FROM THE DESK OF THE EDITOR

"Ooops" That's what Aspen thought when she realized she was going to have to tell daddy the truth about what really happened on the playground the other day. Remember a few days ago she told me she was punched in the face by a bully? Unprovoked? Um, not unless you consider Aspen shoving the boy into the ground first 'unprovoked'. You see, daddy didn't get quite the whole story from Aspen when he first blogged about the incident. But today there was a confessional note in her bookbag that Aspen was instructed to write to me explaining the results of the teacher's investigation. It seems while Aspen was being bothered verbally by this boy it was actually she who made first physical contact... not he. His 'punch' to my daughter's face was not an action but a REaction to him having to eat dirt at the hands of girl. Well, daddy could not believe his ears. This was only the second time on record that Aspen had lied to him. He was not pleased. Aspen knew from her daddy's quiet and cold tone that she made a mistake. And her quivering lips and watering eyes that looked straight ahead told daddy that she knew that she regretted not fessing up at the time. Daddy told Aspen that for lying to him and her teacher there would be no dessert for a week. Then she was to miss 3 recess breaks at school for fighting. This was my idea since I knew the boy had already missed 2 breaks himself. It seemed only fair that she get an extra day since she made first contact. I wrote a letter to Aspen's teacher apologizing for Aspen's behavior and thanking her for seeing the incident through. Aspen has written a letter of apology to her teacher as well for lying and a letter to the boy apologizing for demonstrating just what he'll get if he messes with her again. Of course when learning that Aspen had hit first, this afforded me the perfect opportunity to say ... "Aspen, is that what Buddha would have done?"