Couldn't Hit The Side of a Barn at 10 Paces!

Help me out here. I'm not a guy, so I lack the understanding of certain plumbing issues. Twice this year, Garrett (8 years old) has gotten in trouble for "peeing on the wall of the bathroom." Today was pretty tragic because his teacher was so pissed (heh, see what I did there?) she wouldn't allow him to go on his end-of-year swim party unless I could come and supervise him. That couldn't happen because I was stuck in the dentist chair, so his missed his field trip. Both times this has happened Garrett has claimed that certain things stick to certain other things, causing him to misfire and hit the wall behind the toilet for a brief period until he got the flow under control. Then, some other boy (apparently one with better aim) tells on him, and by the time he gets back to class he is in trouble.

Full disclosure: Garrett gets in trouble a lot at school. He has a hard time focusing, he has bad impulse control, poor judgment, and insists on acting as the class clown. As a result, his teachers aren't super fond of him. When someone comes running to tell on him, the benefit of the doubt is typically not his for the taking. I get that his behavior is irritating to his teachers, and probably to other kids. I also think that other kids clue into the teachers' feelings about Garrett and tell on him for small things because, well, it's fun to get another kid in trouble, and it makes the tattler look and feel like the star.

I'm not sure if I'm being totally naive by taking Garrett's side. I tend to believe it was an accident because my bathrooms at home always smell like monkey pee because he frequently misses the bowl. On the other hand, Weston (who is almost 13) tells me aiming at the toilet is no biggie, and that anyone should be able to do it. Here's my question: Do those of you with boys have similar problems at home, or is my kid weird? Oh, and if your kid is a tattle tail, give him a good swift kick in the arse, courtesy of me!

Updated: Turns out my little angel wasn't telling the truth. About 9 other little boys were witness to his whizzing with great abandon ALL over the wall. Upon confrontation with the witnesses that had stepped forward, Garrett 'fessed up that it wasn't a simple case of "missing" the toilet. Furthermore when his teacher got mad at him, he told her that she was "overreacting". Yeah. Turns out I AM totally naive.

May I "Lance" That Boil For You?

Steve is a huge fan of Lance Armstrong. And rightly so. The man not only won seven Tour de France titles, but did it after winning a battle with testicular cancer that his doctors pretty much assumed he had already lost. I admire Lance Armstrong too, but not enough to name one of our children after him; which is what Steve wanted to do.

Why did I object so to naming our second-born "Lance"? For one thing, all the words that rhyme with Lance are bad. To whit: dance, pants, prance, romance (OK that one's not so bad). All words that remind me of that poem that some wag feels the need to leave on bathroom walls:

No matter how do jump and dance,
That one last drop stays in your pants.

Then there are the definitions for the word lance. Verbs: to spear, to stab, to open with a stabbing tool. Nouns: a spear, a stabbing device, a tube with a nozzle for cleaning furnace walls, a whale-killing implement. None of the mental images that go with these definitions are ones that I want to associate with one of my children. The deal breaker with this name? If I was to do a word association test with "lance", my first response would be "boil". As in "I'm sorry sir, that pustulant boil on your ass will need to be lanced in order to relieve the pressure." Enough said.