I miss Barney...

I came home early today to get ready for this weekend (big competition and all), and I'm just just doing my own thing and the phone rings. Since I'm normally not here in the afternoon, I checked the caller id, expecting it to be a bill collector or something. No such luck, it's the kids' school. I'm like, crap. Normally when the kids' school calls during the day it's for one of three reasons. 1, they're sick and need to be picked up, 2, they've been hurt/maimed/broken some body part, or 3, they're in trouble. In my experience, it's almost always number 3. The kids both know that they need to be REALLY sick for me to come get them at school, and that kind of sick doesn't usually happen in the span between when the get on the bus and lunchtime. So I'm going, it's finally happened. One of them has fallen and broken something. Nope, wrong again.

Assistant Principal: Hi. Um...there was an...umm...incident at school today involving Katherine.

Me: (completely freaking out now) Ok...

Assistant Principal: Well, there was this boy...and you see...well...

Me: (TOTALLY flipping out now)

Assistant Principal: Well, he said he wanted to have sex with Katherine.

silence

Me: Uh, what?

Yeah, apparently some little 9 year old punk told my daughter that he wants to have sex with her. Ok, 1. Nice parenting by that kid's parents 2. What the fuck? I never professed to be some uber great parent, but I can sure as hell teach my kids what's appropriate and what's not. Kids, boys especially, push the boundaries and often push too far (Davey is a perfect example of this, he just acts like a 9 year old, not a 16 year old). It's not that I'm concerned Kat will be scarred forever, I'm just concerned about someone who obviously doesn't get that you don't just walk up to people and tell them you want to have sex with them. I mean not that they really get it, but still. A kid last year told Kat the same kind of thing, about how they should have sex (it's apparently shockingly common at this age). Chris was like, oh hell no. He told her to punch them in the face, kick them in the balls, essentially beat the hell out of them. I was like, OR...you could tell the teacher. Once on the playground when I was like 8 or 9, Mark, this boy that I went to daycare with, was like, kiss me! I was like, ehh... but before I knew it he was sticking his tongue in my mouth. I threw up on him and told the teacher.

She took my advice, not the throwing up part, the telling the teacher part. The Assistant Principal assured me that she took care of it. She said the boy's mother was horrified. Can you even imagine that? I mean, yeah, it's bad that some kid said it to my daughter, but can you imagine if it was your son that said it to someone else's daughter? Horrified wouldn't begin to describe my emotions. Me thinks it's time to revisit the "what's appropriate to say to people" conversation just in case. Man, I miss the days of Blue's Clues and Barney.