"She's a very sweet and helpful girl; she just talks too much."

Tbell came home from school yesterday with a note from her teacher that I needed to sign. The note said that she had gotten in trouble for talking too much and was given several warnings about it before having to take down a picture. (The kids have three small pictures of themselves up on a wall. Similar to 'three strikes and you're out,' they have chances before a more serious consequence happens.) Now, she only had to take one picture down but she also lost 5 minutes of play time. When I asked if she was sad that she had lost a picture for the day, she just shrugged and said no. Then she told me that there was better stuff in the papers underneath the teacher's note. Now, I wouldn't ordinarily call the teacher about something like this, but I happened to have another issue to bring up so I decided to try. We spoke about the other thing first and then I brought up TBell's indifference to being in trouble. Mrs. P laughed and said the quote above. I noted that TBell didn't speak for quite a while - no sounds at all. In fact, the pediatrician wanted me to have her evaluated for speech therapy but I never got around to it. Then, she turned three, and she hasn't shut up. Mrs. P said that she was the same way and that her teachers must have felt the same way. I told her that we would try to work on being quiet at home, but that TBell is either talking or asleep. Happily, she got a good worker award today and proudly told me that she did not talk too much. Too funny. (I had a very hard time keeping a straight face while discussing this with her. She really cracks me up.)