Zoe got into a bit of trouble during her first week of pre-K last week. The teacher's assessment was that Zoe was being "exclusive" and "making other friends feel bad" (friend is code for student...yes, it's slightly obnoxious, but a great school). She almost got suspended for a day. Seriously (stuck up kid + school run by hippies = suspension). We've seen this behavior in Zoe before (shall we call it transparently preferential), and admittedly, we haven't done too much to curtail it. With Brennan, the minute we saw him exhibiting slightly negative behavior, we were all over it. I'll still never forget the day that an innocent 13 month old Brennan intentionally pushed over a neighbor kid of the same age. Lori was convinced he was destined for juvie. We had long conversations about the behavior and began reading Dr. Brazelton's Touchpoints to figure out "what to do next!?". Two naive 23 year old parents, staying up late, hand in hand, worrying about their future anti-socialite. In reality, the neighborhood kid was a skinny little ginger who probably deserved a good push or two (I think she was saying the ABCs at the time...total show off). By the time we got to Zoe, we realized that we had spent most of Brennan's little life overreacting; couple that with her mild-mannered and exceptionally sweet demeanor, (being really cute doesn't hurt) and Zoe didn't get a timeout until she was 4.5 (the same cannot be said for Brennan or Ava...and Ava can't blame overreactions...or a lack of cuteness). She's also been protected from punishments because she's not afraid to lie. For which I blame/praise the XX Franz chromosomes (Kari and Maggie are spectacular liars).
So now Zoe is 5, and we are, for really the first time helping her correct certain behaviors. She is doing fine, but is a bit on edge, and it's breaking my heart. There have been a lot of talks about treating all people kindly (even gingers), what it means to be a "Franz," why lying is wrong (sorry Maggie and Kari), how to respond when someone isn't doing exactly what we want them to do, etc. Yesterday after playing at the park I was putting Ava in her seat and Zoe was playing outside the car (in the rocks...she loves rocks) and I heard a little "ping, ping, ping." The F-150 next to us had little rocks on its foot step, and Zoe was looking up at me expectantly.
Zoe, did you throw rocks at that truck?
*after a brief hesitation where she began to shake her head 'no' she weakly nodded 'yes'*
Just don't get mad at me. Please. I didn't mean to hit the truck (may or may not have been true...again, she's pretty good).
We discussed why not to throw rocks at cars, particularly the F-150 ("the owner of the F-150 is what we refer to as a 'Proud Vehicularist;' they love the truck, they hand wash and wax the truck. This is part of their identity. They don't take a rock-chipped paint job lightly."). She nodded politely, smiled a couple of times, but mostly blinked a lot to keep from crying. It was painfully adorable...so much so that I wanted to throw a boulder through the F-150's windshield, just to show her whose side I was on.
But I can't do that. Zoe has to learn. I'm sure she will. Instead I just blinked a lot as I climbed into the driver's seat. Darn sun. Always makes my eyes water. I too am a liar.
