Being "that" parent

Talk about a rough day... make that a rough week. Now that I moved up to 5th grade from 4th, I've finally discovered the one big difference between 4th and 5th now that we've hit the spring semester....drama. Girl drama to be exact. I feel like I'm in a soap opera and should walk around with a director's chair while saying, "ACTION!" when I'm at school. It's been exhausting dealing with it all week. It's finally gotten so out of control that parents were called. Dealing with behavior is my LEAST favorite part of teaching. It's frustrating, draining, and did I mention exhausting? Most parents are very supportive while some others talk big but do little only for their child to do it again.

Which brings me to my next story...Nolan has had a pretty off week at school this week just not listening, not taking a nap, and not getting along with some of his classmates. He has a new teacher which always rocks his world when there's a big change like that. Today, he actually went to the "office" because time out was not working. He refused to stay in timeout and then actually hit his teacher in the act. Oh boy. Can you tell I'm hiding behind my face in shame? I think when you're a teacher you put your children at an even higher expectation because you don't want your kid to be "that" child... that same one that drives you crazy each and every day.

So I did the walk of shame down the long hallway...halfway boiling but mostly just embarrassed. Let's just say that he was definitely disciplined and enjoyed a night free of cars or anything that resembled fun. I know he's four but it scares me that he didn't get the gene of being terrified of getting in trouble at school from me...must get it from his daddy. We'll see how tomorrow goes. For now, someone had to write a letter to their teacher apologizing. I hope that his teachers don't think I'm one of "those" parents.

3 and A HALF

I have to mention why it's important to say that Nolan is 3 and a half. That half is VERY important. You see, that half has been an overnight shift of sassiness and independence that tries the most patient and understanding person in the world...which I fully admit I am NOT!

Oh where do I start about this week? I must say that I've been pretty proud of our disciplining and how it's working but once we hit that HALF mark our normal tricks up our sleeve are not working...in fact they're failing miserably! Usually if Nolan has a bad day a school, we take away his cars and puzzles and he's right back on track the next day. So when he had a bad day on Tuesday we did that but then he had even a worse day on Wednesday....stealing kids pillows at nap time and waking them up. Thursday was another rough day and three days with no toys is more of a punishment to us than him we decided! We even resorted to spanking although I can count on one hand how many times I've spanked him. I am so desperate to see what will work! So Friday morning we decided to not make such a big deal about thinking that he might be loving all this attention he's getting albeit bad attention.

I called at lunch time to find out that our son (oh this is so embarrassing) pulled down his pants at school and did a little dance for all his friends to see. I promise this is not behavior he learned from us! It sounds funny except when it's your kid and you do the walk of shame down the hall to pick him up. I was really upset about it and called our doctor to see what is causing him to be so defiant. He has a new teacher that started about 3 weeks ago and she seems very nice and very structured which is very good but we think that he's responding to this change. She helped me brainstorm too that we might need to take him off his allergy medicine that I coincidentally gave him the same number of days that he was pulling all these bad days in a row. We immediately stopped that and have had a wonderful weekend. I hope it was the medicine but only time will tell. Our doctor recommended not even talking about school this weekend-that we all need a break from it and we just need to have some family fun time. You know us...we are practically the inventors of forced family fun! But it actually wasn't forced this weekend-it really was fun!

Friday we went with some friends to an outdoor family friendly concert and both boys loved it. They had lots of fun activities for the kids. It was really good to talk with our friends because they all just shared stories of their 3 and a half year olds that make us think that Nolan is a saint! Saturday night we went to Central Market for Burgers and Bock and listened to Justin's coworkers band play and once again it was actually fun! We even got some yummy gelatto and here's proof of how much fun Nolan had.

In the midst of all this frustration with disciplining him. Here is a recap of hysterical things Nolan said:

"Mommy I wanna go buy a hula poop!" (hula hoop)
"I'm sorry for being disRECEPTACLE." (disrespectable)
"My mommy spanks me all the time!" ( to the church nursery worker!) He is such a liar!

We spelled his name on a little craft crown he made at the family music night and he said, "We forgot M SPOT!" He meant that we forgot to spell "Nolan M."

Melt my heart

We've really been working on discipline lately. I think we really breezed through that two year old stage. It's so true that the threes are harder than the twos. The independence, the defiance, the attitude...whoa! Nolan has done so much better since his visits to the office at school every day a couple of weeks ago. I think after taking away his favorite toys he knew we meant business. I had to have a come-to-Jesus talk with him about how disappointed we were and that if he's good he'll get a sticker but if he's not we'll take his puzzles or cars away. That caught his attention. As a child, I remember that there was nothing worse than knowing that I disappointed my parents. Hoping that maybe I passed on that gene to him, I told Nolan that when he gets in trouble at school it makes mommy and daddy's heart sad.

Tonight as I was putting him to bed, I told him how proud I was of him for doing so well at school everyday and making good choices. He says in his adorable three-year-old voice, "Did I make your heart smile?" Just saying that makes my heart smile.

It was bound to happen

"But I just..." Can I tell you how many times I hear that phrase daily from my 3 year old? Apparently, Justin tells me he invented that phrase as a child and his mom constantly got on to him to stop...I can see why! As a teacher, I'm a stickler for being disrespectful. The words "huh", "what?, or "yea" are not uttered in my classroom and I try to instill the same thing in my boys (well I will do the same with Campbell when he says something other than "dada" all the time). Sometimes, I wonder if my students have any sort of manners being taught at home with what I see at school.

Well lately Mr. Nolan has had quite the lip lately at school and been defiant. So now his teacher is probably saying the same thing about my kid that I'm saying about other people's children! One day I found out he was yelling at Mrs. Marla and had to go to timeout (rightfully so!) so now I check to see if he made good choices at school everyday. He knows that if he did, he gets a sticker and after 10 stickers he gets a prize i.e. watching a favorite show, getting to stay up 30 minutes later to play, etc.

He's always been brutally honest even if it incriminates himself but today he was on the playground and as I'm getting out of the car he's screaming, "I didn't yell at Mrs. Marla today or push Cayden!" I was pretty proud of him but a little embarrassed that he screamed it so loud across the parking lot. Well I stop by the office to talk with the director and come to find out, Nolan Case (as I refer to him when he's in trouble) has been in the office almost everyday this week because of his "No fits." Looks like someone has discovered that honesty is overrated. We definitely had a talk tonight and threatened to take away his puzzles which are is source of entertainment for hours. He does them over and over again each night. The director did comment how he's normally really well behaved and extremely smart (tell me about it...no really, tell me more!) She thinks that Nolan might be bored in class and starting to act out. Oh great, I can't wait to see what kindergarten has in store for us!