post every day

My sister mentioned that November is National Blog Posting Month (NaBloPoMo) and the challenge is to post something new every day. Since I didn't know about this on the first, I guess I already failed, but I'll try it anyway.

If I had written yesterday, I would have written about Halloween. I don't do much for Halloween except walk around the neighborhood with my son and his friend. I'm not a parent that goes up to the door with the kids, I linger on the sidewalk in front of the house. This year I had my iPod with me and listened to music while we walked. I may have even shimmied a little every now and then. We were out for an hour or so. This year it was really nice weather. We've trick or treated in the snow before. Wednesday night was clear and cool but not too cold. When we got home we had leftovers and T handed out the candy. I bought plenty because we usually have lots of kids, and this year was no different. I do have lots of leftover candy and I'll take it to work. I like to have candy on my desk because people will come in and chat and have a little chocolate and it's all good.

T was Harry Potter (again). He was extra cute this year because we found the glasses and he looked freakin' adorable! (If I say so myself!)

For today's post I'll write about T's Stop & Go. Last night when I got home from work, I had a tremendous headache. I'd woken up at 4:00 and I was "all out of tiredness" as my friend's son would say. So I read until it was time to wake up and by the time I got to work, tiredness was back. So I was dragging all day and there was drama at work and I had something at lunch that put the hurt on me so when I got home I was exhausted, had a tummy ache and a throbbing headache. I just wanted to lay down, but I couldn't ignore the fact that T's door was closed (very unusual), so I had to see what was going on with him.

He was curled up on his bed, no TV, no book, he was just staring. This is his classic "I'm in trouble" position. He decided to tell me rather than have me hear it from his dad. The story is that last week he received a Stop & Go at school. That's what they get when they do something naughty. He and his friends were playing at recess and another kid wanted to join them. They didn't want the other kid, and that kid started trying to get involved and maybe pushed one of T's friends or something. So T punched the kid in the stomach. So he got the Stop & Go note which he is supposed to bring home for his parents to sign. We never saw it. He threw it away in an attempt to not get in trouble. Instead, his teacher writes a note to us saying that we must send back the note or T will get another Stop & Go. Since he didn't want that, he showed us the note. He got in more trouble with his dad when T said that our dog ate the first note. Poor Henley!

At this point, there's just a whole bunch of trouble for the boy. I was cool, though. I didn't yell or get mad. I told him I was disappointed in the choices he made, starting with punching the boy in the stomach. He felt so sad when I told him that boy probably went home and told his mom that a mean boy punched him at school, and now there's a mom somewhere who thinks that T is a little bully.

I decide he needs to be punished for punching the kid and also for not giving us the note in the first place. For the punch he is grounded for 3 days: no playing with the neighbor all weekend. For the other part, he is cut off from going to one of his most favorite places, Barnes & Noble, for 2 months. That hurt him. But really, it won't be that bad. I mean Christmas is coming and I wouldn't be getting him anything from the bookstore. His dad is another story. I had to make sure MT could follow through on the punishment. His reply was, "I don't have to stop going there, do I?" I'm trying to decide if that's enough or if I should do one other thing to drive the point home. I have suite tickets for the Jazz game against Cleveland next Wednesday. Should I take T with me or get a babysitter? I'll probably take him with me because it will be fun for him to have a chance to see Lebron James.