This is how Thomas came home from school a couple of days ago. And this was AFTER his teachers at after school care had cleaned him up.

Apparently Thomas was drawing with a blue marker a decided it would be fun to turn it around and start colouring his face. Ahhh, the impulsive actions of a four year old.

This week has had its ups and downs. The shine of a new adventure has started to wear off, friends are being made – as are a few foes. We had an “incident” early this week where Thomas was on the receiving end of another child’s impulse. I won’t go into details, but the school took it seriously and spoke to the kid’s parents about it. Thomas told me it made him really mad and then I guess the next day he decided it was payback and threw bark chips at the child. Then Thomas (and I) got a talking to (although secretly Kei and I could understand Thomas’ behaviour).

This is the toughest part of working full time. It’s difficult to discipline when you’re not there to see the event and act in the moment. And it’s often difficult to determine the truth from a well-told story. While I want to stand by my child and believe every word he says, he can tell me a story of complete fantasy with such conviction that I have no idea if the other things he tells me are truthful. Kids have great imaginations.

On the drive home the other day I heard all about how Samuel went to visit Thomas at school by crawling and walking there in the middle of the day (about 15 miles). The story even included things that Samuel said to Thomas when he arrived. And, if I didn’t know that my 16 month old is incapable of traveling that distance and…well…of talking… then I may have believed it, simply based on the way the story was told.

The definite up side is that Thomas is being challenged every day and he loves to learn. He can now count to 5 in Japanese and say a handful of basic phrases. He even taught Kei and I a few words.

It’s all a learning process and we’re still getting in the groove of a new schedule. And let’s face it, the things that happened this week were not terrible in the grand scheme of things – I have a friend at work who is having a much tougher time with her child. This is just a new parenting experience and Kei and I are learning as we go.