Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Why is it Wednesday

He Gets it from his Father

It's why is it Wednesday and I have a huge one to tell that happened a little less than a week ago. Last Thursday, little Fredo was waiting in line to go out to recess, and the teacher warned the students none could leave until all in line were quiet. Well that Thursday the kids decided they wanted to be noisy and noisy they were. Fredo has a tendency driven by Autism to say whatever pops into his head at any given time, whether he has thought about it or not. This isn't always a bad thing because it can lead to a spontaneous show of affection, like when he blurts out that he loves me. But that being said it can also be used for evil.

While in line, focused solely on the experience of recess; they were just nearly outside the door, and growing ever impatient waiting for his classmates to quiet down, he blurted, well, screamed (possibly bellowed) the unthinkable, "Shut up you Fucking Idiots!!!!"

The Principal called that afternoon, and my first instinct was to laugh, because I can honestly say having been on that playground every kid has heard the F-Bomb being dropped before--and they didn't have to hear it from my kid. My mind raced back in time listening to a much younger Piss-boy going on about how "all the class has to do is be quiet in line and they'd get to play but could they....ooooh NOOOOOO." I'm confident that very sequence of words his younger sibling uttered at school last week, ran through his mind a thousand times. However, young Piss-boy's edit was firmly in place and he wouldn't have dared or maybe risked getting into that kind of trouble and besmirch his "permanent record."

The Principal gave Fredo five options, and he chose to apologize to the class on his own, which for him is a huge thing and I was actually proud of him for that. However it did shed light on the issue that his echolasia wasn't limited to Spongbob cartoons but also included all the frequently heard words we used. Not good because if swearing or cussing were an Olympic event, we'd be gold medalists.

I decided there and then to implement a swear jar, and charged a dollar an infraction. I emptied the laundry tip jar, and cashed in those coins, changed the label, and started charging.

Since then, I've put nothing into the jar but Rainbird hasn't been so lucky, he's put well over 20 bucks so far and even offered to get a note from a doctor to explain his apparent Turrets Syndrome. I explained that would be fine as long as he goes to HIS doctor and not just get a note from any doctor he works with. Fredo understands that since he places no real value on money, he must perform chores, which has only happened twice. Myself, I find myself surprised that I haven't contributed, and believe there are enough people here to remind me if I slipped. My self edit, has always been fairly decent when at places with children and normally restricted to my home, and the pages of this blog. I can only hope that Rainbird does learn to edit himself and this issue for Fredo will go away.

I can only hope but still it begs to ask, why is it that our children pick up on the very habits we often don't want them to. Sometimes these habits are small things but sometimes it's much bigger, like our bad words, our cynical attitudes toward our fellow man or even our good habits blown wildly out of proportion. What is it about "do what I say and not as I do." that makes it so hard to follow?

Since I'm on a Blogging Roll of Sorts


I've been posting fairly regularly lately, which is weird for me but I'm willing to continue as long as I have things to blog about. It's kind of like therapy or something, but anyway I was debating if I should even bother with this post and then I read this post by Abby and realized I needed to write about this. If no other reason to remind myself I'm not alone in this.

Now I just need to tear a page from Judy's blog, and start getting serious about losing weight.

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4 comments:

Judy said...

It was a long road, girl - but I stuck with it (16 months!)...and used sparkpeople.com. Totally works.

Good for you on cashing in on some naughty words! I should try that around here...I could make oodles of money off the hubster when he's around his buddies.

Judy said...

It was a long road, girl - but I stuck with it (16 months!)...and used sparkpeople.com. Totally works.

Good for you on cashing in on some naughty words! I should try that around here...I could make oodles of money off the hubster when he's around his buddies.

Anonymous said...

Mr. Kottttttteeeer omg washn't John Travolta a dish back then never missed a epi.

Abby said...

I fondly recall one very cold Saturday when the kids were whining about nothing to do. I suggested they go outside. My oldest, who was about 11 at the time, knee-jerkedly replied, "but it's F**king freezing outside!!" It was hilarious and shocking at the same time. But, hey, it was pretty cold out.

In Fredo's defense, those uh, other kids, should've gotten quiet. And hey, you might as well make some cash!