My Little Rule Follower...

Mary Kate is a rule follower. Ask any of her teachers that she has ever ever had...if she has a rule, she follows it! To a T!!! I will share two stories now from her Kindergarten year that will illustrate this to you without a shadow of a doubt.

1) Back in the Fall, Mary Kate came home from school one day and was sad. She said "Mom, I had an accident." This kinda confused me because it has been literally years since she had an accident. And she was wearing the same clothes as she had been. I asked her, "Oh no, you peed your pants?" The response was no...Confused. OK, well what happened? Mk said "I had to go poop really really bad and I couldn't hold it anymore! and a little came out.." Ok, I asked her why she didn't ask to go to the bathroom and her response.."it was during center time and Mrs. Simmons (her teacher) is invisible during center time (that is when she works with small groups for different subjects) and we are not allowed to ask her ANY questions at all!" OK, I told her that I am sure that she could if it was an emergency, but she insisted that the rules said no. Which they did. After talking with her teacher, she clarified to the students that yes the rule was not to ask anything, but if it was an emergency then they definitely could ask her a question. She had intended it all along, but didn't realize what a rule follower MK was!

2) This happened today. All throughout the week the students can get Early Eagle Tickets from the staff. This is basically a catch you being good thing. At the end of the week they have an Early Eagle Assembly and each teacher chooses two Early Eagle tickets at random who each get prizes. Well, Mary Kate got a prize this morning. It was a certificate for a free ice cream at lunch time. All was good, MK got her ice cream. Well, the end of the day rolled around and they were packing up to go home and MK comes up to her teacher with her lunchbox asking for help. It was dripping everywhere....APPARENTLY she had tried to save her ice cream for later. All of it. She hadn't even touched it. And since it was 4 hours later, it was quite melted. When her teacher asked her why she didn't eat it at lunch, she responded (here's that rule again): "My mommy said I am not allowed to eat dessert until I have eaten all of my healthy food first!" So she saved it for later...While good in theory, this rule backfired. Her cubby at school, backpack, and lunchbox are all covered in melted sticky chocolate ice cream. We have since revised the rule...if she wins ice cream or popsicles or anything that melts, she is more than welcome to eat that first if she likes, but definitely eat it there....don't try to save it. Needless to say, we will be stopping for ice cream this weekend. Poor baby didn't get to enjoy it!

My precious little rule follower! Love that girl! And to be perfectly honest, I would rather have a rule follower to a fault than the opposite!