Sweet moment

We are going on week five of fairly good school behavior for our little guy. I get his little folder every day after school. Here are some examples of his typical "bad" behaviors. These are the little notes that are written by his teacher on his sheet.

1) walking in the hallway was a challenge today-many reminders of being in control of body
2) continued to throw leaves on friends after I asked him to stop
3) talking about diarrhea during lunch
4) not coming when called at recess
5) putting food in friend's drink during lunch
6) not listening to instructions during calendar math
7) not keeping hands to himself(we get this one alot!)
8) yelling to friend across the cafeteria
9) refusing to write during writing workshop
10) not paying attention to instructions-acting silly instead(another one that we get quite a bit)
11) not able to sit still, in constant motion

So when he does get a sad face on his sheet, these are the things he has been doing. He has stayed on one warning or less every day. When he gets home, he's exhausted and the last thing he wants to hear is a lecture on what he can do to change his behavior.

Tonight I read him a book about a boy who thought his mom was mean and didn't know why people thought moms were so special. (I know my boy thinks this quite a bit) One night he hears some noise and sees some aliens taking his mother to their spaceship. Apparently there are no moms on Mars so they wanted to kidnap one. The little boy sneaks on the ship to see what they are going to do to his mom. Once on mars, he sees how badly Mars functions without moms around. As he is walking around the planet, the boy trips and falls, breaking his space helmet. He is having trouble breathing when suddenly his mom appears, takes off her helmet and gives it to him. She immediately falls to the ground, and can't breathe.

At this point I look over at Samuel and he has tears in his eyes. "Is she going to die?" I am prepared to change the story, if the storyline kills the mom off. But fortunately mom survives. The martians bring her an extra helmet. Samuel is relieved but the tears continue. "Mom, I don't want you to die before me. No one is going to come and take you away are they? Why did she give the boy her helmet?"

I held my sensitive boy tightly and reassured him that aliens weren't going to kidnap me in the middle of the night. I told him that that is how much moms love their kids. That we are willing to die for them.

Before bed he hugged me five or six times before letting me go. He held my face and kissed me. "Man, do I love you!"


So maybe he has some "bad" behaviors. But these moments are the ones I am going to hold on to.