A Call from the Principal's Office

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The call every parent dreads... You look at the caller ID, and it's your child's school. GREAT! Guess we're in for another trip to the doctor!

I answer hestitantly, "Hello?"

The voice at the other end says, "Hi Tammy. It's ******* (the principal). I just wanted to call and let you know that your child got bitten again."

Me, "ARE YOU SERIOUS?!? That's the second day in a row!"

Principal, "I know... Well, apparently your child is a little bit of a bully, and it seems the other kids are retaliating."

My 16-year-old you might assume? Nope! The 1-year-old!!! It seems we'll be having more lessons on the importance of sharing and keeping our hands to ourselves.

The Booger Bear is the "baby" in his class, and has "Little Man's Syndrome." What he lacks in age, size, and motor skills he makes up for in attitude. He wants WHAT he wants WHEN he wants it, whether another child is playing with it or not. His teacher said that he's been known to spot a toy that another child is playing with from across the room, go into his "Super-Aerodynamic Baby Crawler Mode," race across the room with his head low to the ground in order to pick up speed (I do believe TACKLING was involved on more than one occassion), and rip the toy out of the hands of the unsuspecting child.

The morning after the latest "biting incident," I was saying goodbye to the Booger and told him sternly, "Now I don't want to see another incident report today, Buddy. You need to SHARE and BE NICE." One of the other mom's overheard me and lamented, "Oh no!!! It was J?!?" Apparently, it was HER son who's been biting him every day. I assured her not to worry about it because the Booger started it and needs to learn to share. If he gets bitten enough, he'll learn eventually.

We ended up finding the "good" in the situation. At least the kids seem to be best friends because they're always together. Hitting and biting and toy-stealing aside... :-)