Thursday, September 16, 2010

9/16/2010 Ten years!

Our 10th wedding anniversary today! What a joyful day it was 10 years ago, and what a so awful one today.

Anyone following Facebook knows what I mean, but for those who don't I'll brief you. In addition to work overload at work, being tired as usual, and home overload getting ready to go our weekend trip tomorrow, there's the email we got from the principal today.

Gabriel hit another kid and both were sent to the office. For once there's no ambiguity or disagreement about the story -- the other kid (a friend, or former friend he claims) did something with a ball several times that made Gabriel mad, and Gabriel punched him. His friend told on him, and they were both sent to the office to sort it out. Gabriel completely admits to this, and has no remorse at all. He was furious when I took away his remote-controlled car until Sunday though, then sent him to his room so I could talk to Dave. He completely refused to go upstairs, so I started counting additional days his car would be suspended. By the time he finally conceded, his car's timeout extended into October.

He risks suspension next time. I'm really mad!

And I'm worried: this is only the 4th week of school. By the end of 2nd grade I was just barely hanging in there, grateful for every day that passed without incident. But there's a LOT of time left for trouble in 3rd grade. And what do we do about a suspension? We need to be prepared with a serious consequence, and warn him of it as a deterrent. Yes, we also need to do all the warm fuzzy talking stuff too, but Plan B must be solidly in place.

My mind has been completely occupied with this tonight, instead of getting ready for our trip or chatting happily about our beautiful and joyful wedding 10 years ago. I hope we can leave this all behind us tomorrow. Actually, I hope I don't feel too guilty about just how quickly we will.

9/16/2010

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