say to me, and I wouldn't have been if I'd paid attention to her energy: she is what I call "very, very, warm."
Not everyone knows what I'm talking about when I say I feel a person's energy. The best I can describe it is then when I talk to people they either feel warm, cold, or neutral to me. Cold people will always cause you trouble, and should be avoided. Every person I've ever met who felt "cold" to me (no matter how "warm" they tried to act) has turned out to have an evil streak. Neutral people are, surprisingly enough, almost as much trouble as the cold people. They are usually crazy and the net effect of having them in your life is just the same as if they were evil- they mean no harm but they cause the same damage. Most people I meet are lukewarm to moderately warm, and thus decent. Once in awhile you come across a person who is extremely warm. Standing next to them is like standing next to a psychic space heater. Mackenzie is one of these people.
"I want you to know he's wonderful," she told me.
"He just bit..." I didn't know the name of the stern-faced woman that he bit, so I just pointed in that direction.
Mackenzie shook her head. "He was trying to take a toy from another kid, and she grabbed him and tried to throw him in timeout. He was trying to get away from her. I called him down here and asked if he would help me straighten up the room, and he said 'sure.' Then he told me he was hungry, and I said, 'Oh, I can do something about that,' so I gave him some mandarin oranges I had in my bag, and he was perfectly fine with me. He was great."
I wanted to hug her, but didn't know how she'd feel about that. Anyway, it was too risky of an idea. As warm as she was I'd want to keep hugging her, which is just plain awkward when you have only known a person for 5 minutes.
"We had a great afternoon. No problems. He likes to play by himself and sometimes the other kids will try to bother him to see if they can get a rise out of him. Then they yell at [Sweet Pea] and don't even bother yelling at the kid was throwing stuff at him. It's crazy." She told me that she had two brothers who have Attention Deficit Disorder, so she knows some kids need a little extra attention. She didn't even consider my son that much trouble, since his only requirement seemed to be that he be allowed to play by himself when he doesn't feel like interacting with other children.
I told her he is an introvert, and this puts him at odds with the other kids some times, when they don't understand his need to step away from them.
"On the playground he just sat on my lap and talked to me the whole time," Mackenzie said. "In fact, he asked me to marry him!"
My mouth dropped open in bemused astonishment. He could only have known Mackenzie for an hour or two when he made the decision she was the one he wanted to spend his life with.
Mackenzie laughed. "I told him I was already married."
"To who?" my son asked her.
"To my husband," she told him.
"Well, what's his name?" Perhaps he thought he could negotiate for her hand and convince her current spouse to let her go.
I regarded my would-be daughter-in-law and my would-be step grandchild, only 4 years younger than the man who just made a move on his mother. I couldn't help but grin. My boy has good taste, even if his timing is bad. Of course he needs to get his education -- starting with Kindergarten -- out of the way before he sets his mind on marriage. But I can't fault him for trying.
"Don't worry about him so much. He's a good boy. He's going to be fine."
It made me wonder what they had told her about him before she stepped foot in the classroom. She must have expected the worst, and when she didn't find it she felt the need to tell me they were wrong.
The daycare director has requested a meeting with my husband and I this week to discuss my son's progress. I was dreading it. After speaking with Mackenzie, I'm feeling better armed.
People have come to expect the worst of my little boy, and he has given them what they expect. On the same day a lukewarm person told me he was trouble, Miss-warm-as-the-sun Mackenzie told me he's wonderful. If there's one thing I've learned over the years about these psychic space heaters, it's that you can believe what they tell you. It's part of what makes them glow so warmly.
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Date: 2009-03-31 09:05 pm (UTC)