I Spoke Too Soon. . .

All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth. . . 

Remember what I said about things going along so smoothly?  Now I have two sick kids.  Also, Tuesday night the phone rang at 8:00 p.m.  Calvin saw the caller ID and his face turned white.  "I knew I shouldn't have sent that email." It was the mom of a friend from school calling. Her daughter had received a nasty email from our sweet little son.

It is never his actions that get him in trouble.  It is always his words, this time in written form. Unkind words regarding her talent or lack thereof and the school play.  Yikes.  As a proponent of talent education, I was mortified.

The girl is an aspiring theatre star, singing, dancing, acting--and the kids got jealous.  Calvin joined in.  Or maybe he was the instigator, I don't know. He knew he screwed up--on a multitude of planes including but not limited to misuse of the computer and not being kind.

Tears.

He called with a truly contrite heart and apologized to her.  She apologized for some hurt feelings she caused in the past and they both seemed to be at peace about it.  It was right for parents to intervene at this age.  Kids don't have the skills to work it out completely on their own.

He still lost the use of any computer for one week.  His Household Post newspaper subscribers will have to suffer through.

It is a long weekend, the kids had Thursday and Friday off for conferences.  No computer.  Not too sick, but too sick to go anywhere. He was really bummed, but I'm the one paying the price.  Now we have the incessant rhythm of the manual typewriter, a pass down from Great Grandma Hope, typing out recipes for a handmade cook book.  Now we are making pies.  I wake up to a playdoh bakery, complete with background music.  It is only Friday. . . I can't imagine what my house is going to look like by next Tuesday. . .plugging in is so clean. . .

Sometimes I feel insecure about parental decisions.  Sometimes what needs to be done is blatantly obvious.  This was an easy one.

There is no electronic privacy until you are 18.
The computer can never be used as a tool to hurt someone else.
Friendship is optional. Kindness is not.
Period.