...I lack the strength to stand

I apologize ahead of time for taking up so much room with non-original material. One of my all-time favorite quotes from one of my all-time favorite movies is the following "discussion" between Wesley, our hero, and a pale by comparison, weak rival (if you could even call him that) Prince Humperdink from Princess Bride:

Prince Humperdinck: First things first, to the death.
Westley: No. To the pain.
Prince Humperdinck: I don't think I'm quite familiar with that phrase.
Westley: I'll explain and I'll use small words so that you'll be sure to understand, you warthog faced buffoon.
Prince Humperdinck: That may be the first time in my life a man has dared insult me.
Westley: It won't be the last. To the pain means the first thing you will lose will be your feet below the ankles. Then your hands at the wrists. Next your nose.
Prince Humperdinck: And then my tongue I suppose, I killed you too quickly the last time. A mistake I don't mean to duplicate tonight.
Westley: I wasn't finished. The next thing you will lose will be your left eye followed by your right.
Prince Humperdinck: And then my ears, I understand let's get on with it.
Westley: WRONG. Your ears you keep and I'll tell you why. So that every shriek of every child at seeing your hideousness will be yours to cherish. Every babe that weeps at your approach, every woman who cries out, "Dear God! What is that thing," will echo in your perfect ears. That is what to the pain means. It means I leave you in anguish, wallowing in freakish misery forever.
Prince Humperdinck: I think you're bluffing.
Westley: It's possible, Pig, I might be bluffing. It's conceivable, you miserable, vomitous mass, that I'm only lying here because I lack the strength to stand. But, then again... perhaps I have the strength after all.
[slowly rises and points sword directly at the prince]
Westley: DROP... YOUR... SWORD!
Prince Humperdinck: [Humperdinck's mouth hangs open, drops sword to floor]

I suppose I didn't need to put the whole dialogue here. But when I saw it there, in all its glory, on IMDB, I couldn't resist.

I went to bed around 9 O'clock last night, pretty decent, right? Then I woke up half an hour later to a gassy baby. I held him one position til that no longer relieved that gas, then in another and yet another til at last he wanted to eat and sleep. For twenty minutes ... and the cycle began again, and again, and you get the picture. Suffice it to say, I am exhausted and am avoiding all the things I have to do today. One of those things is writing my son's first grade teacher and/or the principal regarding her ineptitude (at best) or sabotage of my son's education (at worst).

Now what would possess me to use such strong language about a first grade teacher? I am glad you asked. It all started back in August. Well, maybe it didn't really start until September...tomatoes, tomahtoes. A few weeks into the school year, I began receiving middle of the day phone calls from this teacher, during which she would tattle on my son for some silly infraction of her rules. She seemed frazzled so I told her I would speak to him about remembering the rules. And I did. And he seemed quite willing to remember and obey. Next thing I knew I was in her classroom after dismissal one day, getting an earful about how she wants to discourage the children. Surprised, I corrected her, "Well, we don't want to discourage the children, just their bad behavior." Oh no, she wants to discourage the children. She made that very clear. After that we agreed on a behavior report she could send home every day to me so I could keep an eye on his behavior and make sure to correct the places where he was falling short. In case you were wondering, he talks in class (although he stops when asked) and sometimes gets out of his seat to discuss things with his close friends who don't sit at his table.

Thinking we had come to a bit of a detente, I left feeling proud of keeping my composure and giving in on the non-essentials while keeping the main points in focus. The next day I got a call from the teacher saying the principal wanted a meeting with my husband and myself. In preparation I wrote a two page summary of all the crazy things that she had done, that I knew about, either from my personal experience, the report of my son, or what I learned from speaking to other parents in the class. On second thought, maybe I should let me husband take care of this-he has a way with situations like this one.

Results of meeting: 1. I was pissed off by a lying 65 year old woman (miserable, vomitous mass) with what seemed like a vendetta against my son. 2. A mild suggestion that my son (who does not, believe me) may have ADHD ... although we don't usually make such suggestions until six months of observation of symptomatic behavior and this is only week five or the school year. 3. A revised agreed upon behavior chart, which was never put into practice because the teacher called me the next day to declare my child's behavior had cleaned up and we wouldn't need any reports.

Good meeting, as meetings go.

Over the next several months she refused to give my son a test he showed up for 10 seconds late, due to no fault of his own-more than once, even though the class helpers are supposed to administer the make up tests in such a case. And let me tell you that the southern California housewife lives to volunteer in class, so there is never a shortage of helpers. She has repeatedly not put pages into his STAPLED homework packet, and when asked to send them home, apparently refused. She has most recently, and most egregiously, given him the wrong math test. In this system, the children have color coded "math keys." The first set is red and is made up of the plus 1 family, the next is orange-the plus 2 family and so on. My son was on dark blue two weeks ago. He got 100%, the required score for moving onto dark brown. On the following Monday, as is the usual practice, the teacher handed out the new keys. My son got his dark brown ones. He studied them all week and got 100% on his practice test. Unfortunately, for him, his teacher gave him the dark blue test on Friday-for the second time.

I must brag about my six year old for a minute. He stood up for himself. He told her Mrs. ____ I took that test last week and I got 100%, I am on dark brown this week. She told him, "I don't have time to make another copy of dark brown, so you'll have to take this test." He aced it for a second time. The next Monday she was absent. Tuesday she returned with dark brown keys and said, "I forgot to give these to you." My son said, "No, you gave them to me two weeks ago, but you wouldn't let me take the test last week." She threw them in the garbage. Well played, madame.

It is my belief that she needs to be confronted about this. But I know she is unwilling to change. So maybe it would be fruitless. I also believe that this sort of inability to do one's job ought to be reported to their superior, and that I really should write the principal...but I, like our recently undead hero Wesley, lack the strength to stand. And then again, perhaps I don't. Perhaps writing this all down has put me in just the frame of mind to put my mightier than the sword pen to paper and tell these "warthog faced buffoons" using small words, so they'll be sure to understand, what they so desperately need to hear.