The Flying Finger...

*this post is dedicated to CFD. She's feeling all "Barb-ish" in that she's usually the last to update her blog but today she's the first to update. So, yeah, this one's for you, sister wife.

As I escorted my students to the cafeteria, my own son, Thing One, comes searching for me. Just barely holding in the tears, he said "Mom, I've got to tell you something". OK, walk with me...talk to me.

It seems as if he was sitting in class, listening to his teacher, with his head nestled in his hands. He had a finger from each hand stretched out, touching his cheek. But sadly, it wasn't just any finger. Yeah, it was THAT finger. He of course is clueless. He's just listening. Well, mostly listening, with a dash of cutting up sprinkled on top.

But a couple of his classmates noticed and they knew which finger that was. So, they started to giggle. And the more they laughed, the happier this made him feel, so he started to ham it up.

That's when his teacher stepped in. She pointed out that this was an action requiring immediate contact of a parent. Did he want her to call me? Oh no, he was scared. A phone call to mom means no special lunch delivered on Friday. I could tell he was still rather dazed and confused by it all but took it like a man, and stopped the action. But, he wanted to tell me before I got the message from Mrs. D. (have I told you how much I love his honesty?)

Of course, I didn't get the full version from him. All I got from him was the choked back sobs that he was doing something that made his teacher angry and he felt really bad. I told him "just be sure to apologize and we'll figure the rest out later on".

Later in the day, I ran into his teacher and she kindly filled me in on the details. She of course agreed he had no clue what he was doing was wrong in the first place ( well, except that he shouldn't be acting like the class clown. But as for flying the finger: totally clueless! Yeah, that's my boy!). Yet at the same time, the gesture is inappropriate whether you are clueless or not.

So, today my son learned that there are ways to call someone a bad name without ever opening your mouth. Hopefully, it will be years before he learns what that really translates to.

And I learned that we've all made a lot of progress this year...and for that I'm most grateful.