Out of the mouths of third graders...

As I just mentioned in my previous post, Gabe is growing up. In fact, he now demands to be called "Gabriel". I guess I should comply...it IS, after all, his name. And a name that I gave him, no less. I'm just not used to the grown up Gabe...riel. There have been lots of fun parts. He's a good kid. Responsible, respectful, helpful...well, mostly. But there is one part of growing up that is hard to deal with. And by hard to deal with, I mean hard to deal with without laughing. He does like to test the waters on what he can get away with now and then.

Last week, we were just home from school and in the kitchen. The boys were having a snack, and I was washing out lunch boxes. There was a sudden howling and growling from the porch. This isn't unusual. We do, after all, have ten cats living in or around our house. But the weather has been nice and the windows were open so it was very noticeable. Boris and Horace have never exactly learned to live in harmony. As long as there are three food bowls on the porch, they normally do pretty well, but as soon as a bowl goes empty, they can no longer tolerate one another. Gabe jumped up from his snack and ran outside to check the food status. He came back in, slung himself down in his chair and said, "I figured out what the problem was, Mama!" I didn't look up from the dishes. "What was going on?", I asked innocently. "Oh, the usual," he replied. "Horace was just PISSING BORIS OFF AGAIN!"

A shocked silence followed. Then I asked him to repeat himself. He did, with a little grin. I explained that the word he had used was not appropriate for an eight year old. He then went through a list of all the people, parents included, who he has heard use that word. I reiterated that just because adults use a word doesn't make it ok for children to use it. I finished washing lunch boxes and went to my room to laugh hysterically with my face buried in a pillow. What next???