It really is an alternative school

During the time we were hard at work trying to unlock the mystery of Sam, I bought some cheap memo recorders from Radio Shack that could record and playback a message of up to 10 seconds. The device was simple and had one very large button to press to play back the message. The idea was that we could record two different choices for Sam on two different recorders. For example, when pressed one may say "eat" and the other may say "drink." We'd let Sam listen to each message first by having him press the button with either his right or left hand and then we'd ask him to make a choice and press the corresponding recorder button. Brilliant, right? Sam didn't think so. He refused to use our ad hoc communication device. Jackson, on the other hand, loved these things and would frequently steal them from his brother to record messages for David and me. Usually he'd set the recorder near me or David while we were in the middle of a conversation, press the button and then run away. See, we're always getting on his case about interrupting us and with his stubborn innovative little personality I shouldn't be surprised that he found a way to interrupt without actually being there himself. So I did not miss the recorders when he finally grew tired of them... or maybe I hid them; I can't quite remember. But yesterday they made a re-appearance. Jackson had a friend over and the two of them were playing with these recorders up in Jackson's room. His friend brought one of them down to me and said, "You gotta listen to this." I pressed play and heard my little boy saying, "I have a girlfriend. She's pretty great. Her name is Natalie and I kissed her at school." Now I know about Natalie and it's always been pretty obvious that she has a crush on Jackson. But the two of them are friends and I always just assumed Jackson hadn't gotten into that whole boy/girl dynamic yet. So I was a little surprised to hear him speak of her as his girlfriend. And I realized my 6 year old has important secrets from me. It was during this revelation that the friend said, "Yeah, Jackson said the girls are really flexible at his school," and this is where the panic set in because his friend's speech was painfully slow, "and they let him..." Oh speak faster child! What do these flexible hussies let my baby do? "Um, they let him kiss them..." Where? Damn it! WHERE? "... on the lips." And I saw that the clock said 5:00 so I poured myself a drink.