Cold Spaghetti

I am a very hated Mommy, so says my son, who has decided to declare all out war against me.

He’s been very difficult lately in general.  Argumentative, stubborn, lashing out.  Combined with his sleeping in until 7:30 most days and a complaint that his ear “was popping”, I was suspecting an ear infection or possibly swimmer’s ear: irritability is his major symptom when he has something wrong with his ears.  But there has been no fever and no other real symptoms.

By all accounts, he is doing great in school… except he has been expressing anxiety over one classmate that has extraordinary behavioral challenges.  The school is doing their best, but when you have a child with severe problems and parents that lack the skills or ability to handle it, it can make the entire classroom suffer.  While I have not personally observed first hand how this child impacts the class during the main school day, by Will’s own accounts, it can be a blight on an otherwise good day.  (Paul has seen the child at a birthday party and was absolutely floored at the extent of the problem.)  Will has asked repeatedly if he can stay home specifically to stay away from this child.  We’ve spoken with the school and know that they are doing their best, but at the same time, we are concerned about Will.

Now I am wondering whether what is happening at school is impacting his behavior at home?  Do older kids learn defiance and backtalk from watching other kids?  Or is what we are seeing from Will a normal part of being 4?  It’s not like he hasn’t had difficult moments before.

Last night, Paul was away working and I was alone for dinner, baths, and putting the kids to bed.  We all had enjoyed a nice night.  Will ate a great dinner, had a treat, and asked for ‘tea with milk and sugar’ which I happily made for him.  He asked me to sit with him at the table to talk while he had his tea and I obliged.  I got Kate down and then went for Will, who was suppose to be cleaning up Legos that he’d been asked to clean up hours before (after I removed several pieces from Kate’s mouth).  But when I went to get him, Will was watching TV and Legos were still surrounding him.  I turned off the TV and he lost it.  First he threw Legos at me.  Then, when I went to pick him up and bring him straight to bed, he proceeded to alternate between going limp and kicking.  Actually kicking me.  He said a range of hurtful things and when placed in his bed, defiantly jumped out.  Several times over.

Finally, I said: “Will, as of right now, you are not having a birthday party.”  He froze.  And as I walked out of the room, the wail started.  It lasted about 10 minutes and then, after another 10 minutes or so of silence, he walked out of his room and said, “I’m sorry Mommy.”

“Thank you, Will,” I said, “now go back to bed.”

This morning we talked about last night’s incident.  I asked him to recount the progression of events and he did so with great accuracy.  He knew exactly what he did wrong and was appropriately sorry.  I explained that when he acted inappropriately, in ways that he knew were not acceptable, that it broke the trust we have.  And that in order to do fun things, we had to have trust — to know that he wasn’t going to act out or do something that would get him or someone else hurt.  So, I explained that, “if he didn’t show us that he could be trusted to behave appropriately, that we could not risk having a birthday party.” He got it.

Then the rest of the day was great.  We went to the store, we painted pumpkins, we helped Paul in the yard, we played games on the Ipod.  Then, while I was making dinner inside with Kate, the kitchen completely engaged with knives, boiling pots, and food everywhere… Paul carries a bloodied Will inside and dumps him in the middle of the mess.  I had to get crying and sobbing Will into the shower, ice on his boo-boos, wash him off, and help him get dressed in the middle of the critical do-it-or-lose-it moment of dinner making.  Somehow, he recovered enough to have a good dinner, but fell apart soon after.  The whole event from last night repeated itself.

(Except for the ‘I’m sorry’ part.  That hasn’t happened… yet.)

I’m not sure what is happening with him.  Have I done something wrong?  Is he sick?  Is this normal acting out, just on a grand scale?  Is he reacting to his frustrations with his classmate?  We have no idea.

The only thing I know is that, at this point, I may be completely off the hook for having to plan a birthday party…?

While we were in Central Pennsylvania for my cousin’s wedding, Will went fishing for the first time.  On our first day there, my Uncle Corky brought him to a local creek (after their two-man fishing excursion, Will announced that, while the rest of us call him “Uncle Corky,” Will was going to call him “Uncle Cork”).

Then we all joined them for fishing the day after the wedding.  Including my cousins Stephen and Katelin and my Aunt Roxanne.  Will was without the family uniform (waders) so my Aunt and Uncle set up a special chair for Will to hold court for all the fishes that threw themselves to his mercy.  (I think the final count on this was 6.)

They caught and released each one.  When Will let this one go, it sort of floated along belly-up… whoops.  Then, my Uncle did some magic trick holding the fish still in the running water of the stream bed and after a few seconds the previously doomed fish swam away, just fine.

Will actually caught a small mouth bass.  (I can’t remember the other types of fish Uncle Corky and Stephen were quick to identify on Will’s hook… those guys seriously know their fish).  They helped instruct Will on how to hold the rod, when the reel it in, and when to pull on the line.  They were both incredibly good teachers and really let him do the work.

Will not only got skills in how to fish, but he quickly understood how to discuss the fish you catch.  As shown in the picture below:

Then Stephen stepped in for some one-on-one with Will.

When Will decided that he was “inventing a new way of fishing” involving the net, Stephen went along like a true champ.  He completely and totally earned his status as Will’s nomination for WORLD’S COOLEST GUY.

I think if you look really closely in these pictures, you can actually see Will’s little heart growing BIGGER and BIGGER.

Will is on a roll, yammering on and on in the backseat about swimming in the “Nindianic Ocean,” (I’m told it’s in the Arctic), which is filled with whales that eat all people (“both boys AND girls”), has dangerous seals that bite, and also(!) many, MANY penguins.

Kate tries to periodically chime in with key words, but even she is forced silent in the face of Will’s unending monologue.

I turn to Paul with a glance of surrender.  There is no other choice but to let the words pour from the boy while we sit defenseless.  Meanwhile, Will has begun to run a new tangent about “injas” who live in the country of “Chinese”.  In case you were wondering, they were trained by knights in the 1870s.  I stifle a laugh and sigh.

Me: “And here we are, without the voice recorder, unable to capture all of this.”

Paul: “It wouldn’t help.  Our son is Quantum Mechanical.”

M: “Quantum Mechanical?  How is one Quantum Mechanical, exactly?”

P: “He runs by the rules of Quantum Mechanics.”

M: (not following) “He’s a cat in a box?”

P: “Meaning that you can only know his velocity or his position.”

M: “So, we could record his position…”

P: “But would then loose the ability to see where he is going.”

M: “In other words…”

P: “It is impossible to understand what he is currently going on about and see where it is going at the same time.”

M: “Yup.  That pretty much sums it up.”

Then, I think, I said something about the total hotness of a science geek.  Because nothing speaks to a woman like knowledge of quantam mechanics.

Our children are good at many things.  But going to sleep at night is not one of them.

Well, maybe that isn’t quite true.  Somewhere around age 2, Will became an award-winning, champion sleeper.  Even now, he’s still pretty good about going to bed when told.  Yeah, he politics and rationalizes all the reasons why he shouldn’t go to bed, but when we are firm he typically listens.  This is particularly when Kate isn’t around.

Kate does not like to sleep.  In truth, she’s never liked to sleep.  When she was a baby, I would lay nursing  her on our bed with a leg thrown over her legs and an arms thrown over her body — holding her down as delicately as we could — until she stopped moving long enough to nurse and fall asleep.  This is when she was 4 months old.  It’s only gotten worse since then.

Looking back at some of the milestone posts I wrote about Kate, each one I’ve found says something about her inability to get to sleep and stay asleep.

At some point this past summer, Paul and I took on the near-death experience of teaching Kate to go to bed.  We used this Supernanny-inspired hint of wisdom with Will and found it to be a stroke of genius, without the psychologically damaging side effects of other methods.  The idea is you stay in the room and each time the child gets out of bed, you put them back in.  The trick is that you must do this, without stopping, for about 5 hours.  You don’t eat, sleep, talk, use the bathroom, and after awhile, you don’t even think… you just desperately wish for someone to remove you from your misery.

Somewhere in the second week, we found that Kate was able to actually go to sleep after our bedtime routine.  Granted, she wakes up a few hours into her sleep each night with night terrors — but as this has been a constant in our lives for nearly a year, we were okay with it.  I do plan on asking her pediatrician about it when we can figure out how to actually see a doctor again… best guesses on this timeline is when I have enough time to wait outside the free children’s health van for the uninsured.  It’ll take all day for the 10 minute consult, but that’s okay; it will give me plenty of time to think of some really good fake names.

Regardless of how many times she woke up, we were completely blissed out over having successfully conquered a Bedtime Routine that lasted under 2 hours.

We must have been high on life, because we quickly destroyed it all by going on vacation.  And then spending a week in Mobile, evacuated from our home due to Gustav.  We kissed all that hard-earned work right out the window.

And now, even though we know what is Right and what is Wrong, and even though we really know what we have to do next… what we really want to do is whip them both soundly and send them to bed.

Our plan to divert Ike to Texas by steadfastly preparing to evacuate a second time paid off!  Ike is going to the nearby Red Stet and just to make sure it continues to do so, we are keeping our storm shutters firmly latched, the inside walls bare, and the fridge limited to 5 items within it’s pristine clean interior.  The more we are prepared to leave, the less the likelihood of needing to leave.  It’s a predictive model with textbook correlation.

But even though our living arrangements speak of a family on the verge of evacuation, our days this week have been the slow return to Normal Life.  Kids running around with underwear on their heads.  Me walking halfway to the store before realizing I forgot to put on shoes.  Paul coming to terms with coffee as the key to his salvation.

This week brought on several BIG EVENTS.

The first and Most Important was the start of school.  I was the only parent without a camera when we dropped Will off for his FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN.  Will’s teachers came to my aid and emailed pictures home that they, themselves, took of the kids during different parts of their first day… reading books, playing with toys, singing songs, having recess, eating lunch, and just generally looking cute in their uniforms.  From these, I have proof positive that Will is making friends and having fun at school.  Further, he does not seem to be acting the part of gangsta kid, a character behavior he appeared to be adopting over the summer, as shown by this class picture taken on the last day of his summer camp (note: although I cropped out the other children in the photo, I can promise that they are all smiling sweetly and most definitely not grabbing any unmentionable parts.)

Sometimes, my pride as a Mother leaves me speechless.

Quick on the heals of the first day of school was Will’s First Ever Gymnastics class.  At last year’s Fete, I won a credit for a class at Audubon Gymnastics via silent auction.  Will, who had once been enthusiastically in support of gym class, did a radical 180-degree turn on us Monday morning, announcing how he “HATED GYMNASTICS”.  This is when Paul called “NOT IT!” making me the default parent to take him to the class.

True to their website, Will was the only boy in a sea of pink-tutu clad girls.  After class, I had two big surprises.  First, Will did not once ask for either a pink leotard or a tutu even though he was the only one not wearing them.  Second, he bounced out of the class expounding on his LOVE FOR GYMNASTICS.  Could we come back tomorrow?  How about before school?  After school?  Everyday and forever, ’cause I really love it?  Oh, and Mommy, I REALLY WANT TO TAKE BALLET, TOO.

My heart actually stopped beating for a minute when this came out.  BALLET?  Did I hear that right?  When pregnant, I fantasized about Will being my Billy Elliot, but since then have humbly embraced him for the impressive sports-dude that he seems to be.  Now he wants ballet?  Or maybe he quickly saw the benefits of being a group’s only boy?

I called.  Ballet class was full.  He’s on the waiting list.

Keeping with our summer promise of staying with swimming, Paul took Will to his first Swim Team class today.  The deal is that for $50/month, Will needs only attend two sessions a week (offered M-F) and they teach him what he’s missing from the four basic strokes and work on endurance.  The report from Paul was that the prodigious-ness he showed in the summer was not a fluke; Will continues to astound and amaze in the water.  Proof positive that guys who like ballet can also be kick-ass sports dudes.  And gangsta.

—
UPDATE! As I wrote this, another email came in from Will’s teacher with more pictures (!!) and details of their activities today:

Dear parents
Today, Elodie (the other kindergarten’s teacher) went to our classroom to do a science activity while I went with the other class to play hide and seek (cache-cache) with Ouille the frog (grenouille) puppet. She went under (sous) and above ( sur ) a chair like the children did this morning in PE. And then we exchanged, so each class had the 2 activities. They also started some painting and counting activities and they colored the letters of their name. It can seem a little difficult for the new students but don’t worry they do great and they will catch up in French.

Here are some photos from yesterday for PE (motricite) and from today.

Tomorrow they will dance the fish-dance and they will have their first music class.

Thanks to our time at the beach during the lead-up to Tropical Storm Faye, when the ocean was completely still and clear, Will learned to snorkel.  I knew he mastered it today, when while swimming face down in the pool with his mask and snorkel on, he burped audibly through the snorkel and without raising his head from the water, sent up through the pipe a muffled: “‘cuse me, I burp-ted.”

They go all crazy when the video camera comes out.  Solution: use my digital voice recorder.  They have no idea it’s around.  As a result, I got some audio action of Will helping Kate get dressed.  (Click on the link below for the MP3.)

willdresseskate

I knew they were tourists before we climbed inside.  Even with Will boldly clutching the $2.50 for the driver, I was still weighed down with a large tote bag, stroller, and Kate, all in my arms.  If they were from here, I wouldn’t have so much as put one foot onto the unfolded step before someone soundlessly took an object from me to help us on board.  It’s just the way things happen here.

Eventually the kids and I stumbled into the Streetcar and rambled down the isle to an open seat.  Two open seats, actually, as the kids took turns hopping between empty benches on each side of the isle, changing with each stop.  It is July in New Orleans and it is hot: both kids wanted the breeze from the open windows and to be out of the sun.  Their seat experimentation was just them working to find the coolest space available.

“This area doesn’t look like it got hurt by the storm,” the lady in front of me says.  “Oh, right,” her companion incorrectly chimes in, “but the Garden District got it real bad.”  Definitely tourists.  I am about to ask them where they are from, to chat them up and welcome them here, to be that friendly spot of hospitality one expects here for good reason.  But then the stroller I’ve laid beside our seat comes to smack me in the shin; the companion sitting in front of me is pushing it back, away from where one end has rolled into her personal space.  I decide to say nothing, listening instead to the women periodically comment on the “interesting” and “unusual” and occasionally “beautiful” architecture that unfolds before us as we roll along the tracks.

Finally, we turn the corner to Carrollton Avenue, where the Streetcar driver announces: “End of St. Charles, Carrollton Avenue, Camilla Grill!”  Everyone around us gets ready to depart.

One of the women asks, “Isn’t this it?  Camilla Grill?  Is this where we go?”  She is looking around as if her expectations weren’t quite being met.

“I’m not sure.  I guess so.  Everyone else is,” her friend answers.

Then Will, who has been silently looking out the window snaps to attention.  “Get a Cheeseburger.  They’re the best here.”  He says it right to the women, who take a moment to realize from where this sage advice has come.

“Really?” the first woman responds, “cheeseburgers?”

“And a chocolate milkshake,” Will remembers.

“Cheeseburger,” Kate adds.

For a split second I find myself wistfully wanting a third child, one who would pipe up and offer that last bit of important advice, “and get it dressed.”

For the past two weekends, we have attended Baybears baseball games, where your ticket comes with two free hot dogs.  Kate was into the hot dogs.  You mention baseball, she’ll channel Yello and in that ‘oooh yeaah’ voice, will tell you HOT DOOOOGGGG.

Click on the audio link below to hear Kate discuss baseball over dinner.  (I’ve taken to audio capture dinner, since it’s when she talks the most.)  Listen for the HOT DOG at around 2:50.

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But, as Kate points out in her discussion, there are more than hot dogs with the Baybears.  You could also be one of the lucky kids to get a coupon for a free taco by chasing the giant taco across the field between innings.

Popcorn and drinks have free refills.  And if some random football player that I’ve never heard of (which means any past or present footballer) can throw the pigskin out of the park, everyone gets a coupon for a free Hardee’s sausage biscuit.  Folks in Mobile are serious about their junk food.

I got in a little sports photography.

And a few of the kids, when we weren’t wrestling Kate or keeping Will from ODing on diet Pepsi.  (I did do the good Mommy thing and bring smuggled in drinks for the kids… they just didn’t last long.)

Kate.

After a ‘tribute to the services’ where each branch of service has their musical moment and standing recognition, there are fireworks.  Pretty darn decent fireworks, all things considered.  I didn’t have the tripod the first week.  But I was able to get Kate’s face lit up from the explosions reflecting on the glass.  The first weekend this was possible because there weren’t as many people in the stands.  The second week, with the tripod, they let me on the field during the fireworks, but there were too many people to really get what I wanted… which was more of this picture below, just better.

Here’s Paul and Will.  BOOM.

The weekend of the Fourth, Emily and Skip were in town!  Will was Uncle Skip’s Mini-Me.

I had the tripod and was able to get some standard fireworks shots… but there were too many people to get the crowd shot I wanted.  I like this one because it reminds me a bit of the final home run in ‘The Natural’.

This is the best I could do at getting everyone’s faces lit up by the fireworks.