Bit of This and That

Helpful monkey (The Bear) decided he was done with the banana he was eating in the car. So, "I thwo-ed it away momma!" Into the open diaper bag at his feet. Where it squished as the bag overturned getting off the freeway. Yummy.

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BillyBob is having adjustment issues at school. His grades are fine. He has friends. He's made the leap from home schooled kid to changing classes middle schooler pretty well. He is tired and stressed and being so stinking busy with dance doesn't help. But the big problem is the kid has Guilt. About any and all minor infractions he commits. He has guilt about a misunderstanding with a friend's mom from 4 years ago. (Sorry, again, Mrs. Weidmann that he was on a different wavelength about whether or not Sunny D was pop.) And the newest thing to add to his guilt, and stress, is that he forgot to put our extra cell phone in his locker. AND he forgot to turn it off.

And so a friend texted him while in school. A home schooled friend, who marches to the beat of her own dramatic drummer, who wants to go to school, and who talks about school obsessively with BillyBob. This friend, and her older freshman-in-h.s. sister, both have been caught by me using a cell phone inappropriately (at CHURCH) by making prank calls to friends.

Teenyboppers using cells to prank call people make me so angry. It shows immaturity AND lack of respect for the person paying for the victim-of-the-prank-call's cell phone bill. A lot of parents I know provide a cell phone for their children for emergencies, but the plan for that phone has basically no minutes. It's for, "Mom! I forgot my lunch!" or, "Did you forget I get out of school early today?" types of calls. So when you have some kidlings with unsupervised access to a cell phone, you have a kidling with the ability to run someone else's finances out of control.

So when this child sent my son three texts during school hours, I responded with a strongly worded text telling the child that my son's phone is for emergencies ONLY and that she wasn't to text or call on that line. I also informed her that her actions had aided in getting my son in trouble which has increased his school stress/guilt level. Fantastic.

So . . . if you were that child's parent, and a parent sent a text correcting your child (with no profanity, mind you) what would you do? Would you say, "Naughty child of mine! You need to learn some respect and self-control!" I would. Well, not this parent. This parent is diminishing his child's actions ("She forgot he was no longer home schooled") and demands that I apologize to his child for my 'heavy-handed' remarks.

I refuse to apologize to a child for chastising them for their bad behavior. And I will go to the mat on this one if I have to. My belief is that children must deal with the results of their actions. My son forgot to put his phone in his locker, it rang, he got embarrassed and it got removed, AND he's getting a disciplinary notice in his school file. I'm not upset about his action, but he is and he has to deal with it. This child, the friend who texted and prank calls him, got verbally spanked by me for her actions' impact on my son and on our cell phone bill. If she is 'hurt' or 'embarrassed' by it, she needs to deal with it. I believe a child who is considered old enough to have unsupervised access to a cell phone must be old enough to deal with the consequences when they misbehave and anger a friend's parent.

Am I off base here?

Also, expecting an adult to apologize to a child for correcting them for wrong behavior? VERY bad parenting technique! Setting yourself up for a lifetime of trouble with that child, in my opinion.

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And countdown to Nutcracker! This weekend my daughter gets to dress in the Clara dress and go to the town library to hand out fliers advertising the ballet. She might also get to light the town's Christmas tree. How cool would that be for a 10-year-old?!?! Brothers get to go along, too. BillyBob will be dressed as the Nutcracker Prince, and Gil will be in a Spanish costume. On Sunday they'll be in the Holiday parade.

You know what this means? Ringlet curls. For the 5th season in a row I'll have to curl my daughter's hair in ringlets. Two years as an angel with another ballet company, three years in party scene/as Clara with this company. And, being petite, there's always the chance that she'll be cast in party scene or as Clara in coming years and I'll have to do ringlets again in the future. I will be the Ringlet Goddess by the time her dance career is over.

This also means I have to cut about six inches off her hair so the curls won't look like snakes. Anyone want to volunteer to help hold her down?