Smiley Faces

At Helen's school they use a smiley face system when rewarding her with good behavior. They have a chart with all her subjects on it, when she has made it through one of them with no issues, she receives her smiley face. If she receives all smiley faces at the end of the day, she gets to pick from the candy bucket, something that makes Helen very happy! As she is running from the school bus she is yelling to me, "Mommy, I pick from candy bucket!" When she gets into the house, after stopping by the mailbox to see if we have mail, I ask her if she received all smiley faces at school. She is always excited when she has because she knows that means she will get her favorite snack...pretzels and marshmallows. It has taken awhile, but I think she finally understands this system. Yesterday she came flying off the bus yelling about the candy bucket so I asked if she received all smiley faces. First she said yes, but then she got a look on her face and changed her answer to no. I said, "Did you get a sad face?" "Yes, in art I push Alisha to ground." I didn't even have to ask what she did, she shared the information right away. I told her it's mean to push, and she could have hurt Alisha. I then asked her why she did it, "I don't know", she said. While I was waiting for my other kids in the school parking lot I kept thinking about how far Helen has come with sharing information about school. I wanted to check and see if this incident happened the way Helen said it did, so I called her teacher. I was disappointed to hear that it did happen, but thrilled at the same time to hear it did. This meant that Helen had communicated an actual event from school, her teacher was so proud. I hope Helen keeps moving forward, it's so frustrating knowing she has the potential but doesn't use it. I also hope she will stop being physical with her friends at school, something else we are working on.

Tonight is the big Pinewood Derby race for the boys, they are so excited. At hot lunch yesterday I stopped by Robbie's table, at his request, and the boys were talking about it. My father-in-law stopped by the other night for a visit, while he was here Robbie asked me to ask him to come and stay with the girls while we go to the race. Robbie didn't want the girls to come, I'm thinking it's because I would be distracted from him. He worked very hard on his pencil shaped derby car (I'll have to post a picture of it). If the girls went, they would be interested for the first few races, but then I'd be watching them to make sure they didn't get into mischief. So, Papou is coming tonight to stay with the girls. Noah will be coming with us, this is right up his alley, he loves cars! This should be an interesting night, sometimes the dad's get into it more than the boys. This race tonight will decide who moves forward to the district race at the end of the month. Ted made it there a few years ago, wish us luck.

Until next time-
Take Care,
Sue