the day dictionary.com helped me be a good mom.

so we’ll just say that there has a lot been going on around these parts.  sure, sure, you have most likely been busy too.  whatever.

but there was this one day, roughly two weeks ago (I know cause my antibiotic just ran out..) and ash was home from school after having a bad night, trying to sleep with a sinus headache.

(yeah, I am sure that I am in the running for mother of the year for that story.)

so, being sleep deprived and not feeling too well, she was understandably a bit emotional as well.  she came and snuggled in my lap, and started to tell me how she was sad and didn’t like going to school, that kids were mean to her, one kid in particular.

the situation was one that some might not think too serious, but in our family, there are certain words, language that is not acceptable.  in our home, we try to have an atmosphere of love, and we just don’t say certain things.

so this kid was apparently telling ashley that she was stupid and also an idiot.

(so here’s a tangent for your enjoyment, merrill and I still find occasion to use these words, when they fit, but we don’t say these words, we have changed them just a smidge so the kiddos don’t catch on, and if they do use them, nobody else knows what the crap they are talking about.  stupid = stubbid and idiot = idjuwit.)

I knew that it wouldn’t be enough to simply tell her, “well, you aren’t.”  I sat there, trying to keep my anger in check, my knee-jerk reaction from coming out first, and thought about what my response to her should really be.  we’d had problems with this kid previously, and I was trying to be wise in my approach, not wanting to dredge up past incidences and tell her that basically this kid was just what they were calling her.

then the thought hit me.

use the dictionary.

it’s an approach I’ve taken with lynn recently while doing homework, I make her work out the bulk of it instead giving her all the answers, telling her what or how things are.

(oh, and she loves it!!)

(that was sarcasm by the way.  it has been a while, I was afraid you forgot what my sarcasm sounded like!)

so we went to dictionary.com and looked up each word.  as I read the definitions to each one, I asked her, “are you any of those things?”

“no.”

“then you don’t worry about what anyone else says to you.  you know you are not those things.”

it worked.

and that is the story of how dictionary.com helped me to be a better mom.

oh, and it was also pretty great of me to go and talk to her teacher about the problem.  her teacher is a saint!