Two Little Turnips

Both kids were in rare form today. Patrick starting the morning off getting his video game privileges taken away because his sassiness has gotten out of control. He does this thing where whenever anyone says anything to him that is either pleasant (ie, your friend is coming over today) or he doesn't like (for instance, if I have to run an errand after I pick him up from school), he either turns into a rag doll and slumps over dramatically or flops his head back and opens his mouth like a dead trout, kind of like a full-head eye roll. I am DONE with this. Today, he was in the bathroom supposedly brushing his teeth when I had the audacity to tell him that we weren't coming straight home from school because I would need to stop at the Y on the way home to drop off the soccer sign up forms. For my trouble, I got the trout head. THEN, when I scolded him, he did his purposeful-eye-dart, which is when he is looking at me, then pointedly darts his eyes to the side and back as if to say that I can' t control his eyeballs. Well, I beg to differ. I made those eyeballs, and if he keeps it up I might just take them back! So, he lost gaming until his father got home. (I didn't want to take it for the whole day because we do sometimes play as a family in the evenings, and generally even if he's playing during the afternoon I'm playing with him; more on games another time. ) To his credit, he accepted this, and when I reminded him after school he took it in stride.

Then, this afternoon when Josie walked through the door, she handed me an envelope from her teacher. Seems someone not only didn't do what she was asked FIVE TIMES in a row, but when the teacher told her to sign the behavior book (acknowledging that she was having one of the four daily behavior points taken away) she DIDN'T DO IT, and then proceeded to ARGUE with her teacher about how she HAD done it, but just VERY lightly!!!! So, she had another point taken away, lost recess, and had to bring a note home. As punishment, I made her write an apology letter and didn't let her help make brownies this afternoon for the teacher appreciation day tomorrow. She NEVER acts that way. She said it was because she wasn't done her math, and she didn't want to stop when the teacher told her to, and then she didn't want to sign the book because I would be disappointed in her for losing a point. I know, however, that it was more because she was furious about the whole thing and didn't want to do it because she knew she was screwed. Now, of course, she's MORE screwed.

As a topper, Patrick got neither stories or songs at bedtime tonight because he was such a pill about doing as he was told and putting his jammies on, and then had the nerve to try to argue with his father that he in fact WAS putting them on. It didn't help his cause that he was standing in the middle of his pile of rocket toys at the time, holding his hamster. He has ended up having a temper fit in bed with a red bottom, from the sound of it. It takes a lot to make my husband lose his temper, so I can only imagine the faces The Boy was making. I'm trying not to be perversely glad that he's making them at someone other than me!

Why do kids not get that when we're *looking* at them, we can SEE them?! It mystifies me that they still want to argue when we're looking right at them doing whatever it is. A few years ago, Josie actually tried to tell me that she hadn't cut her hair, when I was looking right at her HOLDING THE SCISSORS. I'm trying to decide whether it's that *they're* stupid, or that they think *we* are. At any rate, public schools are closed tomorrow for teacher in-service, so Josie will be home all day, and Patrick will be here as well, since I'm not dragging everyone out early in the morning to drop him off at prek. Hopefully they've all gotten whatever this is out of their systems today, because if they act like this again tomorrow, they're going to be OUTSIDE.