Well-Trained?

My son was devastated to have lost another critical Lego piece to our nine-month-old border collie.
"That's what happens when you leave your stuff lying around," I said. Tiny objected.
"But I thought he was well-trained," he cried.
"You're well-trained, and you do crazy stuff all the time."

We have pondered the curious sight of my son's smurf-blue poop (a certain someone sucked down a blue sharpie, no kidding), his bizarre tendency to flush household items down the toilet as a protest against visiting his father (couldn't he just draw a picture full of angst like other kids?), and his occasional exhibitionist behavior (for no reason whatsoever). In fact, my son isn't at all a far stretch from the aforementioned puppy, whom we have taught to respond appropriately to a myriad of commands, including "Toby, don't lick your wiener." He needed only a little time to figure out the ban on wiener-licking in my presence. My son needed a greater deal of training, however, for his wiener-issue last year, but he now responds well to "Tiny, quit flashing your wiener." Licking and flashing aside, both critters, despite receiving plenty of affection, structure, and nurturing to coach them into being socially acceptable, occasionally indulge in random miscreant behavior. Because it's fun. Because they can. Wieners aside, they share a common bond.

They are both brilliant thieves. The pup gleefully steals Legos, socks, underwear, Kleenex, and blankies. This year, my son's booty included a Kindle, a watch, miscellaneous Lego guys, and ten dollars. Each time, we stepped up Tiny's training.  And just when I thought he was untrainable, the cycle broke, and Tiny restored himself with a sense of respect for other people's things... most of the time. Toby recently skulked into the living room with a stolen peanut butter and jelly sandwich, flashed it before me, and then lay down in complete shame and resignation. Of the two beasts, he is by far the easier one to train.

Despite the struggle to thwart thievery, Tiny is a leader in the manner in which he returns items (most of the time). We hope his approach inspires his four-legged friend to do the same. Normally, stolen items are returned pretty much in the manner in which they were snatched-- whole, unbroken, unsoiled. Right now, our fuzzy fella gladly returns the Legos he steals, but 24 hours later processed in a pile of poop in the backyard.

We take our training one day at a time chez Catiche. Wish us luck.

Educating Tiny

With school starting again, I have been a little anxious about how my youngest will fare out back in a traditional group setting. Tiny Man is best one-on-one and gets bored easily. He is, as I have told his teacher, THAT child in the classroom-- the one that stands out, the one that doesn't conform, and often cluelessly so. I understand the exasperation of his teachers, as I am drawn to that point myself some days; it is hard to be THE mother of THAT child. At least now, with some of his acts of defiance in the past, I can find those things amusing.

Late last year, I was called by the assistant principal because my five-year-old son had, according to her report, kicked and punched three kids while waiting in the lunch line. It wasn't the first call I had, and wouldn't be even close to the last. When I picked him up from school, I told him that sometimes I was embarrassed to be his mother.

"Why?" Tiny whined.
"You beat up three kids at school today!" I snapped. My son's brow furrowed in a moment of confusion and he quickly corrected me, "It was TWO!"

You see my point. Months before, I had gotten a tired and irritable email from his teacher who wrote to document all the craziness he had performed that day, and then added that right at the moment she was writing, he was flicking balls of foil around the room and refusing to follow the Spanish teacher's directions. He had worn everyone completely out.

"This is precisely why I don't teach anymore," I responded. "Good luck with that."

Honestly, we worked very hard with his teacher to help shape my son's mischief into bouts of productivity and compliance. For every good effort he made at school, we rewarded it at home. For his more disruptive episodes, we withdrew privileges. And yes, headway was made. This year, we have taken a more proactive approach knowing what we know about our son and what he tends to do, such as why, for example, he might have lost bus riding privileges last year.

"Son," I said on the first morning of school. "Keep it in your pants on the bus. Understand?"
Tiny heaved a sigh of massive resignation. "Okaaaayyyyy."

The Cheese Touch and Other Socially Damaging Behaviors

I cannot believe I am posting this...

We just went to see Diary of a Wimpy Kid, a comedy about life as a middle schooler. I remember this stuff, both as a kid, and then watching it unfold in the classroom from the perspective as a teacher. Things really don’t change. The scene dealing with “The Cheese Touch” was probably based on truth, which, as you know, is always funnier than fiction. I won’t describe it. You simply need to see this yourself. In another highlight of the film, Fregley, whose character probably was inspired by truth as well, hauls his shirt up to showcase a gross, hair-spiked mole. He is exactly the kind of gleefully oblivious child one finds in middle schools everywhere as one or the other gender, and with variations of crass behavior. I went to school with a Fregley or two over the years.

I attended an all-girl Catholic school in uptown New Orleans for both the middle and high years. As the new kid among a set of students that had been bonded since kindergarten, I was certainly not immune to the great social disparity that existed between me and these other girls. I was a little geeky. I didn’t come from money. And I was shy. Somehow, I quickly made friends with Bridget who warned me about certain kids—two in particular. Their names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent.

“You don’t want to sit near Mary,” whispered Bridget to me one day as she slanted her eyes toward the offending party. “She farts. In grade school, I had to sit behind her and she farted every day.”

It seems as though Mary had her own version of “The Cheese Touch” and I was not about to fall prey. Not once did I sit behind Mary—not in middle school nor the four years of high school that followed, at least not if I could help it. There is a hierarchy of geekdom that even geeks follow. I may not have walked with the perfectly polished pretty set of girls, but I would not be caught getting contaminated with Mary’s gas. I was afraid the stink would stick to me.

There was another kid that existed on the fringes as well, but in a slightly worse capacity. Mind you, we can forgive Mary for the wayward gas that she might not have been able to control, but Cayla lives forever in punitive memory for picking ear wax and eating it.

(Are you dying yet? As I sit here and write, I cannot stop laughing. In fact, I’m crying over this… and there’s more…)

Cayla completed middle school and moved on to another institution. She was conveniently replaced, in Fregley’s ever revolving spirit, with Maddy. Maddy did things with a pencil that just should not be done. By high school, young women are well aware of appropriate social behaviors. Our worst offense should be nail biting or picking at cuticles. Maddy was seen scratching her privates through the slit of our kilt-style uniformed skirt… with said pencil. And on occasion, I did have to sit beside this unfortunate girl. Let’s just say, I never once came to class unprepared. If Maddy was the last person on earth with a pencil to lend, I would have made my own damn pencil by chewing a branch from one of the great oaks out on the school grounds.

Yes, I survived those years, always considering myself an outcast even though, in reality, I had quite a number of nice friends. These girls, who are gathering for our twenty year high school reunion without me as I write this, remember each other far better than I would have thought possible. Most of them seem to have forgiven the worst of the crimes by the Fregleys in our class. Some of them are now coaching their own kids through middle school and may even have Fregleys of their own. Thankfully, we all outgrew our middle school awkwardness.

Girls, I salute you, but take this advice: be careful from whom you borrow a pencil. Fregley is out there… and waiting.