MAJOR Announcement!!!

Those of you who are mothers will understand... the rest of you will think I'm insane. But I'm OK with that... It's nothing I haven't known for a long time...

Daija came to me tonight, grabbing her backside and saying 'boo boo' (translation: I got #2 in my diaper). I said OK, let's go get it cleaned up and went to the laundry room, where our changing station is. She walked right past me, and started down the hall. When I went to grab her to take her in to the changing pad, she took off running. Went straight to the toilet and tried lifting the lid (which, for a change, was down like it's supposed to be). I asked her, Do you want to sit on the potty? And she replied 'Poh-yee'. So I grabbed the little toilet training insert and got her on there... and sure enough, she finished the last of her 'boo boo' IN THE TOILET!!!

Life is good

SUMBITCH

No other way to describe it. I ask Tyler about his day over dinner, and he tells me something about the school being shut down because there was a crazy person with a gun. I'm thinking, naaaah. I check their backpacks... and in each one is a lovely notice from the principal to inform parents that the school was on lockdown from 7:20 until 8:35 while the police were investigating a shooting at 28th & Chipman, which I believe is less than a mile away.

Halle Update

Well, so far so good. Ro and I had a good long talk with Halle of the good cop, bad cop variety. I did the, 'we want you to learn' and he did the 'you'll deal with me if I hear any more reports like this'. I picked up some stickers and told her that I'd put one in her box on the calendar for every day that she wrote her morning message. I'm going to drop off a little hand stamp with her teacher, so that when Halle turns in her morning message, she can stamp her hand, then I know to give her a sticker. I told Mrs. B.A.G. that I was going to focus on improving just that one area for now, in hopes that getting her off on the right foot first thing in the morning will carry over into the rest of the day, and that once Halle is doing her morning message regularly, I'll focus on another problem area. Apparently Halle came into class both yesterday and today and got out her paper and pencil and got to work, so teacher says it seems to be working so far. Let's hope she keeps it up!

The birds and the bees and the flowers and the trees...

Tyler actually got in trouble last Thursday at PAC because he and another boy were talking about sex and privates. I talked to Tyler and he said that Rashaad said that Tyler had a pretend girlfriend and he was pretending to have sex with her. I was giggling when I asked Tyler if he knew what sex was, and he burst out, exasperated, 'No, I don't, and that's why I never pretend to do it!' Anyway, at that point I could totally see how Tyler would have felt compelled to yell back 'no I'm not having sex' etc. I've always had the approach that if they're old enough to ask, they're old enough to know... and while Tyler knows how babies grow and how they get out, and all the 'correct' names for body parts, he's never asked how babies start or exactly what sex is. But I think we need to have that talk. I love his naivete, but I don't want it to cause him to be a target for being coaxed to do or say inappropriate things (like yelling 'I'm a gaylord')...