The first "talk"

Last week my girlfriend Camille was up from Portland visiting and joined me to pick up the boys at their preschool on Friday.  When we arrived Oliver's teacher asked if it was ok to chat, meaning in front of my friend.  Being that Camille is pretty much my soul sister, I let her have at it.  Well....little Oliver gave her a run for her money and mommy got her first "talk."  He bit a little girl twice on the face and her mom freaked out.  I can understand why she freaked out.  Now that I have a biter I'm a bit more understanding of that parent too.  If you would have asked me a year ago before Olie arrived I probably would have been that parent that freaked if Henry got bit...twice in one day.  Basically, I was told he was playing mean and is becoming disruptive to the class.  Awesome.  Then I was asked, "what are you doing at home to address this behavior?"  I will admit I felt about as big as an ant and felt like I was being treated as though I am not addressing the behavior.  I wanted to say well I bite him back.  But realized this wasn't the time for jokes.  Over the weekend the director of the school and I spoke and we came to an agreement on the approach of redirection, trigger words, positive praise for good behavior and catching the biter (my kid) before it happens (meaning hover parent).  So, today he attended class and there was no biting.  But we have now transitioned into what they called "pushing."  However, after discussion she realized he wasn't pushing he was using other kids like furniture to pull himself up to a stand so he can walk.  He wants to walk all the time but the poor kid can't figure out how to get to a stand without a bit of help, i.e. another kid and his face.  So, we are practicing standing and let's hope next weeks class he's the angel we all know he is.  For now, our 13 month is not booted out of preschool but mommy did switch him to 1 day a week vs. 2.  We are trying to keep our report card detention free before we hit kindergarten!