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It's only the second week of school, and Drake comes home and proudly announces that he's been given his first 'time-out'!  It's hard to get the facts out of him as his accounts of things are sometimes interrupted by random escapades involving trolls or airplanes.

"Yeah, I was at recess and a boy was not nice to me."

"So what did you do?"

"I got in uh airplane, went fly over him and pooped right on his head."

"No you didn't"

"No, I didn't.  I'm silly though, right Mom?"

"So what did you do?"

"You tell me."

"I don't know. You decided it would be an awesome beginning to a short story, but then never came up with a conclusion?"

"What?"

I think it began with him not listening to her.  And then she had to pull the old count-to-three routine.

"Drake, that's a one... that's a two..."

Well, old Drake loves the count-to-three routine.  He makes his voice even higher pitched than normal, to mimick you, and counts right along with you.  It's infuriating.  Not quite as infuriating as when he tell you that you're wrong and he knows it because he's a genius.

So yeah, we've got to work on respecting adults more and maybe even try to just grasp the concept of humility.  (Although if he chooses to follow in Mom's footsteps...major in evil science and world domination... humility isn't much of an asset.)

I keep saying that I don't know where he gets it from... but that's a lie.  I have to blog-fess something.  I was probably worse.

yeah, it's possible.

Twenty-five years ago, Preschool teachers were a lot different.  There was none of this I-have-my-masters-degree-in-early-childhood-development, and classroom helpers, and peanut free zones.  My Preschool teacher was an old hag with a wart on her nose who rode a broomstick to class every morning.  She hung the broomstick over her desk, where it would be within reach if she needed to use it to bash in your face for talking.  I don't think she had a degree.  They didn't do that at the prison she was work-released from.  I never saw it happen, but I have a feeling that if one of the kids told her they had a peanut allergy, she'd probably tell them to stop being a little bitch and go walk it off.

She was a hundred and nine, and I was four.  But I wasn't scared of her.  I was pretty sure I was the smarter one.  Turns out, I was.

One day, when I was barely four, my Mom told me that I wasn't allowed to bring my cabage patch doll to preschool with me.  I protested by crying as loud as I could for as long as I could.  Which meant, that after she had thrown me in the classroom and slammed the door, I was still standing there crying.

Old Miss. Sourass told me to go stand in the corner with my face to the wall, while the rest of the class had circle time.  Which was embarrassing.  I got to feel all the other kids staring at my back while I sniffled and hiccupped and Old Sourass dragged out the pledge of allegiance and the alphabet game as long as she could.

I just kept whispering over and over that it wasn't fair, that she was a mean, old cow with an ugly wart face and I was gonna get her.  I didn't know how, but I was going to get her back, teach her a lesson.

So when she called me to come back and stand in front of the class and explain why I was 'crying like a baby', an idea clicked.  I hunched up my shoulders and tried to make my face as sad as possible.  Then letting my voice sound miserable and broken (I was subjected to Days of our Lives from about the age of two weeks, thanks Mom!)  I said that my grandfather had died and that I didn't know it was wrong to be sad about it.  I apologized for feeling bad inside.  I then went on to say that I wanted to be a responsible big girl and not a baby, so I would tell my Mom that I got in trouble and why.

Heh.  I can still see the other kids staring at her like she was the creature from the black lagoon, and the way her face went white.

Miss. Sourass handled me with kid gloves for the rest of the year.  She never again made a kid explain themselves in front of the whole class either.  She was especially nervous whenever my Mom needed to talk to her about anything.

So yeah, don't know where he gets it from... when I was four, I wouldn't have sassed his teacher, I would have owned his teacher.