full moon on monday

This morning, I awoke to the sound of choosyboy's little fists pounding on his sister, and his sister complaining that he spit on her. What a great way to start the day, or even the week!

Yesterday, we had a full moon. A very large and bright moon. It's supposed to be on the decline today, but you wouldn't guess it based on the way that choosyboy has been acting.

On Friday, I picked him up from school and had to sign two of the dreaded incident reports. In one, he was on the receiving end, as another child had hit him with a block during play time. The other, however, was because he spit on one of his classmates - apparently because the other child took one of the toys he was playing with. This is something that we've been working on with choosyboy, but with little success. We try to get him to understand how unacceptable this form of behavior is. We try to explain that he is not a baby anymore, that spitting is disrespectful, that it can spread germs, and that he could get kicked out of school if he continues. He acts like he understands. But when he is upset all bets are off. We've also tried punishments, and we've tried rewards for when he doesn't get into trouble. We've even tried soap in the mouth.

Realistically, I am more upset with his sister, as she is the one that got him into this nasty little habit. Yes, even at seven years old, she occasionally feels the need to spit on her brother. I just don't get it. She's supposed to be past this kind of toddler-esque antagonism. We've given her all of the appropriate talks about this. What makes things difficult is the fact that my kids also like to make that whoopee cushion sound with their lips when they're playing, which often produces spit. I don't think that they're trying to actually spit when they make that sound, but it happens sometime. Although I don't like the idea of telling choosyboy that he can't make the "airplane sound" anymore with his mouth, I suspect that we're going to have to nix all possible spit-producing behavior in order to solve this problem. I'm open to creative suggestions if anyone else has run into this before...