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Community Life Memories

For my Community Life ladies.  Love you Guys!

Experiments

You asked for oatmeal this morning

I mashed bananas and mixed them in, since

they were going bad and variety is good

right?

Your first bite.

Gag. choke. big tears well up in your eyes.

You spit the mouthful back into the bowl

and look at me in despair and anger.

How dare I taint your favorite breakfast dish?

I'll put some chocolate chips on it.  Bananas are

good with chocolate right?

You nod.  Oh how you trust your

Mommy.

2nd attempt.

Gag. Choke. Alligator tears spill down over your cheeks.

You chew a few more times, moaning, apparently trying to

convince yourself that chocolate chips make

everything better

but they don't.

thin brown drips of pureed banana oatmeal chocolate chip

mush begin streaming from the corners of your mouth

swallow. I order. just swallow that bite and you

don't have to eat anymore.

um! um! You shake your head.

nauseated chipmunk cheeks puffed out.

Daggers in your eyes.

JUST swallow and take a drink

um!um!  moreheadshaking

don't spit that out.

ummmmm, moaning, desperation

you hold your mouth open like a baby bird

keeping the watery goo in, but taking some breaths

of air through your mouth.

gulp.

done.

drink.
finally.

You've earned a bowl of Lucky Charms instead.

Lesson learned:  mashed bananas in oatmeal sounds better

than it tastes.

On bullies/teasing

Elijah is the new kid, and let's face it.  His interests and talents are a little bit outside of the mainstream.  We knew that moving to a new school for 3rd grade would not be easy for him, but he has handled it with more maturity and courage than I thought possible.  

For the first several weeks (two months really) there were a couple of boys in his class who had been picking on him regularly.  He says they "bug" him.  He says Joe hurts his feelings while Jacob's specialty is pushing him around.  We encouraged him to tell an adult nearby when the boys were bugging him and to avoid them as much as possible.  Daily he brought home more stories of being pushed in the hallway and being called 'stupid' and 'cry-baby.'  I went to talk to his teacher and she assured me that she'd keep an eye out.  She said that the two boys doing most of the "bugging" were not in groups with Elijah, and he concurred that most of the teasing was going on in the hallway, at recess or at lunch. 

The same day I talked to Elijah's teacher, he came home with an office referral.  Apparently Jacob took his lunch box and was playing keep-away with it.  Elijah looked for an adult, couldn't see one close by so he punched Jacob in the stomach to get his lunch box back.  

Fighting is a serious offense.  Eric was the parent on duty when Elijah came home, and could see that he was already very upset by the trip to the office and the referral, so they talked about how to make better choices next time.  When I got home, I talked to him as well, and he agreed that forgetting the lunch box and ignoring the teasing would be better options if no adult could be found.  

But here's the thing.  Since the fight, two weeks have gone by and the daily teasing seems to have lessened significantly.  Today he said they were making faces at him across the room, but the verbal teasing and pushing seem to have stopped for now.  There is a part of me that feels, "Way to go standing up for yourself!  Its probably what needed to happen."  I don't want him to resort to fighting again, but I'm not disappointed in him for taking a stand.  

Sometimes parenting makes that line between right and wrong so VERY blurry.        

From Isaiah

I was a ninja for Halloween!