Life lessons: Do Not Lick Your Friends......

The last week has been rife with life lessons here in the middle of nowhere, North Dakota.

First off, life lesson #1: Do not pee all over the floor while playing with the neighbor boy.

Before I move on I suppose I must explain. This week Kaydn Rye has been absolutely obsessed with the neighbor kid. Well, I suppose he's been obsessed with the neighbor kid for quite some time now, but the problem has always been that he is seven and Kaydn Rye is four - big difference there. It's like the difference between the tropical rain forests and North Dakota. Kaydn Rye may look like a 7-year-old, and herein lies the problem. His little friends are always appalled when he starts acting like, you guessed it, a four-year-old.

So anyway, the neighbor kid has taken much more interest in Kaydn Rye since his first and favorite friend moved across town. So yesterday he was here for most of the afternoon, which I didn't mind because it's like a having a free babysitter.

It was finally time for supper, and I kept yelling at Kaydn Rye to come down to eat. When he didn't come and he didn't come, I knew something was awry, so I proceeded up the stairs to find him in the hallway, with his pants down, and a huge puddle in the hallway. Apparently he told his friend he had to go potty, but instead of going into the bathroom, shutting the door and sitting on the potty, he just pulled his pants down right there and proceeded to shuffle to the bathroom. He must have had to go so bad that he couldn't hold it any longer and alas, the pee on the floor emerged.

Then, from what I'm told, the two had a conversation about how Kaydn Rye should just wipe up the mess, change his clothes and pretend like nothing happened - until I came up the stairs and ruined their plans. And the neighbor kid, who had been playing alongside a naked kid for who knows how long, was just going about his business completely undisturbed by his friend's freestyling. This is exactly why I don't allow little girls to come over and play.

Which brings me to life lesson #2: Don't lick your friends.

The neighbor kid finally left after he had pinned Kaydn Rye down to the ground and when he wouldn't let him up, Kaydn Rye licked him. Yep, he licked him, and the kid left in absolute horror.

On to life lesson #3: Always be prepared to put yourself in time-out.

If you read this blog regularly, like you should, you know that I've been trying to catch up on some home school we missed during the course of the last couple weeks of slacking off, and we have definitely had our rounds the last couple of days.

First off, last night we ended up doing his reading lesson around 8:00 at night since the neighbor kid was here for forever and then we had to eat supper and yada yada yada. So by the time we started, we were both ready to veg mindlessly in front of some television or something to that effect. It's like there comes a certain time in the day when his brain begins to spew nothingness, which is a brain effect I'm quite familiar with.

But believe it or not, Kaydn Rye was going with the flow, but I on the other hand, was completely WIGGING OUT. He'd read a word and then when it came time to read the very same word again, he would become incapable of reading it!!!!! How completely frustrating.

Finally, I had to give myself a time-out. Ironically, by the time we made it through our 20 minute lesson (which ended up taking us 40 minutes), Kaydn Rye's response was, "That was fun."

Yeah, it was real fun.....


Oh, and today, he was obviously prepared for the fact that mom might wig out on him him and when he came to a difficult word, he sat up straight, cracked his knuckles and said, "Okay, let's do this. Just take a deep breath." He then proceeded with some lamaze breathing.

And finally, life lesson #4: Do not discouraged when your desk goes from this



to this....



in a matter of an afternoon. But alas, I can just put everything in the inbox and the desk is magically clean again in a matter of minutes.




Show Me Your Web Site and I'll Vote For You!!