Maybe Friday

Keen-eyed Fans will have no doubt noted our mentioning in passing that Joe is in a new room at school. Our Hero has moved from Pre-A, with Ms. Kristin, to Pre-B, with Mr. Mark and Ms. Vanessa. Mr. Mark and Ms. Vanessa do fun things like decorate the kids cubbies in keeping with the two-week theme of the moment, as you see pictured here. This morning, at drop off, Julie saw Mr. Mark and said she'd heard that Joe hadn't been a very good listener yesterday. Mr. Mark said, "OH! It was all the boys. I think they're testing Ms. Vanessa." (Ms. Vanessa is new to the room, and KinderCare.) He added that there is even more structure and routine, and of course, Joe is in there with all his buddies and of course, he wants to cut it up. Mr. Mark is not worried unless Joe is still not listening in another week or two.

Oh. So maybe they didn't need a two page note explaining all about the misbehaviors we'd seen this weekend, and that we thought they might be due to Joe recently dropping his afternoon nap on the weekends, and transitioning to a new room with more kids, including the aforementioned band of "buddies," and what we had said to him about it all--i.e. listening is important for three reasons etc. (Mr. Mark took it all in stride though, and thanked a sheepish Julie for the reading material.)

What can we say, Fans? We are a pair of over achievers. One of us is sort of controlling. We like to nip in the bud any behaviors brought to our attention by a person in a position of authority. (It's true--we will handle the teenage years with grace and aplomb. Especially the one of us who tends to be controlling.)

Joe for his part affirmed this morning--twice--that he was going to listen, because: "it's distracting," and "it's appropriate." And there is your evidence, Fans, that our little parrot does indeed listen as clearly, he has absorbed our noting that failure to listen results in being distracting, and that listening is appropriate (also, perhaps, that he is also an over achiever in the making, with those words in his vocabulary).*

But then, at dinner, apropos of nothing, he informed us, that he'd "done just a little naughty behavior" today. "Maybe Friday he'd do good behavior."

*Sometimes Joe will inform Clara that something is inappropriate, which is really very amusing to overhear.