Day-O-Eli

Eli had a time out at school today. The funny thing is, I didn't find out from his teacher; Eli ratted himself out to me. When I pick him up from school, I usually ask him a few questions: what songs did you sing, who did you play with on the playground, what did you eat for snack, etc. And if I knew of a special activity (like Monday's firefighter visit), I'll ask him about that too. I knew they talked about and cut open pumpkins today, so I asked Eli about what he saw inside of the pumpkin. He says, "Ummm, I don't know. I was in time out." When I asked why, he told me it was because he was talking. (I assume he meant talking while the teacher was talking.) I'm glad to hear he has consequences like that at school, but it does not sound like they required an apology from him. This is something we are real sticklers for in our house (an apology to the wronged person upon exiting the time out), so I informed him that if he didn't apologize to the teacher the next time, we'd make a special trip back to the school to do it. This would NOT be fun for Eli as he does not enjoy being put on the spot like that.

We are moving forward with the potty training again. We have another strategy (peanut M&Ms) and it seems to be working so far. I think it is working (for now) because this child rarely gets chocolate (maybe once/month in a cookie at school), and he has never (to my knowledge) had an M&M before. He recognized the bright colors as 'candy', but he couldn't identify it by name. All I have to do is remind him that he might get a piece of candy if he makes a deposit and this kid is running for the bathroom. When he finished today, Eli ran around saying "I so proud of myself!!!!" Glad to know he's not short on self-esteem.