Dear Mr. Caller ID...

Where have you been all my life. I know, I know, we have run in the same circles for many years, but I have always been intimidated by you. To me, it seemed the price of our friendship was never worth the investment. But oh, how you have proved me wrong. In just the few short days since we have known one another, you have proven your friendship! You have protected me from those troublesome people that never fail to interrupt either dinner time or homework time. If only you were able to protect me from the irritating All State person that called last week to ask me all kinds of questions regarding my auto insurance. Did she forget that I had called numerous companies (including hers) to get prices on auto insurance? And did she forget that she was ridiculously overpriced? So why must she call me while I'm trying to fix dinner for my family to give me information that I already had!

Now, I know you want me to also appreciate the friendship of Miss Call Waiting. I, however, don't fully understand her. I feel it is awfully presumptuous of her to assume that she can interrupt me when I am having a perfectly pleasant conversation with someone to try to entice me with other friends! I do believe I can make room in my life to accept her as a friend, however, she must be fully aware of the boundaries of our relationship. She must understand, that I will only engage in this frivolity under extreme and dire circumstances.

Again, Mr. Caller ID I would like to thank you for coming into our lives. I hope that I will someday be able to return the kindness you have shown me and that this will be a long lasting friendship!

Sincerely yours,

The Happy Customer

Mean Girls!

We have managed to survive 4 years, 1 week and 2 days of school before really having to deal with a "Mean Girl"! I've never quite understood the concept of being mean. In my opinion it is too dang hard to be mean. Oh sure, I've been in a bad mood more frequently than I would care to admit. And I'm sure I've snapped at someone when it was totally unnecessary. But to be in that continuous state of nastiness is just too draining. Where do people find the energy to behave in such a way?

I know kids can be mean and cruel. And I especially know that life is all about dealing with difficult people. So it is important for my kids to learn that early on. I'd say 90% of what they tell me about so-n-so hurting their feelings, I respond with an "oh, just ignore them. They're just trying to make you mad!" But then there is the few times that my radar goes up and the "mom gloves" come off. There have been way too many incidents that have occurred in our area lately that have physically made me nauseous just thinking about. I don't EVER want my kids to think that I'm not willing to stick up for them and fight for them. I want them to feel like they can come talk to me about a problem they're having with someone and together we can work out a solution.

Last night I told Abbey she needs to stand up to this girl. This girl needs to know that Abbey isn't going to put up with any of her junk! Abbey of course was concerned that she would get in trouble. But I told her that the teacher was aware of the situation and said it was OK for Abbey to speak up! So we decided to work on some come-backs that Abbey could use. Here are the two best ones:

"So-n-So, if you're going to be rude like that, then go tell it to the corner, cuz that's the only place that's going to listen to you!"

"So-n-So, I don't like you well enough to miss you if you weren't here!"

I'm am now asking all of my loyal readers out there to channel some mean girl! Give me some good comments that I can give to Abbey to use. Please remember that these are 4th graders and I DO NOT condone violence or profanity...even though I would love to give this child a pop in the face!