Just the Usual Stuff

With college finals coming up in just a few weeks, I started a Monday night study-for-finals time. Anyone can join in that brings something to study. They have to be there the whole time 7-9 (except Ty who doesn't get home until 7:30) to share the food.

I forgot to take pictures, so here are the leftovers!


The little bacon cheeseburgers were awesome even though they slightly resembled cardboard.













The twins brought home turkeys which had to be disguised in order to escape being eaten. I thought a pirate and a cat might work out. Family members were encouraged to help so Ty was Kaleb's partner. I knew he'd be good at it. Look at the hat he made.





Jasmine and Kayla worked on this one. With the beak out the side, it didn't look very good so the beak got folded under.

Shy was supposed to help by making the paws. They didn't really look like paw prints though. More like an inky smudge.

If you've been following this blog, you know it's been an "interesting" couple of weeks here. But now I'm seeing troubling behaviors in a child I'll call boo bear. Due to Boo bear's background, it's not surprising, but I was hoping.... Boo has always had organizational and comprehension difficulties. And some lying, but it was the kind of lying where a child would say, "So and so happened at school" and Boo would jump right in and say, "That happened to me too" or make up a similar story, and I'd remind her that it wasn't necessary to make something up just to be a part of the conversation.

Then the lying progressed to saying another child did something which he or she did not do. Of course that's a problem in itself because there's always the chance that the incident did occur and someone needs to sit time out--but there's an equal chance that it didn't happen. And sometimes I'd be watching unseen and knew that the incident hadn't occurred.

Now Boo bear is "acquiring" things. Like my lip balm. And my calculator. And other little trinkets which she is addicted to. We have more little key chains and plastic junk that any one needs. Tyler saw Boo put something in her pocket and asked her what it was. She said, "Nothing." I asked to see and there was my lip balm from my room. That was a plain, outright lie.

Then there's the issue of lunch money. We recently qualified for reduced lunch. We agreed that Boo would get hot lunch once a week. I give the little ones a school budget of $100 to cover class shirts, lunches, field trips, clothing, yearbook (only $15) and so on. I sent in $3.20 for 8 lunches. She came home and said she owed $1.10. I asked her how she could owe money when this was the first time she'd had a hot lunch. I asked her right out if she'd charged breakfast any day. She started doing that at the end of last year. She told me that she had not charged anything. So I called the school. It turns out she had charged TEN breakfasts previously. Since we are a no charge school, why did they allow her to charge ten????? And not send a note or call or anything.

Boo Bear lost hot lunch for the remainder of the month, lost allowance and the weekly trip to the store and lost going out for breakfast Saturday with me while Ding dong had counseling. The reason for the triple loss of privileges was that she not only charged breakfasts which she is not supposed to do, but she did it ten times and then lied. And she needs to realize that lying is serious. So she lost her weekly privileges plus of course hot lunch. She already used up the money with her previous charges.

I'd like to say that was the end of it, but last night I picked up her jacket and the pocket was full of glass stones. She took them from school. She didn't want to tell me where they came from, but she did tell me without lying. She is returning them today.

The problem is that I'm not sure to what extent she understands lying and stealing. I'm thinking that she knows right from wrong pretty well and that she's giving herself excuses for taking things and lying. "It's okay to take these pretty stones because there are so many and the teacher doesn't need them all..." or something like that.

I am just going to be consistent and hope these behaviors soon become a thing of the past.



Book It.

I didn't think our school did it anymore because Jasmine's class didn't do it last year and they aren't doing it this year! She's read Sign of the Beaver, City of Ember, a Boxcar children mystery, a non fiction book about marine life, a Magic Tree house mystery and two other books and did reports on them but no book it coupon.


And where is the free pizza for the parent who read all the books to the twins???