Refreshed... Kind of...

Finally today I'm getting a chance to recharge. We have no training today. Yahoo!!! And due to the weather and my boss being over on her hours, probably no work this weekend. SUPER YAHOO!!!
Yesterday was a trial though. It was the first time we were out on our own canvassing a block. Basically all we're doing is confirming addresses, and that there is a physical house at that address. If it's an apartment building we have to make sure all the apartments are listed. If the streets are mis-marked or not on our computers at all, we have to add them. The census itself doesn't actually come out until this summer, I believe. We're just getting ready for it.
That part of my day was not the trying part.
At 10:00, I got a call from my son's teacher. He had already gotten two sticks, and he had only been there two hours. For some reason he's been going in the pre-school rooms and playing blocks, so that was one stick. Then he got into an argument with a little girl he can't seem to stay away from. I can't tell if he likes her and doesn't know how to tell her, or if he actually dislikes her. It seems like a little of both. Anyway, that was stick two.
"Do you want to talk to your son?" Sigh... "Yea, put him on..."
Every question I ask him gets a response of ,"I don't know." At least I think that's what he's mumbling. So of course I warn him, and tell him he's not going to be able to go see Pop this weekend if he doesn't straighten up. And I cross my fingers for the rest of the day.
I explained to the teacher before I hung up that this weekend he was going to a huge gun show called Knob Creek. They're going to have machine guns and artillery and canons, all things all of the men in my life love. My dad, Pop, is going, as well as hubby and son. My step-brother and cousin are tagging along with the group now too, I believe. My son has known this was coming up, and I've repeatedly warned him that he was going to lose his weekend if he didn't straighten up.
But it was not to be.
His poor teacher called me yesterday when I got out of training, telling me there was too much to talk about to put in a letter. (Great...) Son seemed to be testing her to see if she would give him sticks. She had told him that she knew about his weekend, and she told me that after that , he seemed to be tempting her to give him sticks. He did everything bad he could do, then just looked at her when she got after him. He did everything from killing tadpoles in the stream behind the playground to running in the halls to lying to the reading teacher about having his work done. Teacher said, in total, she could have given him five sticks for the day. It only takes 10 to get suspended!!!
Needless to say, he was not happy when I told him his weekend was cancelled. Daddy was going, but he wasn't. Bawling, crying, pleading, bribing, he did the whole gamut. Then he switched tactics. I've been getting after him to clean his room for 4 days. Suddenly it was done in 15 minutes. Chores he hadn't done in weeks, he was suddenly under my feet trying to do. He was begging me to give him chores to do. (Which was kind of nice actually.) But he always does this. It's how he missed going four-wheeling with my husband a couple months ago, and how he missed the circus a few weeks ago. But I was standing firm in not letting him go.
Until I got that e-mail from Pop. 'He's done his penance. Let him go.' And the second one from Nee, my step-mom and my son's grandmother. 'Make it easy on yourself and let him go with the guys.' I told Nee he would have to have an exceptional day today in order to go. He gets home in about 2 hours, so I guess we'll find out then.
Nothing like a little extra pressure.