All Hail the Queen

Today I learned something new about myself. The smell of three year old pee on a bathroom floor makes me want to vomit. One of our sweet little girls at Mother's Day Out didn't quite make it to the potty on time this morning. Poor thing. She made it into the bathroom but not to the toilet itself. When I went in to check on her there was a puddle deep enough to float a small fish in. She had tried to clean it up herself. So, there was also half a roll of that cheap, non-absorbent toilet paper on the floor. I think that's what did it for me. Picking up that wet mess of paper goo was a bit much for me. So to sum up. Can the smell of pee initiate my gag reflex? Why, yes it can. My sweet co-teacher Jana offered to clean it up for me. But I couldn't let her do it. She's like twelve months pregnant and I just couldn't ask her to get on her hands and knees and smell that smell. Anyway, we made it through the rest of the day with no more bodily fluids readily visible. Or smellable.

I was dreading picking Jake up at his class today because Monday when I picked him up his teachers had that look on their faces. You know that look? The one that says "your child was a mess today. how do we tell you that nicely?" His teachers are so cute. The exact words one of them used was "Jake was on fire today." I thought that was perfect. Apparently, there was some pushing and shoving followed up with a little bit of hitting and personal boundary breaking.

When I questioned Jake about it later he told me that yes, he had done all of those things. I asked him why he did those things. And he said because the boy he did them to was a "bad guy." So then we had an in depth discussion about what makes a bad guy bad. According to Jake, it is the quality of being a traitor. Apparently, bad guys are all traitors and this little boy in his class is one too.

I followed up with a discussion about the importance of being nice to everyone-even traitors. I don't think he bought it. But, I am happy to report that his teachers said he had a very good day today. And Jake told me himself that he managed to keep his hands to himself even in the presence of the bad guy. Score one for successful parenting.

On the other hand, I think Jake gets his facts mixed up a little sometimes. The other day he told me the most amazing story about Abraham Lincoln. It seems that President Lincoln did not live in a log cabin after all. In fact, he lived in a brick house and a big bad wolf came and tried to blow it down.

Also, last week when I handed Jake his cup of milk he looked at me and said "Thank you, your Majesty." I don't know where he's picking up all this stuff! Obviously, if I was any where close to being a queen I wouldn't be cleaning up random pee in a class full of three year olds.