Ben's a Biter

You may ask--how can a one year old get into trouble at school and get sent home from day care? Well, Ben's day care has a rule that if they bite 3 times in one day, they have to go home. Now, Ben hasn't done it yet. But, he's reached 2 several times. After that, I think they begin to keep a close eye on him so he doesn't have to go home. It's not just him. All the others do it too--they ended up just putting all the biters in the same classroom. So, I'm guessing it's like WWE in there.

Last Friday, the 3 other boys were playing around when I got there. Ben, on the other hand, was strapped into the table and could only watch. Mallory, Ben's teacher, said he was being extra aggressive that day. He didn't bite but he was pinching and pulling hair. Seriously? I don't know what he thinks he has to prove. I guess that's just the difference in boys and girls.

On Sunday, I put Ben in timeout for the first time for pulling Maya's hair. I keep thinking of Adam Sandler in Big Daddy--"Quit pulling your sisters hair!!" He knew exactly why he was put against the wall. And of course, his lower lip went down further than it ever had. It was pretty sad, but I still wish I had it on video.

You could say that Ben is a little spoiled. As soon as I get to his room at day care, I put his jacket on and he bolts out the door saying "tucker, tucker, tucker." That would be his word for sucker. The girls at the front desk usually have a bowl of candy for the kids after the day is over. Normally, I wouldn't give a one year old a sucker but Maya finally saw all the other kids getting them and Ben obviously has to have everything that Maya has. I know, I know--excuses, excuses. Let's just say we pick our battles.

For Maya, we got some very good news about 2 weeks ago. In our school district, there are several tuition-paid preschools that you have to put a request in for. There are twice a week half-day programs and 5 days a week full-day programs. We put in a request for the better 5 full-day program and the people that did the paperwork basically told us, there's no way she's getting in and we should probably put down an alternate. So, we put an alternate down for the twice-a-week one for the school closest to us. A week later, we got confirmation that Maya got into our alternate choice. We were pretty bummed out. For one thing, it would be a bit of a pain to pick her up from school during the middle of the day and then take her to day care and then go back to work. But, it wasn't that big of a deal--we would have found time to do it. Mostly, we wanted her to get into the 5 day program because we really want her to catch up on her speech. Luckily, a couple days later, a spot opened up in the 5 day program and Maya was the next on the list. We talked to Marge, Maya and Ben's parents as teachers lady, and she said her preschool teacher is one of the best in the area. Although I have noticed Maya making some good strides since changing classrooms, it will be nice for her to be in a real classroom with a teacher that has a Master's degree in education.

Like I said, Maya is making some strides in her speech. Linda, her speech pathologist, has been working with her twice a week. And, I really believe it is helping. No matter how many times we would repeat a word, Maya would reach a point that she would not cooperate. I think a big thing was that it was Mommy and Daddy telling her what to do. Linda gives her homework for us to work with, but she told us that we shouldn't worry if she doesn't cooperate. She said it was perfectly normal for kids to be uncooperative with parents. So, we didn't push it. But now after several months, she will sit down with us and work on her words. There are times she still gets frustrated when we can't understand what she's saying. But lately, I've noticed that when that happens, she's actually using new words (in her own way) that she never had. So, it's definitely progress. That being said, Linda said she will be recommending her to get intensive speech therapy starting next fall. If that happens, she will be getting twice as much time with her. I know she has a lot of work to do, but I'm grateful that everything is falling in place and she's getting the services she needs.