Got Your Back

This week some boys called Emma some swear words at school. I told Justin about it and he clenched his jaw and kept mumbling under his breath. I asked if he was upset, and he told me of course he was. He was going to go over to that school and ...and... I asked what he would really do. Everything he came up with included duct tape. Duct tape their mouths shut, duct tape them to the monkey bars (where the incident occurred), or get duct tape in their hair so it hurts and pulls some hairs out. I pointed out that anything he did to those boys would wind up getting him in a lot of trouble.

Justin told me that his buddy went to the school to scare some boys that were picking on his little brother. I mentioned that I had done the same thing when my little brother got picked on. Justin was very curious how I had handled it. I said that I went up to the kid, stood really close so that I towered over him and told him he better be careful and keep away. Meanwhile Tyler stood in the background and yelled "ha ha!" Justin said "Tyler is awesome!"

This reminds me of another infamous story in our family. When Tyler was in 5th or 6th grade some boys from school came down the horse trail behind our house and saw Tyler playing in the backyard. They were boys he didn't get along with at school. They demanded to jump on our trampoline. Tyler said no, squirted them with a water gun, and told them it was pee. They chased him and started jumping on the trampoline. Tyler ran inside and called out to his five sisters who were home. We came racing outside and chased the boys down the horse trail. Christy or Tricia, depending on who tells the story, yelled "You better run! I have a butcher knife and am going to stick it up your butt and twirl it around!" (No one really had a knife.) Finally we cornered them and made them come back to our house. We made them wipe off the trampoline, take off their shoes, and jump on it while we watched them. One brave little punk said we better be careful because his dad was in jail. Tricia said "oh yea, our dad hasn't been caught yet!" One kid had his older brother with him who was my age. He refused to obey us until I went inside looked up his phone number and we threatened to call his dad. Then they all jumped on the trampoline crying while we watched and laughed.

Hurt Spot

Justin came home from school a few weeks ago and said he had a "hurt spot". I raised my eyebrows. He explained that he had hit his forehead several times during the day and it was killing him... thus the "hurt spot". I inspected the "hurt spot" and informed him it was a pimple. He said no, it was hurt from repeatedly being hit really hard. I said it was a pimple and was really sensitive so it felt like he was hitting it hard. We got a kick out him calling it a "hurt spot" so now that is the default term in our house for anything that hurts.