The Joys of Boys!

It's official. Turtle, my sweet, affectionate, sensitive boy, is on his way to juvenile crime. He received not one, but two detentions in one week. As a first-grader! Where did I go wrong?!?!

It all started with a phone call from the school principal. It went something like this:

Principal - "I've got Turtle here in my office. I am very worried about his behavior today."
Me - "What did he do?"
Principal - "He told another boy to open his mouth so he could pee in it."
Me - "Okay."

Now I'm waiting for the shoe to drop. What did my son do that would cause his principal to be so very worried? Did he whip his peanut out? Did he actually pee on the other kid?

Principal - "He's going to need to stay after school for ten minutes for detention today."

Wait a second! What did he do to get detention? At this point, I'm still waiting to hear what horrible thing my son did. It turns out that was it. He told another boy he was going to pee on him.

After laughing a good ten minutes, I call everyone to let them know (and to make sure I wasn't making too light of a serious issue.) Thankfully, I wasn't crazy and everyone agreed the school over-reacted.

J picked him up after detention, told the teacher that he thought they went a little overboard, and then took Turtle to the store to get a videogame. Now before anyone gets up-in-arms about J rewarding him for getting in trouble at school...Turtle had to wait until the next day to play it because he got detention.

So, then a couple of days later I pick Turtle up and he tells me he got detention again. What did he do this time?

Turtle - "X farted on me, so I farted on him back."

Because the detention slip said "very disrespectful behavior" and because Turtle doesn't always remember all the details (not to mention I was pissed if that really was the reason he got detention), I decided to go get the details from his teacher.

So that conversation went a little like this:

Me - "I'd like to know why Turtle has detention again."
Teacher - "Well, X farted on Turtle and he farted back."
Me - "So he got detention for farting?"

I must have given her an incredulous look. Here's where the story changes:

Teacher - "Oh, they were being rude to a teacher outside at recess."
Me - "I thought he farted on X?"
Teacher - "Well, I wasn't really there. This is just what I was told. He was being rude to a teacher and the farting was the last straw. I can find out for sure and let you know."

So, I get a note the next day saying he got detention because X farted on him and Turtle chased him down the hall trying to fart back.

Hmmm, so which was it?

A. He farted on a boy in the classroom.
B. He was rude to a teacher outside.
C. He chased a boy down the hall trying to fart on him.

I am inclined to believe it was A. They had to make it sound more serious when they saw that J and I thought they were being ridiculous.

So, my seven year old boy got in trouble for threatening to pee on someone and for farting on someone. What the hell?

Have children changed so much? I'm a girl, but I clearly remember bodily-function humor from last week, err I mean when I was a kid. Puke, snot, poop, pee, farts, boogers...it was all discussed at one time or another. Is it really such a cause for concern? I turned out fairly okay.

So, now I have to make sure Turtle only farts on his brother. I just hope he didn't tell anyone about how they pee on each other in the shower!

Pity Party

This is what I am looking at...

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This is what my husband is looking at...

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I'm freezing in 50-some degree weather. He is baking in 90-some degree weather. I stayed home with two leeches (um, boys attached to my butt.) He went to a Miami Dolphins football game.

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Am I jealous? You better believe it!!

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This past summer J was teaching both classes, so he couldn't get any time off. The boys and I took off for a month to visit the family in Key West and North Carolina. So we decided that J could take a couple of weeks to go home and visit everyone in November. He left Saturday and I am already about to go insane!

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I don't begrudge him this trip. Really, I don't. He has gone almost a year without leaving this hell-hole. Plus, he works crazy-hard and more than deserves this break.

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Does that keep the green-eyed monster at bay? Nope.

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Edited to add: Ignore the dots. For some reason, everytime I try to publish this post, it runs all the words together into one, big paragraph.

Election Thoughts

Well, the election is over. Finally. There has been a lot of ups and downs over the past two days as all the final totals have come in. I'm still not 100% sure how I feel.

First of all, politics aside, I am so proud that our nation has finally put aside some of it's racist past and elected a black president. Fifty-sixty years ago, segregation was still legal. People were treated as inferior beings based solely on the color of their skin. And now a minority has been elected (by a vast majority of votes) to the highest office in our land. It's amazing to me that the first president my son will remember is a minority. When I was little, it would have been an impossibility. How far we've come. Go, America!

That said, I'm not so sure about Obama as president. Don't get me wrong, I was against McCain, too. I really hope Obama is able to bring about the changes he promised. I hope he can turn this country around and get us out of the hole we dug for ourselves. Good luck to him, he's going to need it!

I'm very happy Prop 2 (in California) passed. More humane treatment for farm animals. Always a good thing. Prop 12 passed. Again, I'm happy. Providing for Veterans should be an automatic thing.

Prop 8 passed. This prop denies people of the same sex to marry. I am so disturbed by this. I know there are that many ignorant, hateful people in the world, but this just proves it. Why would someone be so spiteful that they would deny a loving couple the same civil rights everyone else enjoys? I know the "Yes on 8" group ran a shady campaign, purposely misleading people, but I still hoped there were more compassionate people out there, especially here in California. I know similar bans were passed in Florida and a couple of other states, but I kind of expected that. Not here in California.

One definite good thing came of the elections. At least I don't have to worry about Palin as president.

Happy Halloween!!!

We had a busy Halloween on Friday. First was Turtle's parade and party at school. They do a really neat thing there...instead of letting the kids wear costumes to school, every class spends a month working on a paperbag costume. This works out so well. No one is left out and the teachers don't have to worry about getting the kids in and out of their costumes. No torn or messed up costumes, etc. I love it. They have a big parade to show off their paperbags. Some of them were really creative. Turtle's was so cute; he was an alien...



When we got home it was time to carve the pumpkins. Usually I do this weeks ahead of Halloween, but the boys wanted to use the pumpkins they got from the field trip on Thursday. This year I let Turtle do a pumpkin all on his own. He made a scary pumpkin with lots of eyes and stitches. Not bad...





After that I had to finish up Turtle's costume. Attaching a knife to a shirt sounded so easy...it's not. I finally had to get J to help. It turned out okay. Not what I pictured, but Turtle was happy. And, of course, Frog was ecstatic in his "fiderman" costume...



We had a blast TnTing. We hit every street on base here and, between the two of them, we now have an entire brown grocery bag full of candy. No exaggeration. I thought it was going to pour (it had earlier in the morning), but we made it through with only a few sprinkles of rain. Our next-door neighbor has been working on a haunted house under his carport since September. It was awesome! And we actually got both kids to go in it. Turtle and the kids from the other side of the house spent half an hour running through it. It turns out the boys aren't scared of the gory decorations. They were scared of the people screaming and yelling.



On a side note...my NaNoWriMo is coming along better than I expected. I only got 213 words on Saturday because we went to Travis AFB to get groceries. I did manage to get my character sheets and some notes done at work that morning. Yesterday I was work at the library and I got 1419 words done. So, right now, my total is up to 1632 words. I go in early to work tonight, so hopefully I will get even more done.