Issues

Bobby’s been getting in trouble at school and I’m kind of beside myself. His teacher has told me a couple of times - once at the parent/teacher conference last fall, and once a couple of months ago when I went to pick him up for chess club - that he needed to work on paying attention and not getting caught up in chatting with his friends. But lately things seem to be ramping up - she sent me a couple of private messages detailing bad behaviors (pulling a kid’s pants down, hitting a kid with his lunch bag repeatedly), in addition to the usual not listening and distracting people, etc.

I was upset, but I didn’t think it was the end of the world - for all I know, these behaviors are, while obviously not great, pretty standard for kindergarten boys. He’s never been sent to the office, and apparently some of the other boys are, and pretty regularly. Still, I took away desserts for a week, and the boyfriend took away some toys. He also set up a meeting with the teacher on Monday, and has talked to Bobby about “making good choices” until Bobby’s eyes glazed over.

Right now, Bobby doesn’t really seem to get it. All he knows is he’s being deprived of things, and he couldn’t tell you exactly why, no matter how many times we explained it. His story about the pants pulling down incident has changed again and again - we had him apologize to his teacher for lying about it; but then tonight he tried to say again that he didn’t actually do it even though everyone saw it. Sigh. 

I am emotionally drained. Naturally I blame myself - I’ve always put him first, I pick up after him like a slave, I rarely follow through on punishments - and I’ve created a monster. Or...maybe not. The other part of me thinks everything he’s doing, while regrettable and should be dealt with, is pretty normal six-year-old boy stuff. Part of me thinks it’s the end of the school year, he’s antsy and over it, and he and this teacher never really hit it off (I positively loathed my bitchy kindergarten teacher who told my mother I was “sneaky” and put a big bruise on my arm grabbing me, so maybe I’m projecting a little bit). 

Still, the thought of my precious little boy being considered one of the bad kids, a behavioral problem, scares the living shit out of me. I did not raise him to that; but all mothers of problem children think that. How could my sweet, gentle boy who named the little finches that visit the bird feeder outside our kitchen window, be the same boy that hits people with things and pulls down their pants? What should I be doing that I’m not? Am I just completely missing the mark? Or is the idea of the perfectly behaving six-year-old boy a myth? 

I barely have time to think about it before I take off for another singing trip, this time four hours north to San Luis Obispo. The timing couldn’t be worse, but part of me is relieved to get away from this for a couple of days. This issue, and season 2 of The Handmaid’s Tale, is all I’ve been able to think about this week.

Back on the road

I just got back from my first trip since December. It’s funny how, when you haven’t been away from your kids in a long time, the idea of it becomes a bit panic-inducing. But then you remember, you did this many times and it all worked out ok. And so did this weekend. And so we’re back.

Summer is in the air - the kids’ Lord of the Flies summer camp has posted its availability, although you can’t technically sign up yet. Being able to get up an hour to two hours later starting in June is going to be glorious. Theo’s summer schedule is M-Th instead of T-F as it is now which works much better for me - after the typical exhausting kid-tastic weekend, the last thing I have energy for on a Monday morning is entertaining a four-year-old for five hours. So, yeah - summer is going to be AWESOME. Only six more weeks-!

Last week I had a highly rated contractor over for an estimate on my kitchen - he quoted me almost $90,000. I almost sputtered, “are you fucking kidding me?” He said it was mostly the structural stuff around moving the doorway and adding windows. He seemed like a nice enough guy, but obviously WAY too high end for my tiny little project, which some of his yelp reviews indicated. It’s almost as hard to find a contractor for a project like this as it is a life partner! I decided to call in a friend who is an architect who I trust - I really should have called him first - mainly to start the process of rebuilding my rapidly collapsing garage (apparently it’s such a lengthy process that I figured I might as well get the ball rolling now if I want it even started by a year from now) and incidentally have him look at the kitchen. He can at least give me an idea of what to expect budget-wise whether or not I actually engage him to do the  kitchen. 

One of the hardest things is finding someone who “gets” old houses. No, I don’t want fucking granite countertops and recessed lighting. Yes, I know this isn’t practical or what people do anymore. Considering all these people are men, they just loooove to tell you why their ideas are better than yours. Ugh. 

In other news, boys have been behaving better. Whatever slump Bobby was in - he seemed genuinely depressed for a few days there - seems to have passed. Sometimes I think I influence these behavior trends and sometimes I think they just come and go like the wind. Who the hell knows? But if they’re both happy and (kind of) listening to me, I’ll take it! 

Two steps back

Operation No More Pull Ups has been suspended indefinitely. After two weeks Bobby still consistently peed every night, and started pooping his pants every single day which I theorized had to do with my restricting his water intake every night to reduce peeing, which then lead to dehydration, which then lead to constipation, which then lead to “soiling”. As an experiment I decided to put back the pull ups every night and encourage as much water drinking as he wanted, and voilà, no more random poop stains. I’m sure we both feel somewhat like failures, but the whole experiment lead me to lean far more on the side of “he’ll do it when he’s ready”. Clearly it can’t be forced or even encouraged. So that’s that. 

Next week I at last return to some band travel, which I haven’t taken part in since our Italy trip in December. I cannot wait to escape the every day drudgery and have some adult time, surrounded by inspiring peers. So often I feel like my whole life revolves around dishes, laundry, wiping surfaces, and minding other people’s poop schedules. I realized with a rush the other day that my event is coming up in just over four months and apart from opening for registration I’ve done pretty much nothing about it. So today I set about a flurry of organizing activity - a thousand emails dealing with a thousand topics. I need to reconnect with my work life. It’s been suffering the most lately. And it’s yet it’s still the area where I feel the most competent.

I think someday when I look back at these years with small children that I’ll be proud that I made it through, but I don’t ever think I’ll feel I was particularly good at it. It’s no surprise to me that my aptitude for rearing children is marginal at best; most of the time I’m just exhausted and everything feels like a monumental pain in the ass. How could it not, when you’re literally doing the physical work and carrying the mental load of three people? I simply don’t have the energy to keep up with two rambunctious boys. Maybe I’m too old or not fun enough. But tonight just felt like wrestling two flailing orangutans - trying to get dinner down their throats, homework done, violin practiced, bath administered, teeth brushed, poop butts wiped, pyjamas on - when all they want to do is run and kick and jump, is an exercise in futility. All nights feel like this, but tonight was especially hard. There was a lot of yelling and threatening of punishments. And yet I’m proud of myself that I didn’t completely lose it - I didn’t throw anything or start swearing or slam any doors. I didn’t let it get to me. I just accepted it as “one of those nights” and tried not to hold on to any resentment. I wish I could always be like that when things get hard. 

Tomorrow will be better. My fabulous 1930s Magic Chef stove at last arrived from the Midwest so I’m going to go visit it at the stove restoration place and give them a deposit to get started. This weekend I get to go dancing Saturday night, and next weekend I fly to DC. Until then I get to raid the boys’ forgotten Easter candy. Sometimes it’s the little things that get you through.

Easter hijinks

I have survived my first spring break. I ended up caving and registering Bobby for a spring camp at his local rec center - which he only attended for three days due to developing pink eye. Still, it kept me sane for what will be ten days of (nearly) non-stop child care. One more day off school tomorrow and then normal schedules resume Tuesday. Can’t wait to get back to focusing on work and other non-child centric concerns.

We went to two super fun neighborhood egg hunts on Sat, then did an at home one today, then did our usuals playground-drive around so Theo can nap-play at home-dinner-bedtime thing. 

The other thing I’ve been attempting this week, since we don’t have to get up and go anywhere important, is getting Bobby out of pull-ups at night. I have very mixed feelings about it. Most people who commented on a post where I asked about this “night training” process said to leave it alone and wait until he just stays dry of his own accord; but one person said she felt like keeping pull-ups on her kid kept him peeing all night and once she took them off and woke him at night to pee that it worked. I know that with daytime potty training B would have been happy to stay in diapers forever - I remember one day putting a diaper on my tall, skinny almost four-year-old and thinking, “what the hell am I doing? This is ridiculous!” and just cold-turkeying it from there (although to be fair he was already potty trained at school). When we were kids nobody was in pull-ups until seven or eight years old. What the hell is going on? So, with mixed results I’ve been having him sleep in underwear and the BF wakes him to pee in the middle of the night when he gets home from work. Some nights he’s dry, some he wakes up a little wet. I haven’t had to change sheets yet. But now that this is what we’re doing, I am loath to regress back to pull-ups, even though I don’t think he’s “getting it”; I think it’s just been pure luck on the nights he’s been dry. Maybe I’m entirely wrong and I should just keep him in pull-ups until something just clicks and he starts staying dry all night. But I seriously wonder if that will ever happen - even now he’s so used to just peeing while lying in bed, if I ask him what he’s supposed to do when he feels like he needs to pee, he says, “just pee!” I feel like I need to keep trying this method and just take it day by day. I cannot tell you how I long to be free of all diapers once and for all!