Angelina Angelina please bring down your concertina

If I could afford it I would be a regular purchaser of trashy mags. This is frowned upon by several people like for example Fixit, but I say how can I be expected to perform well at Trivia Nights if I'm not well-versed in popular culture? Anyway, when I have spare cash or if the cover story grabs me, I will slip one in the grocery shop. My last one

(NW featuring Britney Spears:
how she dumped loser Kev by SMS and lost 25KG)

came with a free tote bag - my choice of "I lost my boyfriend in Paris" (tacky) or "Angelina Stole My Husband" which I thought was quite funny, so sucked in, I bought the mag.

***************

The Climber has been doing school swimming lessons. And I'm very underwhelmed by them. Climber does weekly swim classes at another pool and he's getting very good. He has a fantastic teacher Simon (and I don't mind perving on one of his colleagues, a spunky peroxided tattooed Adonis who is so cool he looks attractive in the budgie-smugglers and yes, I've caught myself trying to check them out but the water level is too high)... Anyway. Where was I?

Oh yes. So. I've been a parent-helper, coming on the bus and assisting in the changerooms on Cherub's creche days and on the days when I have Cherub at home we tend to turn up anyway, bring the car and lend a hand so I can watch the class. The school told us all about the benefits of 2 weeks of classes for the preps and I suppose most of the kids have really improved, particularly those who have never done any swimming. But I feel like its been the worst $85 I've spent recently. This is why:

• Climber's teacher (lets call him S) clearly dislikes young kids and looks tired and frustrated when they chat, play or muck around. Hello, what does he think 5 and 6 year-olds do in the water?
  
• During the first week there was this ghastly incident involving Andrew, the weakest swimmer in that class, who was clearly being asked to do things outside his skill and confidence level and S started hounding him, barking in his face "get off the wall Andrew, we're not stopping this till you get it right" for almost half the class while the rest of them were virtually ignored. Andrew kind of took it on the chin at the time, being a nice little kid, but he was apparently in tears till 10.30 that night and adamant that he wouldn't go back to class.
• A few discussions took place (I ended up telling the school the next day after worrying about it all night) and things never got that bad again. But now Andrew's parents and I attend EVERY class.
• Because of the Andrew debacle, S started to teach by standing on the edge of the pool rather than getting in with the kids.
• This meant Climber stopped listening because he responds much better to face-to-face teaching as opposed to orders barked from on high.
• I think that S decided Climber was a troublemaker because of the not-listening thing so S started ignoring Climber. Well that's my theory. I know he never seemed to see the fact that Climber would be doing the wrong stroke up the pool or was 'cheating' by pulling himself along the wall.
• I had a talk with Climber saying this is not good and if you want to improve you need to listen and try hard.
• The next day he did and he swam the lap as asked, got to the end looked over at me and said "Did I do good?" and S barked at him "No you did NOT do good because you are not listening to me."

I'm just so unbelievably frustrated by this. I feel like bursting into tears when I watch it. And the crazy thing is that because Climber is exhausted from these daily classes, we haven't been able to attend his regular classes (despite still having to pay for them of course) where he gets quality tuition and is achieving like gangbusters. But there's only one more day to go and I can't be bothered, I'm not going to watch it and put myself through the stress. We'll be back with the lovely Simon on Monday. And the cute blondie.

On a nicer note, turns out Climber has a new girlfriend, made during the bus-rides to and from the pool. Her name is Angelina. They love to hug. They find each other in the crowd, smile and then ask "Cuddle?" and then wrap their arms around each other. It's just so nice. I looked at him today as he stood there tall and handsome, with his arm casually and affectionately round her shoulders and was staggered by how like his father he is!!

The class is at the end of the day, so when I have the car there is the option for him to come with me back to school rather than ride the bus. He said today that he wanted to come in the car, but then in the line-up, he and Angelina found each other. I said "are you coming in the car with me or do you want to cuddle Angelina on the bus?"

He chose the bus.

So Angelina stole my husband. And now she's after my son.