AVA'S MUSINGS

Lately, Ava has become very fond of writing out sentences and drawing a nice picture to accompany that sentence. This is all fine and good as it helps her learn how to write and spell better, but when her little mind gets a running she tends to come up with some less than appealing things to say.

I have seen such things as "Lucas is not my friend anymore", "I hate Lucas" [she got in a big ol' heap of trouble for this one], "Lucas is a meany", "Lucas is a poopy head", etc. etc. All of these little sentences were obviously written out of anger after she had gotten into a fight with her younger brother. Nevertheless, they are not nice things to say.

This behavior has landed her in the time out chair, in her room for quiet time, and even ended in T.V. privelages being taken away (no icarly for an evening can really hit a 6 year old where it hurts). I have told her over and over again to stop as it hurts her brothers feelings. I have even given her the how-would-you-feel-if someone-did-that-to-you speech. Obviously this has all been to no avail, as the notes just keep on coming.

Yesterday I was vacuuming when I heard Lucas crying and yelling "That is not nice Ava!" Followed by an evil sounding laughter coming from the mouth of Miss Ava. I stopped the vacuuming in order to go investigate as to why Lucas was so worked up. When I walked into the kitchen, I saw Lucas holding up a piece of paper. I quickly read what it said and was for a moment stunned. I composed myself rather quickly and ran into a speech about how inappropriate that was and followed up by asking where in God's name she would have learned something like that.

Ava stared at me in disbelief and said, "Geeze, Mom, it is funny. I just said Lucas has hairy eyeballs!"

Either my mind was in the gutter, or I was just to busy with my vacuuming to read carefully. I thought the note said "Lucas has hairy balls." So you see why I was so worked up at first, right? I think what threw me off was the incorrect spelling of eyeballs as "I balls". My eyes must have skipped right over that "I" and just went straight to the "balls."

At any rate, she was still given a little talking to for writing something mean about her brother. But I do have to say, I was relieved that I had misread that note as I am not sure how I would have handled that one.