Where do bullies come from?

As far as I know, there have always been bullies in the world and always will be. I remember encountering some bullies when I was in school. Those bullies that like to make fun of you for whatever reason, or the bullies that want to beat you up just because.

There was a girl in my 5th grade class that was a bully. I tried to stay away from her as much as possible. When she would aproach me, I would run. Literally. I was a skinny little thing that could run fast. She, on the other hand, was a chunky little girl. Maybe that's why she had issues. Anyway, I knew that during recess, if she was approaching me to bully me, I would run because I knew she wouldn't catch me. I mean, her little stubby legs would move, but not as fast as my long skinny ones. But when we would go back into class, her harassment started again. I always thought I was dead meat.

One day, we were out in the playground and she approached me, I don't remember why I didn't run, but I stayed there. All I remember is her hitting me and me striking back. Boy did it feel good. I didn't get in trouble because I was a teacher's pet and my teacher knew the history of this bully. However, she got in trouble. I don't remember having to run away from her from then on.

Even though we Homeschool, we still encounter some bullies. Not on an everyday basis, but every now and then. Recently, at a practice that AB attends, there were two boys, 8 yrs old, who bullied a 7 yr old in the dressing room. These boys pushed and shoved and told this little 7 yr old stuff and then they threatened him with a knife. The 7 yr old was scared, as I would be, but didn't tell his mom until he got into the car to leave. The mom came back in and talked to the mom of one of the older kids and that mom got mad. Not at the mom for telling her, but at her son.

The coach made them sit out for a month. Just to watch and not play. Then the coach had a nice long talk with them. And I do believe that they got punished at home as well.

On another day, at another of AB's practice, as we were leaving, AB was telling me that a little boy pushed him against the wall in the dressing room. AB couldn't remember what the little boy said, but he apparantly told him some stuff. I got upset and was about to confront the little boy as his mom was no where around. AB's coach said she would handle it.

Then that same bully poked another boy in his chest as he passed him and told him "I still don't like you". The boy looked like he wanted to punch him in the face, but his mom told him that the season would soon be over.

From the first incident with the two boys, I don't think they wanted to actually hurt the boy. Maybe they were just showing off. I'm not really sure, because when you talk to those boys, they are very nice boys. The second incident that involved AB, that boy was definately a bully. He walked around with his chest puffed out. I'm not sure what his home life is like.

I know that I can't protect my sons from the bullies of the world, but I can teach them how to be an example of Christ. AB says that now that he's in karate, he knows how to defend himself. I'm sure he does, but will he remember how when the time comes.

I constantly tell the boys to remember Romans 12:21 "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." This verse seems to have helped them because when AB an UB encounter bullies out at the playground or around, they will come tell me that someone was being mean or someone took something away from them and when I'll say "remember", they'll stop me and say "We know mom, do not fight evil with evil, but fight evil with good."

Then they'll go off to find these same kids that bullied them and next thing you know, they are all friends.

By the way, does anyone know how to get super glue off of your fingertips?

It's time to do some Spring Cleaning

Yesterday was a beautiful day. It was in the upper 70's so we took advantage of it. We were outside for most of the day.

The garage was in need of some attention, so my goal was to start tackling that. We did school outside and in between sessions, I was cleaning the garage. It was starting to look like a dumping ground.

I threw so much stuff away, that I didn't even know the boys had. But what I found interesting was the stuff that were not toys, but the boys play with. Like an ice chest filled with dirt. When I asked them why, they said it was their sand box. Or a pipe wrapped in electrical tape. Their bat. Or a broken skateboard they didn't want to throw away. It was their sled for when it snows. You'd think we live on Little House on the Prairie.

I send them away to play while I threw away junk. I only got to finish 1/4 of the garage, I still need to go through the rest. But I did get rid of the 'sand box', the 'bat' and whatever other makeshift toy they had.

While finishing school and cleaning, the boys would ride their bikes and show me their tricks. They had showed Hubster and I these tricks last week and we were both surprised to see them do these tricks.

AB's bike is a trick bike, but it is heavier than a regular bike, so he tries to get it off the ground, but that's as far as he can get it up in the meantime.

UB on the other hand is able to get the front of the ground. Scary. But he does wear a helmet and when he feels himself falling backwards, he jumps off.

Both boys also lost a tooth yesterday. Actually, Hubster pulled both teeth out. They were talking to their friend and he told them a story about how he gets $50 for his teeth. This little boys likes to tell stories. When I told him that his tooth fairy was pretty rich, he said that maybe it was $10. That's still steep in this household. So he kept telling them that if they begged, the tooth fairy would hear and she would bring them what they asked for. This tooth fairy ain't budging.

The boys put their tooth under their pillows and they wake up at 1am to look for the money the tooth fairy brought. But guess what? The tooth fairy forgot. The tooth fairy was exhausted from playing with the sand box and the bat and such that she fell asleep. So when the tooth fairy wakes up, she has a hard time going back to sleep. She gets up after about an hour and makes the exchange. The boys wake up again at 7:30 and find their money. They were not dissappointed that it was not $10 or $5, they were excited because they got $1.

Now they want to go spend it. I need to teach these boys about saving. But they sure are going to drive me nuts while they beg me to take them to the store to buy a toy. Maybe I'll pay them another dollar to go make a project outside.

Here's your sign

I'm not really fond of all this nastiness when it comes to the Presidential race. Good grief, if they can't play nice then why do we want them in the White House. Can't we all just get along?

Anyways, I read somewhere that Gov. Rick Perry and Huckabee were supposedly good friends.
Good friends from long time ago. But then I read a while back that Perry called Huckabee and 'told, demanded, asked, pleaded, begged' (something) to step out of the race. Huckabee said no.

Then Perry endorsed McCain and voted for him during last week Texas elections.

So if you really want to find out who your friends really are, just run for President.

Can we race the truck?

We went to run some errands on Saturday. Because Hubster does not usually go shopping with the boys, he doesn't know what to expect. I totally ignore them because I'm used to the "mom, he touched me" "mom, he's spitting at me" "mom, his leg is on my leg" "mom, can we run?" kind of phrases that I hear on our shopping trip expeditions. I'm going to start recording everything they say and then record what my comment would be so that I can just hit the play button and not have to say anything.

I just push my mute button and continue pushing the shopping cart until I find what I need. Hubster will respond to everything. I'm telling you, these trips are fun when it's lunchtime and we adults still can't find what we are looking for. (Do you hear the sarcasm?)

We end up at Lowe's. We are trying to find several items that we need. One of them being the piece of molding for the door frame the boys broke. We go down the list and can't scratch anything off because we can't find it.

Now, I don't know what Lowe's motto is, but it should be "find it at your own risk". We tried asking for help, but the person had no clue and wasn't willing to help much. When we did spot some workers, they saw the "I need help" look on our faces and high tailed it a different direction.

With as many customers there, I simply just wanted to stand in the middle of the store and ask in a loud voice "Does anyone here know where the condoms are?" just to see if I would get any attention. I'm sure Hubster would have dis owned me at that moment. So I stood there, but no words came out. Only the let's get out of here words that had been wanting to come out since I ran into a stack full of windows and almost broke them and then told the boys it was their fault I did it.

We then went to Home Depot. Not much luck finding stuff there either. Although, the workers there were a lot friendlier.

We ended our afternoon at the drag strip. They were having test runs and Hubster wanted to go see his competition. Most of the cars were race cars, you know, the big engine, loud noise, big tires kind of race cars and trucks. But it surprised me to see some family cars out there. When I jokingly said, "wow, we should have entered our truck" the boys took me seriously and wanted dad to go out and race the truck.

Wouldn't we have looked funny out there on the drag strip as a "family" going racing.? I could just hear the boys yelling "go faster dad" as the truck skidded to a stop. No thanks, not this time.