Report Cards, Play Areas, and Dirty Looks...Oh My!

Around four this afternoon, I had a parent-teacher conference for Isa. This time the conference was with her afternoon (English) teacher, instead of her morning (Spanish) teacher. Miss Smith said that Isa was doing really well. For the mid-year placement tests, she got scores well past what was needed to go to 1st grade. On the one, they need a score of 30, and she got a sixty- or seventy-something! Go Miss Isa! Of all her "grades", she got mostly pluses, but a couple of "carrots" meaning that she needs improvement. The teacher said it wasn't that she didn't know, but that she was a chatterbox and would often be talking instead of listening, so when it was time for work, she didn't know what to do.

To celebrate the overall greatness, we let Isa choose where to eat dinner. That's how we ended up at the mall foodcourt. After going to three restaurants and getting food, we ate.

At one point, I told Isa to eat or we wouldn't stay at the mall to play.

She responded, "You know how I feel about eating."

I couldn't help but laugh....and she still was forced to eat another chicken nugget.

After dinner, it was a ride on the carausel and a short walk to the play area that they have in the middle of the mall. It's one of those cushy play areas with a bouncy type floor and a bunch of objects, like a tree or a mushroom, made out of something soft and fun. They have it in the middle of the walkway, with stores all around it and people constantly walking past.

It was there that Jose confessed that he understood why I feel paranoid in public places, about things like seeing certain people that would be uncomfortable, such as the "other chick" or the people that we most recently pissed off.

As the discussion tapered off, Isa informed me that she needed to add the mall bathroom to her checklist of places that she has pooped. As we walked towards the bathroom, I looked over my shoulder at Jose and Teo, who were still in the play area. I had to do a double take, but there, walking behind him in the walkway, less than three feet from Jose, were the people we recently pissed off, who sent us hate texts, who threatened to kick certain body parts, etc.

And all I could do was chuckle at God's sense of humor.

The evening continued. We went to get ice cream at DQ and were joined by some friends. T and I went on a quest to find A&F's controversial swimsuit line (only to find out that the children's store at our mall shut down...darn), leaving her hubby and mine to take the kids back to the play area. The best part is that T is a germaphobe, so having her kids play there freaked her out! Awesome!

Through the night, there were a couple more crossings between us and the "haters," and we would be dead right now if looks could kill, but they never said a word to us, although Jose did wave once.

Interesting night for our family...how about you?