Darla's Mom

It is Armageddon behind my house. Empty cars double parked down the block while kids are picked up.. Stacked parking in the intersection of Dronfield Ave and Carl: 3 cars deep. I’m thinking they did NOT do a traffic study before building the school.

I saw Darla and met her after school program driver. I’m going to let her chill at the park and get a feel for it for a while before I go get her.

I’m not a helicopter mom, I am a paranoid mom who likes to watch how things work.

Oooh, you can buy t-shirts from the school on the sidewalk to the left of campus and corn with chili and mayo from a cart on the right side. Living in LA does have perks.

Darla can write, knows all her letters and numbers, and is reading basic books aloud and unassisted. She is a great problem solver and creative thinker and I’m pretty sure she is smarter than I am. She is not afraid to let me know that she thinks she is smarter.

We made the long walk out of our Gaye, across the street and down 100 yards or so to her school where she found dead her name tag and sat in the atrium.

Darla packed her own midmorning snack woth juice, yoghurt and strawberries.

This afternoon the local park service will pick her up and take her to theor afterschool program. I plan on hanging around to make sure this goes smoothly.

She should have about 20 minutes of homework each night.

I’ve discovered a perk to her charter school : no classroom supply buying. She has to have crayons, glue and a dry-erase marker for home and we already have that.

Her class has 4 computers, a smart board and is equipped with technology that my Mom would have loved. The teacher can sit at her desk and control the overhead projector, and she can text each or all of the student families. This is a far cry from chalk and ditto papers – but as long as she learns the basics I don’t care how the information is imparted.