Ants!

First of all, I want to shout: HE DID IT!!! The report - which is due tomorrow, which he hasn't mentioned since Monday when he said he was going to start working on it, which this afternoon he didn't even know what it was supposed to include - is DONE. Fire ants:



If you can enlarge the photo, check out that super nasty hand infection on the far right. Anyway, apparently the teacher reminded the class today and he remembered after school. I tried to stay as uninvolved as possible until he asked me for some specific help with the computer. I had not mentioned anything about it all week, and the tension was really mounting today. I even started a blog post this morning about it being the last day he could do it, but figured I'd wait and see if it happened. I had all sorts of images in my mind of his major melodrama in school tomorrow when the teacher questioned him not having it, steeling myself against judgement from other parents at not making sure he was on top of it - anyway, this was a pretty big success for me. I'd say the amount I meddled was easily 10% of how much I would have been directing his work last year.

After this week's show on Problem Solving, I decided that I must not be sending the children to the Problem List often enough. There hasn't been anything on it for months. I resolved to use that strategy whenever things got hairy, and guess what? It worked! Three times in the past 2 days, when the kids were crying about something, I invited them to put their issue on the Problem List. Toby did actually write something and achieved No Name, No Blame: "My ears feel like they are going to fall off when there is a loud noise" (Hazel's crying). I offered Hazel magazines to cut out a picture of why she was upset, and they spent an hour peacefully clipping together. All three times, the crying and fighting immediately stopped. How many times can I do this before they catch on? There have been some whopping magazine-snip piles, but I guess that's pennies to pay for a more peaceful household.