What There's Time For

Already?

It may all come to nothing, at least for the near future, but Shmoogie has been lately quite interested in the potty.

How pleased I was to see Mr. Pants's little plastic potties (the ones from IKEA — oh, how I love them!  oh, how I wish they were the first and only ones we had bought!) come out of a box so that I could start channeling her energies away from playing with the toilet brush and towards potentially figuring out how to use the potty for more sanitary purposes.

Shmoogie was pretty excited to see the little potties, too, and knew exactly what to do with them (in terms of posture, not in terms of producing).

Mr. Pants was pretty excited to see the little potties, himself, and was soon dragging the second one out from under the sink and plunking it down right next to his little sister, who was still sitting on hers in the middle of the tiny powder room floor.  (Two days later and she no longer hangs out on the potty in a potentially useful way, just goes through the whole drama of undressing, sits down for one second, then stands up declaring, "Ah dun!")

I pulled Mr. Pants away, explaining sympathetically that he was too big for these potties now, that he was just too big to sit on them comfortably, and sent him off with a loving pat, feeling that I had gotten my point across very nicely.

A few moments later, naive Mommy hears a steady stream of liquid hitting hollow plastic in the powder room.

The scene:  Shmoogie still sitting happily on her little (dry as a bone) potty.  Mr. Pants standing next to her in front of the second little potty, pants around his ankles, sending a spattering fountain of pee into the wee little plastic bowl.

There wasn't much I could do in the next few seconds, really, except wait for him to finish, take mental note of the extent of the area that would need wiping, and work myself up to a nicely honed state of righteous anger.

A nicely honed state which brought a certain ringing quality to my otherwise-overused question, "What are you doing?"

A nicely honed state which deflated instantly when he answered with a look of stunned and humble confusion, "I was trying to pee in my little potty... but it was harder than I thought."

***

Also harder than I thought:  his new school has an every-child-wipes-himself rule for poops.  Let the learning begin!

Here We Go Random

Spent the weekend Easter egg hunting and drinking in the sunshine at the zoo.

Mr. Pants continues with his existential angst, moaning several times a day, "I don't want to die."  It's unsettling, even for someone with a strong morbid bent.  We tell him dispassionately, That's OK, no one wants to die, and You don't need to worry about that right now because you aren't going to die for a very very long time, and then we move on.  I'd say he's too young to be so preoccupied by death, but I was similarly at that age (and often afterwards), so.

Also unsettling is his new habit of smearing poop all over the place after using the potty.  Let's have a WOAH, TALK ABOUT OPPOSITE END OF THE SPECTRUM!! shall we?  Two years old and younger, that's who's allowed to have this problem.  With a four year old, it's just WRONG and we're having trouble figuring out how to deal with it.  Big dramatic shows of parental shock and displeasure had no effect, so now we've revoked the "privilege" of pooping alone.

I'm thinking about adding some links I like to the blog sidebar.  Do you ever check out sidebar links on blogs?

Finally hacked out another insidious problem in Cross It Off!  Update coming in a week or so, I think.  If you've run into weird problems after the app's been open for a while, I'm crossing my fingers that this is the last and final fix that will slay that dragon once and for all.  They say free programming advice is worth every penny and... I relied on some free programming advice while implement caching of the header views.  Having gotten my hands dirty since then, here's my bit of priceless programming advice:  Never implement a cache without putting a hard limit on its size.  No matter how sure you are that you know how these objects are being used and there will never be too many of them.  Don't do it.

Do you ever wonder how people come up with new TV series ideas for kids?  Mr. Pants's new favorite is pretty obvious:  What do kids love?  TRAINS!  What else do kids love?  DINOSAURS!  Except that those two things go together about as well as herbed cream cheese and Nutella (Mr. Pants keeps requesting - and not receiving - this combo) so you'd think no studio executive would have ever signed off on the idea.  But Dinosaur Train made it through at PBS and... it's remarkably good!  Sweet, clever, educational...  And probably the proximate cause of the aforementioned existential angst (the dino kids discover a much earlier fossilized dinosaur named "Fred").  Also possibly to blame for the poop problems...

(skip to the last minute or so if you just want the song.  Yes, SONG.)

   

Learning the Social Rules of Photography

I take a lot more pictures, now that I have a blog, but I also take pictures I never ever would have taken otherwise.  Pictures of weird mundane things like my kitchen floor, or the coin machine in the basement laundry.  Pictures of beautiful yet not-usually-photographed (by me) things like orange zest mixed into sugar, or sliced gooseberries.  Lots of pictures of craft projects, both in progress and completed.  And plenty of pictures of my kids doing crazy stuff.  

(Shmoogie's latest is ransacking any pile or basket of clean laundry left within her reach (the dirty laundry is always out of reach) and "putting on" whatever comes to hand.  Try to take anything away from her or remove the remaining pile to a safer location and she will shriek a sharp barky NO!, now that she knows how.  Also, she sneaks into the kitchen any chance she gets and fiddles with the stove knobs (singed a dishrag just before the birthday party last week), or opens the cabinets and pulls out whatever seems interesting, or climbs up on her brother's stool to see what might be on the counter.  It's not safe.  It's not allowed.  But I took a picture anyway.)

With all this photo-snapping going on all the time, Mr. Pants has developed an intense interest in the camera.  It was starting to get dangerous (for the camera), but luckily he got a Kid-Tough Camera for his birthday and even though the picture quality is pretty low, he loves it and has barely looked at the "real" family camera since.

I have been highly amused to see what he decides to take pictures of.  Elaborate toy set ups or Lego constructions, sure.  Also, his "giant stack of pancakes" (this is the only way he will eat them lately, because he wants them to be "just like the lady's giant stack of pancakes" in Pancakes for Breakfast).  

And he takes a fair number of close-range shots of his own nose.

But the one that really has me wondering what exactly he thinks pictures are for...  The other day he yelled, "Wait, I have to get my camera!" and ran off, leaving me with a wipe in one hand and the other poised above the flush button.

He came running back and, yes, took a picture of his poop.

When your ear honks, it hurts your feelings.

I don't know if I was lucky or sheltered or oblivious, but I really don't remember much teasing going on around me as a kid.  There was a boy who liked to make up stupid rhymes with people's names, which I found annoying but not particularly upsetting.  A little Baptist girl once yelled at me on the playground that I was going to Hell and I remember being startled to realize she actually meant it.  The only thing close to bullying I can remember was the one time I saw an older kid dumped into a trash can when I was a tiny little 5th grader touring Middle Schools.

Honestly, the worst emotional abuse I ever witnessed was dished out by my first grade teacher, who doted on her few teacher's pets and mercilessly berated pretty much everyone else.  Oddly enough, it was me (teacher's pet because I was a shy, well-behaved child who made the teacher feel successful by arriving in her class already reading well-above grade level) who was made so miserable by the inequity of the situation that my parents eventually transferred me out of the class near the end of the year.

At any rate, I bring all this up because yesterday when I picked Mr. Pants up from preschool, we walked into the coat room to get his stuff and there was one of his friends (we'll call him Peter), standing in the middle of the floor looking at me desperately, tears running down his face.  He was dressed to go outside, as were a bunch of other kids in the room.  The other kids were chanting, Peter hat Loo-loo gemacht! and laughing and although that's not slang I know, I could tell from the puddle on the floor at the back of the room and the damp drawstring bag of clothes Peter was clutching what must have happened.

Somewhat horrified, I leaned down and talked to Peter, asking him what was wrong and telling him everything was fine (his clothes had already been changed), no big deal, everyone has accidents sometimes... gave him a hug when my words seemed to have no effect, spouted more reassuring words... finally got a nod out of him and possibly a reduction in sobs... was dimly aware of the teacher coming in with a mop... answered Mr. Pants's, Why is Peter crying? and encouraged him to give his friend a hug...

I think, although I was more than a little distracted, the kids stopped chanting when they noticed me taking notice of Peter.  It could have been because the teacher came in, though, although she certainly didn't say anything to the tormentors and I was dismayed to hear her tersely tell Peter (in German, although his first language is English and I know she speaks English) to "Stop crying now," which I heard her impatiently repeat to him several times before we finally left the school.  (By that point, Peter seemed much better but was still sniffling at the back of the line of kids waiting to go outside.)

The ride home, then, was a lengthy rambling discussion of "teasing"* and how it hurts people's feelings.  What feelings does it hurt? Mr. Pants wanted to know, which flummoxed me briefly.  It hurts your happy feeling and makes it a sad feeling, is what I ended up saying.

*(Mr. Pants has long had a fascination with The Bearenstain Bears and Too Much Teasing, which has perplexed me, since I'd never seen that kind of thing at his school before.  It also irritates me, since the book plays into hill-billy stereotypes and ends with a within-socially-accepted-bounds revenge scenario.  Not my favorite book.  But he is from time to time obsessed with it.  I decided it must be helping him work through something important, so I keep reading it whenever he asks.)

Having recently watched This Emotional Life* from PBS, which has a major section devoted to a truly tragic bullying story, I tried to impress upon Mr. Pants that I hoped if he saw a kid being teased he would stick up for them and say, "Stop doing that!  That's mean!" to the teasers, just like Brother Bear (and not like Mr. Pants himself on some occasions, like last week when he proudly demonstrated how he and his friends had taunted, "NO MORE PETER!" over and over again to the poor boy because they didn't want to play with him).  

*(Good show, but watch out - it's not real happy.  It did say something over 90% of bullying situations stop if just one uninvolved kid makes clear they don't approve of the bullying.  Impressive, eh?  Remembering that had me kicking myself for not directly confronting the kids at school; it's hard to balance all these things in the heat of the moment, you know?)

And Mr. Pants wanted to know why people tease.  Which, well, we all know why people tease, right?  They tease people they secretly worry are better than them to make themselves feel better, and they tease people who are easy targets (having peed their pants or dressed or acted or looked different from the crowd) because... they think it's fun?

I don't think it's fun, said Mr. Pants.

Good answer!  I tried rethinking/restating/re-something, and asked, Does that make sense?

No, said Mr. Pants, Teasing doesn't make sense.

Which it doesn't, does it?  I realized teasing has always been explained to me in exactly that "it's how insecure people try to build themselves up" way, but with a bunch of four-year-olds?  It seemed more primal.

Pondering that.  And also this article I saw from the New York Times last week on the role bullying plays in the social hierarchy of high school.  It's worth a read.  Main fascinating take-away:  it's actually kids near the top of the hierarchy who are the most frequent victims and perpetrators of bullying (the kids at the true pinnacle are rarely either, but probably didn't get to their position by being angelic altruists).

Thoughts?

Oh, and also pondering the somewhat-related latest kerfuffle in the mommy blogosphere - belittling comments left on this article about highly successful mommy bloggers, the cultural bigotry/misogyny that allows such comments to flourish discussed at length on Her Bad Mother, and a marvelous terse response to the whole shebang from Daring Fireball (I can't figure out how to link to a single post there, so if you can't find it, he basically just calls out the article's author for acting mystified as to why so many people regularly check in on Dooce when all Heather Armstrong writes about is mundane parenting stuff like laundry and vomit... to liberally rephrase, Daring Fireball says, Duh, it's because she's a great writer... subtext: mommies can be great writers and they can write greatly about mommyness).

Further thoughts?

***

And the title of this post is one of those inscrutable comments Mr. Pants is wont to throw out - in a most serious tone - during discussions like today's.  And the picture is one of an 8-page story drawn and then dictated by Mr. Pants after the incident.  His first story!  More on that tomorrow, maybe.

 

It Smells Like I Need a Vacation

Months ago in the thick of the whole potty training thing, Mr. Right would catch a whiff of, you know, wind and say to Mr. Can'tBeBotheredPants, "Do you need to go poopoo?  It's smells like you need to go poopoo.  Let's go try."

Eventually, Mr. Can'tBeBotheredPants started paying more attention to his needs and, whether there was in fact anything to smell or not, he will suddenly say, "Oh!  It smells like I need to go poopoo!" and then run off to the bathroom.

Recently, this more figurative use of "smells" has been extended to, "It smells like I need to go peepee!"  And just in the past week or so he has firmly established "to smell" as a synonym for "to feel" in his mind and is constantly saying things like, "It smells like I want to watch a movie," or "It smells like I should go play in my sandbox," or "It smells like I'm too sick to go to school."

It smelled like he was too sick to go to school yesterday and, quite honestly, it smelled like I was too sick to wrestle him into going.

This morning, Mr. Right headed off for four days of bonding with his father and brother an airplane ride away (hopefully St. Peter is making a note of my magnanimity... or at least Santa Claus... or, hey, how about both?) and it smelled (to Mr. Can'tBeBotheredPants) like he was too sick to go to school once again.  But it smelled (to me) like going to school was a key part of keeping my spirits up for the next few days.

So was doing my hair in braids.  I'm pretty much too old for this, I guess, but they've turned out to be remarkably happy-inducing.  And given how sick I am of cleaning up huge amounts of post-baby-shed long hair, this might be just what I needed to prevent me cutting it all off in frustration.

Mr. PinkPants

Even if you are seated in the grassy, picnic table section of a local Heuriger and even if there's no one at quite the nearest tables, it is still embarrassing when your potty-trained-for-the-better-part-of-a-year little boy comes trotting up to you from the lawn, announces, "I peed!" and shucks his soaked bottoms off before either parent can extricate themselves from the picnic table.  It's particularly charming if he then, wet pants bunched up around the ankles of his rubber boots, strikes a most deliberate I-am-peeing! stance, hips thrust in exactly the direction of the nearest diners (two tables away), and dribbles a few more drops out right there on the ground.

But then, if it turns out you do (whew!) have an extra pair of pants at hand, and it turns out those pants are his baby-sister's pink stripy ruffles-on-the-bottoms ones?

 

Then it's just funny.  Really, really funny.

***

I know you're just dying for an update on the wooly progress and I promise I'll get to it!  Just not today.  :)

Mr. NoPants, meet "Natural Consequences"

Yesterday.

Mr. NoPants wakes up at 5:15.  (NOT normal.)  He dozes in our bed for a little while and then demands food, so Daddy gets him his oatmeal, which he takes two bites of and then refuses to stay in his chair, claiming he is no longer hungry, which means that when I arrive on the scene, Daddy is pissed off, Mr. NoPants is wailing, "DADDY TOOK MY FOOD AWAY!!!  BUT I'M HUNGRY!!!!!" (though still not sitting in his chair) and all that wakes Shmoogie, which means I get to go nurse her and let Daddy continue to deal with the situation, which he does, admirably, including getting Mr. NoPants fully dressed for school.

Then, Daddy leaves for work and soon Mr. NoPants is in time out for some very good reason (like, kicking his sister) and suddenly he wails, "I'M ALL WET!!!!" and I think, oh, he's turned on the shower on himself (which has happened a few times lately, though not since he half-drenched himself and demanded new clothes and I refused, since we were heading out the door), but then when I open the door after the timer goes off, there he is standing next to his rumpled pants, underwear, and one sock (still wearing his shirt and other sock) and looking at me pitifully saying, "My pants got wet," and I say, "Oh, how did that happen?" and he says, "Because I peed on them," and I say, "Why did you do that?" and he says, "Because I didn't know how to get to the potty," (the potty being mere inches from the scene of the "accident") and I say, "I don't think that's true, but here, you can wipe it up," and after a HUGE fit about that, he finally does it and I tell him we're about to leave and he needs to go get new clothes from his dresser if he wants to be wearing clothes when we go to school.

Which sounds insane, right?  Except that I swear multiple parenting books have used exactly this scenario (refusing to dress oneself for the day in a timely manner) to illustrate the proper application of "natural consequences," which is the most highly recommended form of discipline whenever possible (it's really a shame that the "natural consequences" of children's actions are often at least as painful for the parents).

So, time comes and he hasn't gotten any clothes and I tell him I'm going to go grab his clothes to take with us unless he goes to put them on right now and he says, calm as you please, "That's OK - I want to get dressed at school."  I grit my teeth, muster as much resolve as I can for the distinct possibility that I will actually be walking my child into school with no pants on, and shove the necessities in a bag and Mr. NoPants out the door.

As soon as we're in the hallway, he starts wailing, "I can't walk!  I don't have any shoes on!" and I tell him that's too bad.

Much moaning and griping later, we finally get to the car and I open his door, put in the bag of clothes and tell him, as calmly as possible, as if I don't care at all what he chooses, "If you want to put your big boy pants on before I buckle you in, they're in this bag," and go to put Shmoogie in her seat.

"No, I don't want to," says he, cool as a cucumber, and climbs into his seat.

No sooner have I (very carefully!) buckled him in than - surprise! - he discovers "This is uncomfortable!  I don't like this!" and I (oh, kind mother!) offer him the opportunity to get out and put his big boy pants on.  Which he takes, although not without significant begging me for help, even though he is definitely capable of getting them on himself (clearly, he has not yet realized the kind of resolve Mommy has mustered for this battle).

Then, as we get close to school and discover that the street is still blocked off, he realizes we'll be walking a bit of a distance and starts howling, "I CAN'T WALK!!! I DON'T HAVE MY SHOES ON!!!" and I (oh, kind mother!) offer him the opportunity to put on his shorts and shoes (I do help with the socks, those are tricky) by himself before we head off.  Which he takes.  Eagerly.

And, much to my relief, that is how I refused to back down and yet did NOT have to suffer the horror of being the parent who dared to bring her kid to school with no bottoms on.  (Please let it never come to that!)

Here We Go Random (things I forgot)

I forgot to tell you the most HILARIOUS thing that happened just before DH went back to Austria.  DiDi had taken Mr. NoPants to the potty to pee and when a good portion of the pee went on the floor instead of in the potty, he chortled to DiDi, "That was funny, wasn't it?"  And DiDi, saint that she is, will accept an accident, but didn't care for the glee, so DH stepped in and dropped a towel on the floor and told Mr. NoPants that he had to wipe up the peepee before he could come out.  Which resulted in tears.  Which resolved eventually to acceptance as he started to half-heartedly nudge the towel around on the floor, wailing the whole time, "THIS IS SO HAAARD!!!  THIS IS SOOOOO HAAARD!!!!"  Which had me and DH trying soooo haaaard not to burst out laughing right outside the door.

I also forgot to tell you that the Alice in Wonderland aprons are all up on the web and they are a lovely bunch, if you have a few minutes to go browse them!

 I had a marvelous no-child time at an awesome little quilting shop with DiDi this weekend and now I have several hunks of delicious fabric, including these two prints which are meant to become a circus-themed apron by the end of next month, ha!

I had another marvelous no-child time at a knitting class the next day (again, thank you DiDi and PaPa!) where, in less than two and a half hours, I created a delightful mini-mitten!  When I signed up for the class it was mostly because I know I have fun at knitting classes (and DiDi offered babysitting!) and I always learn a bunch of useful tricks for various things from the wonderful instructor (at Uniquities, for locals who might want to try out a class), but it really wasn't because I wanted to knit mittens.  Now, I am obsessed with mittens.  They are adorable.  And fast.  And where can you get real wool mittens for kids???  Mr. NoPants needs some for the winter (along with some snowpants, but I can't knit those).  Maybe I'll be ambitious and do two-layer mittens with super-felty wool on the outside for moisture-resistance and alpaca or Australian possum or qiviut on the inside for extra warmth.  :)

Scenes from a Road Trip

Prior to departure, Mr. SplashyPants is running around and giggling like a maniac with his grandfather, who, getting rather tired himself, asks, "Where does all the energy come from, Mr. SplashyPants?" and Mr. SplashyPants says, quite seriously, "Uh.... it comes from Austria."

***

At many, many points in the 10 hours of driving on day 1, the 4 hours on day 2, the 4 hours on day 3, the short drives about town on days 3 and 4, and the 3 hours on day 5, Shmoogie cries.  At many, many points, Mr. SplashyPants cries, too.  But mostly, when Shmoogie cries, Mr. SplashyPants yells, "STOP CRYING, SHMOOGIE!  THAT'S TOO LOUD FOR ME!  IT'S NOT FUNNY!"  We tell him we understand the crying is annoying, but Shmoogie is too little to understand, which only causes him to intersperse STOPCRYINGSHMOOGIETHAT'S TOOLOUDFORMEIT'SNOTFUNNY!'s with very calm recitations of, "Mommy, Shmoogie's crying is really annoying."

***

At the house of good friends we haven't seen in a long time, our hostess is saying grace over dinner, Thank you, Lord, for this day, for this food, for good friends and safe travels... [about here, the solemnity is interrupted by giggles as Mr. SplashyPants holds out his ear of corn for the speaker to hold instead of his hand]... Thank you, Lord, for the chaos of children...  and right here, grinning as if he understands the joke entirely, Mr. SplashyPants throws out a hearty, "You're welcome!"

***

We stop the car, safely and not so safely, for (1) repeated yelling after requests to be quiet, (2) Mr. SplashyPants piping up, "I'm not safe" from the back seat and being discovered to have squirmed out of half his harness, (3) Mr. SplashyPants saying, "I can go peepee in my diaper" when he is not, in fact, wearing a diaper, (4) Mr. SplashyPants somehow unlatching his door while traveling at 60 MPH.

***

Upon flushing the toilet at McDonald's, after a discussion the previous day about lawnmowers being loud because "they don't put anything in to muffle the noise," Mr. SplashyPants informs his father that, "The potty is loud because they don't put anything in to muffle the noise."

***

After playing joyously in the pool with Daddy for a long long time, Mr. SplashyPants and Daddy are out of the pool and dressed in dry clothes.  Mr. SplashyPants remains fascinated by the toys still floating tantalizingly close to the edge.  Reaching for them, he is warned several times to be careful, and Mommy starts to think maybe it would be a good thing if he falls in because then maybe he'd be more cautious...  And Mr. SplashyPants reaches just a little too far and goes in head first.  Before Mommy even begins to react, Daddy has set down his (glass bottle of) beer and leapt across the pool in a single bound, scooping Mr. SplashyPants out before he hardly knows what hit him.  Afterwards, Mr. SplashyPants only wants to know, "Why can't I fall in the pool?"  A bit later, somewhat dried out and calmed down, Mr. SplashyPants is asked if falling in the pool was "exciting" or "scary".  "It was sc..." he says, then cuddles into Daddy's chest and says instead, "I'm OK."

***

Driving to the reception following the wedding, Mr. SplashyPants wants to discuss the goings on of the wedding ceremony, particularly when did he come to sit with Mommy?  (Mommy had sung a psalm early on, so DH was in a different pew with both children.)  "You came to sit with me when you gave me the Sign of Peace and I was very happy to get the Sign of Peace from you; that was very nice of you," I say.  "Yeah," says Mr. SplashyPants, and thinks for a little while, "Where is it?"  Where is what? we ask.  "Do we still have it?"  Have what?  "That what I gave you at the Church."  Oh!  The Sign of Peace?  "Yeah!"  That's just another name for a hug, sweetie, you gave me a hug at the Church.  Mr. SplashyPants thinks this over, then says decidedly to himself, "We had to leave that at the Church.  It had to stay at the Church."

***

In the elevator up from breakfast the day we're headed to see his uncle in St. Louis, Mr. SplashyPants tells his fellow passengers, "We're going to pack our bags and go see Aunt Louis!"

***

(My apologies for the disappearance this week - it turns out to be awfully hard to find both computer time and an internet connection while on a crazy roadtrip with two small children.  I'll be back in normal form soon, I hope.)

Emotional Intelligence

Yesterday was a holiday here, so today was essentially Monday (who likes Mondays?) and there is, quite frankly, a lot of stress right now coming from an array of sources, including ones I've mentioned here (Operation Butterball for Shmoogie, fast approaching sewing deadline, upcoming travel) and some I haven't yet.  As Mr. EmpathyPants was eating his oatmeal and I was unloading the dishwasher, suddenly he asked me, "Why are you not happy?"  I was kind of impressed.

 

Then when I walked in to pick up Mr. EmpathyPants today, his teacher (the one less comfortable speaking English) met me at the door and handed me a plastic bag and said, I think:

"Als er am Topf gesizt, hat es aufgesprizt, und dann hat er da drin herumgelaufen...  Herumgelaufen, verstehen sie das?"  (She "ran" her index and middle fingers around in circles in the air.)  "Er hat einen Spiel gemacht und die Kleider herein geworfen... He is wearing the T-shirt of another child; you could wash it and bring it back tomorrow?"

I listened attentively and looked pained and said, "Es tut mir Leid," a few times and eventually offered to take away the offending Topf (his little plastic potty, which he has been using at school because he doesn't want to use the big potty at school) since they had already asked me last week if he could please start using the big potty.  Talking to him about it last week got us nowhere, so we'll see how things go if the little potty simply ist nicht da.

After the usual trouble getting everyone back in the car (with an added layer of tears over This shirt isn't mine!  I want to wear my Lightening The Queen shirt!), I gingerly ventured a few questions to Mr. Empathypants.

"What happened today?"

"My teacher was angry at me," he scowled.

"Oh!  Why do you think that was?"

"I don't know; can you tell me?"

I'll spare you every last twist and turn, but I did eventually come around to asking, "When your teacher came in and you were turning around [his phrase] in the peepee, were you laughing?"

"Yeah."

"Ah.  Well, how do you think that made your teacher feel?"

"It made him happy!"

So, Mr. EmpathyPants still has some skill development to go in the emotional arena.