Out of the mouth of my babe

A few things Biscuit has said recently: 

Tense words: Sometimes Biscuit gets word tenses mixed up. And with good reason. When you start to look at other languages, you realize how hard English is! We have so many irregular verbs.

Biscuit was telling me a story about some ninjas the other day, and he said, "And when they came sneaking around the corner, they were sawing some samurai they would have to fight."

"They were what?" I asked Biscuit. I got every part of the sentence except for the middle.

"They were sawing, Mom," Biscuit said. "You know, like, they could SEE something."

"Oh!" I said. "They SAW some samurai."

"Yes, samurai," Biscuit said and kept playing. He didn't realize I was correcting his speech. He thought I was making sure that the samurai were what the ninjas "were sawing."


It's a big deal: Biscuit is still wide open every evening when he gets home from school. And he immediately launches into play ... right now, he's all about ninjas and samurai.

So I have to start asking him questions. And the first is always about the behavior color chart.

Biscuit's teacher uses a big color-block chart to keep track of the kids' behavior. At the end of the day, they color the corresponding block on the calendar with the color they ended on. 

Each kid has a clothespin with his or her name on it. They start on green, which is neutral, and as they behave or misbehave, the teacher and assistant will tell them to "clip up" or "clip down." Their clips can move  throughout the day depending on their behavior.

From the top of the chart, it's:
Red - An outstanding day
Orange - A great day
Yellow - A good day
Green - Ready to learn (where they start each day)
Blue - Think about it (usually a kid talks when he's not supposed to or misbehaves in a really mild way)
Purple - Teacher's choice (a more serious offense in which the teachers decides how to handle it)
Pink - Parent contact (the teacher calls the parents and makes the kid explain what happened)

Green or above is okay. But today, Biscuit was blue. And his mama was seeing red.

"Why did you get blue?" I asked.

"Well, I was really excited about things, and I think I was talking when I wasn't supposed to be talking," Biscuit said. "But really, I'm just not sure why I was on blue."

"Well, I'm okay with you getting green, yellow, orange, red or off-the-chart, but I am not okay with blue," I said to Biscuit.

Biscuit HATES to be in trouble, so he will immediately start trying to explain to me why being on blue isn't that bad.

"But Mom, three, and I mean three persons were on purple today," Biscuit explained. "And this is serious. It's real school. Big school."

"I know it's big school," I said. "And you're a big boy. But you're also a well-behaved boy, so I want you to work hard to be on green or above. Okay?

"Okay, Mom," Biscuit said. "I'm sorry. I'll do better."


A table is a table: When Biscuit goes to bed, he likes to have a cup of cold water on the nightstand by his bed. So when it got to be bedtime the other night, Jeff was going down the list, making sure Biscuit was ready.

"Where's your cold water?" Jeff asked him, as they were walking up the stairs. "Do you have some?"

"Yes, sir," Biscuit said. "It's upstairs on that coffeetable beside my bed.