"Relax. Calm down. Walk away."

Most kids I know go through a bit of an aggressive phase, whether it's hitting, biting, kicking, whatever. With Jack, this has mostly manifested itself in shoving, with the odd smack thrown in now and then. His victims typically tend to fall in either one of two categories. The first, strangely, is blond babies. I'm not exactly sure why. Maybe he is avenging his mother's mistreatment at the hands of her blonde high school nemesis.

The other category is pretty little girls, especially if they have curls. My theory about the reason behind this is analogous to why little boys in the schoolyard pull the pigtails of girls they like. I think he's just so overwhelmed by how much he likes these pretty little things that the only way he knows how to express it is by shoving. However, regardless of the reason why, we've been working with him to try to teach him that shoving is not acceptable.

Yesterday, we went to the birthday party of one of Jack's little friends. There was a beautiful little girl named Anika there. As soon as she walked in the room, I saw Jack make a beeline straight for her. In an effort to run interference if necessary, I went over to where Jack was standing, and I heard him saying to himself, "Relax. Calm down. Walk away."

And I'm happy to report, it worked. Even though he kept talking about "Baby Anika" when we got home, yesterday was a shove-free day.