Thanks for the Heads Up

It's weird to find out MAJOR news about one of your kids from their status on My Space. I'm not really supposed to know it but I do tend to use whatever little ways I can to keep informed although I know my place is only on the fringe of a secret life.

When I actually am allowed to be let in on the secret directly, I'll bet you ten bucks it'll be delivered in a text message.

Playing it Cool

Squeaker's teacher called today to let me know she had gone missing for a while at P.E. He and the classroom aides had to look for her. She reappeared shortly after confessing that she had gone to play basketball with the lunch kids. She got snarky with one of the aides on the way back to the classroom and walked off again, earning two days of lunch detention and a drop in privilege levels in her special ed classroom.

She got off the bus and came in the door after school already on the defensive and speculating loudly to Stickers about what her punishment might be. I surprised her by saying nothing about the incident and asking her to change clothes and bathe one of the dogs. She was pleasant from then on.

It could have been an ugly afternoon. I figure there is nothing to be gained at all by telling her again that she needs to be where she is supposed to be. Her teacher imposed appropriate consequences which can be dealt with entirely at school without increasing tension at home.

I am curious to see if she brings up the event to me. She has a hard time keeping things to herself so I know that before too long we'll be able to discuss it in a calm way without her going on the attack because I'm "lecturing" again.

UPDATE: Well, she did sort of bring it up. While helping clear dishes with the other kids after dinner, she walked back into the dining room, gave me a look and said loudly in a babyish voice "I was a good girl in P.E. today." I still made no comment and she dropped it. Weird.

Analyze This (Not Really)

Last night I had a series of dreams in which it seems some impending doom awaited me and then the opposite happened. Maybe I've had too many frappuccinos or I worry too much about things that will probably never happen or who knows what.

First I dreamt that Squeaker's bus driver wanted to talk to me. Of course I was apprehensive knowing it had to be a bad report. It turned he wanted to say how much he enjoyed having her on the bus. I don't think that would actually happen in reality.

Next I dreamt that Ana had created an account book for our household expenses. In the dream I knew that when I looked at it we would be just barely squeaking by. In fact the account book showed quite a tidy surplus. That doesn't actually happen in reality either.

Then I dreamt that we were in an open market in a foreign country and I felt panicked because Squeaker had wandered off and I didn't know where to find her. I turned around and she was right behind me. Actually, the girl didn't look like Squeaker and was a bit younger but in the dream she was Squeaker and she wasn't missing so I guess it turned out all right. Dreams are weird that way.

Finally, I dreamt that I was trapped in an abandoned, haunted high school. I had to go down some steep stairs and a slippery chute to the basement in order to get something I needed to get out of the building. Strange and eerie noises were coming from the basement. Surely a freaky, nightmarish monster of some sort. When I got to the bottom I found it was only a friendly, talking black lab looking for someone to throw his tennis ball. That actually has never happened in reality.

Not to me anyway.