Rule #1 - Be a lover, not a fighter

Yesterday, Evan and I popped in to my son's daycare to pick him up for the day. As we walked into his classroom, there he was, being the perfect angel. There was no screaming, no whining, and he was picking up all the toys scattered around the room. I should have known better. As he walked from one toy to another, putting them in their assigned cubbie, James kept looking back at Evan and I. He was smiling and cleaning, ensuring that we saw what an awesome job he was doing, helping out his teachers. I almost bought it.

We were then told that James had a couple of "incident reports". Initially, this wasn't a big deal. There used to a period where Evan and I would take bets on whether James would have an incident report that day or not. Generally, it just meant that some kid bit him or he fell and hurt himself. Not this time.

"James has been very rough and hitting his friends today. He pulled some of his friends' hair. When someone would be in his way, he would push them down. He also hit one of his teachers today."

Certainly, this little hell-raiser wasn't MY kid. Fortunately for us, the abused teacher was still there and went on to tell us that James had simply walked up to her and smacked her in the face for no reason. Nice. Nothing like your 2-year-old son slapping around a 20-year-old lady to make you feel like a bad parent.

So, to teach him a lesson, we took him home and smacked him around...well, actually we didn't. The teacher even mentioned that he knew what he was doing was wrong. After each kid/adult he violated/tormented/punished, he apologized with his puppy eyes and kisses. That doesn't excuse it at all, but I have to admit that I could just see me being on a future episode of Nanny 911 or something.

Later that night, he couldn't STOP snuggling. I'm sure the fact that we don't bite, push, or harass him might have something to do with it. Or the fact that he was watching American Idol and was extremely happy about it...in any case, we'll just have to see how this one pans out and hope that there is no incident report today....unless it's because he ran into another wall.