Lord of the Fireflies, Part 2

You may remember from a previous post that I jokingly refer to Rachel's preschool class, called the Fireflies, as "Lord of the Fireflies" because of all the teasing, pushing, hitting and biting that goes on. According to Rachel, she gets a lot of it. I always ask her what she does, and she always says she tells the teacher, who then scolds the kid, but then it keeps happening.

 A week or so ago she said that Ben had thrown his backpack at her head and that was why she was in a bad mood (she was being whiny before dinner, and Drew was so annoyed he sent her to her room). When I went in and asked her what was the matter, she said she had had a bad day at school and told me about Ben. I took her on my lap and said I was sorry that had happened to her but that doesn't give her the right to take it out on us. I also asked Ben if he was a twin, and she said no. Does he have a brother or sister? I asked. He has a baby sister, Rachel said. Well, I explained, sometimes if a kid has a younger brother or sister at home, he or she may feel jealous and the only way they can express that is by acting out at school. That's not an excuse, of course, I told her, just an explanation. She threw her arms around me and said, "You give good advice, Mommy. I feel about you the way you feel about Peter." (Peter is the dean of the law school who's leaving in June).

The other day she came home with a red mark over her eye and claimed Ben, one of the kids there, had bitten her. I gave her an icee (a small plastic toy I store in the freezer) for her to put on her eye to make it feel better. She said he had teased her at school that day, saying "Rachel is smelly!" So I instructed her to tell him the next day that "Ben, you're a putzhead!" We practiced it a couple of times. She said he also told her that he was going to marry her someday even if she didn't want to.

So, when she came home from school earlier this week, she told me that she told Ben, "Ben, you're a putzhead! And I think you just love me."

"What did he SAY?" I asked.

"Whuh...Whuh...Whu...."

ATTAGIRL!!!