Daddyman @ Home

I get a call at about 9:30am this morning, and assuming it was Pink, I fiddle with getting a pacifier in Molly's mouth before answering. I grab the phone, look at the caller ID and it says Olathe School District.

Oh boy.

Apparently Little Blue hasn't been the perfect little child in school. His teacher is on the line and said that she's been meaning to call the past couple school days, but today he was kicking and screaming in class and today, for a new bar, ran to the edge of the street when it was time for him to come inside from recess.

Dad sighs.

She mentions if anything like that has been happening at home, and I told her it had. Little Blue has decided to talk back a bit and push the limits of going into time out, often crying for 20 minutes for a four minute time out session (time out doesn't start until he's quiet, and there's no consoling once he's sitting down in timeout).

She told me Little Blue was in the principals office, but the principal was in a assembly and wasn't available to talk, and she asked what she wanted me to do, come pick him up or leave him out of activities for the rest of the day. I chose to come get him, and told Miss Em that it was going to take Pink or I 20 minutes to get there, but that one of us would be there.

I called Pink, and after her "no! Not my child!" comments, told her that one of us needed to go get him. (Begin and End who's going to get him argument.)

I arrive at the school 20 minutes later, the twins in their car carriers. "Oh look! Dad looks busy!" the office ladies say.

"Isn't that the truth. My name is Blue Pamphlet and I'm here for Little Blue."

Collectively, "Oh..."

Miss J, once of his class' paraprofessionals, is there and starts trying to get the guy to get his coat on, which wasn't happening. The school nurse came up to watch the girls and I marched into the principals office to go get my son.

Talk about the biggest dear in headlights look I've ever seen. Either they didn't tell him I was coming or he didn't believe them. The waterworks immediately begin, but no overly physical struggle. Tears I can handle in public, it's when the tot gets physical that I start to get a little paranoid.

I get his coat and backpack on, to much "Daddy I'll be good!" fan fair, sign him out, and march him out to the car, him crying the entire time.

Pink and I get him and the girls home, get the girls unpacked and back into their bouncers and Pink talks with Little Blue to settle him down a little bit. I keep him in timeout until he's ready to talk.

After 5 minutes of fussing, he settles down and is ready to talk.

We go through the "who's the boss is and where" routine (i.e. Miss Em is the boss at school, even the boss of Daddy, but Mommy and Daddy are the boss' at home, etc.) and also talk about how dangerous it is to walk away from teachers.

And I mention that I NEVER got sent to the principals office for being bad at school, and that's as bad is could get while at school.

After he settled down from that, we sat and reads stories till lunch, then he was supposed to take a name, but for 2.5 hours, he kept checking if he could get up, going to the bathroom, getting a sip of water, etc. He was told bedtime is early tonight because he chose to be bad.

TV for 30 minutes (Backyardigans), then I'm turning it off while I feed the girls, then we're going to make a Triple Chocolate Cake for later on tonight.

Then...I don't think I'll have the TV on till dinner. I need to work on the kitchen table so it can be usable again, so I might do that while Little Blue has quiet play time.

All this, and I had just prepared a pot of coffee before I had to go pick him up. I love the thermos style coffee pot though, nearly 6 hours later the coffee is still warm.

I'm sort of using the lack of TV, coming home from school, and missing out on the holiday party at school as his punishment for being so bad at school. It was his last day before winter break, so we've got several weeks to wean most of the brat out of him before school starts again.

Taken from the brain of DaddyMan at 1:17 PM    

Labels: School