Airbilbi

What's that mean?  I don't know.  You don't know.  Google doesn't know.  It was my "word verification" so that I could post on Leti's blog, U8MyCrayons.

It's the beginning of the second week at school.  Hopefully it's better than the last one.  Well, Big Man did awesome, of course, because he feels embarrassed when he behaves poorly in public.  Heck, he feels embarrassed when he behaves poorly at home.  He's so flippin easy.  The worst we have to deal with is him telling the Little Man what to do all of the time and the monster that is "I forgot."  I promise to you that I am going to ban the word "forgot" from this house.  I can't do that.  I'm scared of what other "F" words they'll figure out to replace it with.

Oh, man, GO, BIG MONEY!

Sorry.  I love these Flo commercials.  Hilarious.  Also, "you look like a beach angel!" haaaaaahahahahaha

Ok, so, the big problem school wise is, of course, the Little Man.  I mentioned last blog that I was concerned that I hadn't been able to modify his behavior enough and that he'd get violent at school.  I was concerned that we'd made the wrong decision about allowing him to start kindergarten, even though his preschool teacher felt he wasn't ready.  I was positive I could turn his social skills around in time.

I failed.  I failed big time.  It took a total of five days for my failure to show its face.  He had three perfect days Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.  Thursday he had to move his card because he got two warnings for "talking too loudly."  This is expected, as Little Man's volume control when he gets excited is about as good as mine.  Still, it wasn't too bad.  Friday, the poop hit the things with the stuff, and he did so poorly at school that he got a call home.  Eric let me listen to the message.  It was so embarrassing.  The teacher sounded so frustrated and upset, and I completely understood her frustration.  He reverted to the same behaviors that he had with me when I first started staying home with him.  He fought with her about using the restroom.  He hit her with his lunchbox.  He was told he lost his free time because of his behavior, and his response was, "Whatever."  She told him to sit still while the other children had their free time.  He refused and told her he wasn't going to do anything she said. 

*sigh*  He's lucky he's as easy to love as his brother.  He behaves this way, and you think he's possessed.  He goes from zero to terrorist in 0.23 seconds.  Then, once he calms down, he turns on the charm big time, and it's easy to forget that you have to follow through on the consequences.  The dimples come out, the big blue eyes with the cute wire glasses, the head cocked to the side and the innocent little, "sowwy."  What is unfortunate is that he isn't really sorry.  He thinks "sorry" means no standing in the corner, or he gets his toys back, or he gets to do what he wanted before he got in trouble.  Once he says sorry and still gets a consequence, he goes off again with screaming and fit throwing.  Our consequences have been working rather well at home.  I rarely deal with fits, and he rarely, RARELY hits me, like once a month if that, where it used to be every day several times a day.  The problem is, every authority figure he has, he needs to test them.  He needs to be on his worst behavior to see if they mean business, but darn it, HOW LONG DOES HE NEED TO TEST?!?  He's been testing mom and grandma forEVER now.  WHY is it taking so long for him to see that they mean business?!  Is he going to test every new teacher he has for the entire year he has them before he realizes they have consequences?  He'll get booted out of school!  He hits someone now, and it sucks, but it doesn't really hurt.  If he's still hitting by the time he's 15, he's gonna knock someone out and go to jail.

Sometimes I watch Supernanny to remind myself that it's not THAT bad.  At least he's not cussing me out or calling me names.  Yet.

Let's talk about awesome stuff, instead.  Academically, Little Man is doing REMARKABLY well.  Now, listen to me when I tell you this.  All summer, I worked with the kids on memorizing their address and phone number.  How I did this was that I made a template with it written on it, and I had them copy it to memorize it.  Dudes.  This shit DOES NOT WORK!  All summer I had them doing this.  For months and months.  First day of school rolls around, and I'm all, "What's your phone number?"  And they're all, "What you talkin 'bout, Willis?  We have a phone?"  Well, on Tuesday, Little Man's homework was "practice your phone number."  So, I tried a new technique.  I present to you:

Giant telephone!  I taped this big telephone to the floor and had them both jump from number to number.  They knew the number within 3 tries.  It took all of 60 seconds for them to learn it.  Heck, Big Man learned it backward, too!  Months of writing?  Failure!  Giant telephone?  WIN!  Except the next morning, at 7:30 a.m., Little Man decided to pick up my phone and try to practice his phone number on it.  He couldn't find the number pad on the touch screen, so he just started pushing buttons....and he called and woke up my friend.  Sorry, again, Liz!  Note to self:  Put the telephone in a high place.

Oh, crap!  I gotta go get my brakes checked!  Ciao! Aloha! Arrividerci!  Adios!  Uh....whatever goodbye is in French!