yesterday. We met them at their classroom when they came out. Timid and freaked out. we met the teacher. she said it was not fair that she’d been given two more students when there were other classes with less kids than hers. she felt that it was hard to do her job with 27 kids. We understood. Let us know what we can do to help we said. We went home. They cried. We hate spanish they said. The teacher is scary. He yells. We don’t understand him. we have homework but the teacher only had one workbook and we don’t know what to do. Fuck and other bad words are written in the bathroom. But there is one cute boy, no two. And one girl wants to be my friend. But we hate it. We don’t want to go back ever. Evvvverrr! We want to stay with you for always. We want to go back to the Hometead School. The Homestead is the best school in the world. We hate it here. We hate miami.

High drama all night. Higher drama this morning. I stopped the car three times on the way to school cause kiki was so nervous that she thought she’d throw up.  we made a deal in the parking lot. i’d do my best to see how i could make miami work for them, if they did their best  to make it work at school today. i went to see the spanish teacher. yo here. look at me. i’m a parent. no dont talk to me in your doorway. let me in. close the door. explain your class to me. what can i do to help? you and my kids. speak to me. he made eye contact his eyes were red like he’d been on a binge all night. no wonder they thought he was scary. he was a tough mf. back in the car i called my friend victoria. bless victoria. her kids go to a school in south beach and so she made some calls, took me around, introduced me, made me a possible alternative. at 2 i picked them up again. kiki ran up to me smiling. leila behind her. guess what mommy. what? we had pe and we are the fastest runners in the whole school and the pe teacher said, she’s really mean but she likes us, and she said that we are the best runners, she said you gordon girls you are ma girls, and it was fun.

oh?

Good!

yeah mom i think last night we maybe kind of over-exaggerated. so you think its maybe ok? yeah because that teacher said we were the best runners and we were her favorites and kiki won but just by like one little inch. no i won by a mile. no you won by just a little. did you get all your workbooks? not yet. the teacher said maybe tomorrow. maybe? then we picked up iona. iona is thrilled like she’s in a reality tv show. two boys wrestled in class she said and then the teacher called security and they took them out. iona is getting tested next week to get into the “gifted” program. the only way out of the regular classes. the classes where the teachers are  scared of some kids and call security. and i? how am i? i am a mother and a mother is only ever as well as her children. co-dependant. totally. so today i’m better than yesterday. and hopeful that those workbooks will arrive. that things will settle down. that they make friends. that they learn about change, and math and spanish and that different can also be good.