Warning: This post is likely to contain the “F” word here or there. Or a few more than just here or there. Ok, it’s in here lots and lots of times. It’s everywhere. This is me, in all my spontaneous jabber and glory as a mom on a horrendously bad day with Payton. You might wanna pop some popcorn for this melodrama.

I’m having one of those days when I want to take Paytonr in to the damn psychologist and just have him fixed, diagnosed, medicated…what the fuck ever it takes to make this child bearable.

Someone flip the fucking switch on this kid because apparently there is one somewhere!

We’re having lunch at the table, all three of us. The day has been fine up until now when the boys start calling each other names…oh so nasty names too, like taking their real names and replacing the first letter with another letter to make a rhyming name. (ie Parker – Marker)

You know, really mean, hurtful shit they were saying to each other.

But whatever, it ticks Payton off, even though he started it. So he goes to kick his brother under the table, only he ends up kicking the table leg instead and hurting himself.

How’s that for karma?

Payton blames his little brother for making him hurt himself, goes berserk and proceeds to attack Parker. Well, I can’t have that so off to his room to cool off first. But no, instead of cooling off, he proceeds to destroy his room. Beating on the doors, yelling how I’m the worst mom, he hates everything, opening and slamming doors so hard he knocks a hole in the wall with the doorknob, just to name a few.

Niiiicccee.

I let him have at it. I don’t know what the fuck to do. I can not reach that child when he is like that and bring him back to a place of reason. I’ve tried so many damn times. So have at it. Tear it all up, I don’t care today. Have the tantrum, get it out and we’ll deal with the aftermath after he’s finished.

Only it’s one of those days when the tantrum goes on and on and on. Even once he’s past the destructive part, the rest is still there. Irrational, irritable, hateful words, back talking, hitting his brother, threats, screaming, crying.

We’re going on 3 hours of this shit now as I type. He is almost seven years old…he is not 3 for fuck’s sake! Is he not old enough to listen to reason yet? In the course of 3 hours! A 3 hour temper tantrum?

How many times have I talked to this kid about “appropriate” expressions of anger? Shit, I’ve lost count. I don’t know, I must be talking in a fucking foreign language because he doesn’t get it.

How many times have I disciplined him because he won’t express his anger in ways we’ve established as acceptable? Countless.

Apparently I don’t know what I’m doing because none of the shaping, discipline and the other shit parents are suppose to do to make kids into decent people is working.

How many times have I tried to establish what flips the switch? What is it? Is he over-tired, was the beach too much yesterday, is he overstimulated, did he not sleep good last night, are his meals not well-balanced enough, is he constipated?

I’m not kidding, I’ve pondered that his shit could possibly flip the switch in the quest for an answer! The craziness! The insanity of me pondering shit as the cause. What is it? What is it? What is it? What can I fucking do different to make it better because, ohmygod, it doesn’t feel like it ever gets better. One step forward, two steps back.

I fucking give up. I quit!

But shit, I know I can’t quit but it feels fucking good to think about it. I think about it a lot. Probably more than a mom really should.

I pick up the book I’m reading, The Highly Sensitive Child, trying to find more insight into my kid. Turns out that 20% of the population is highly sensitive and it can be all these good and great things but it does mean parenting different than the norm.

Ya don’t say?

It really is the first parenting book I’ve read that seems to apply to my child but doesn’t scare the hell out of me that there is something “wrong” with the Heir. I was oh so happy to find it. It recognizes the differentness of raising a child like this but doesn’t play into the disorder thinking of different children.

So I go along, reading and marking in the book and get to where she discusses school age HSCs. (highly sensitive children) Turns out there is a minority group within this minority group of 20% of the population. Even within this 20% minority of highly sensitive children, there’s an easier HSC and a difficult HSC.

Guess which trait is especially special in this minority?

From the chapter of school-age HSC’s….

Finally, we work with the more difficult HSCs, the minority–those drama queens and pint-size rebels who can be so intense, active, distracted, opinionated, fussy, and irritable that you wonder if this is normal or what further help you need.

Yay for me, I’m raising a kid that falls into the minority of minority here!

And would you like to know exactly how much work she offers in terms of material in her book for these especially special kids? Because she did promise we’d work with the more difficult HSCs.

5 fucking pages.

FIVE! That’s it. And one page of that is spent describing what these especially special HSCs are, (which describes the Heir to a T) so make that 4 pages. She sums up the whole 4 pages of info nicely with two life-altering sentences.

In sum, home life may be a little difficult now, but think of your family and home as a launching pad for your HSC. With the proper support from you and her own great and growing awareness, your HSC will certainly go far.

Are you kidding me?

A little difficult?

Are you fucking kidding me?

(I wrote that exact sentence in the book and plan to give it to Payton when he is grown so he will know how he drove me crazy.)

This author, who claims to be HS herself, raised an HSC, has done decades of research on HSCs, has a Ph.D, describes it as a little difficult?

Fucking shoot me right now because even an expert on these special kids can give me only 4 fucking pages of insight into my especially special kid. Oh lovely butterflies & daisies that if I do things the proper way, Payton will go far in the future. But what the FUCK do I do NOW?!?!

I want to rip out that page telling me if I do it proper like, he’ll go far and just like eat the page or something fucking crazy like that. Hell, maybe if I eat all 5 pages of information, it will change my cellular structure or something and flip a switch in me so I can do this shit all proper like and turn this kid out all proper like too. I’m entertaining the idea of eating the book right now. I wonder if paper taste the way it smells.

So I ask Mr. Owl, fuck the tootsie pop, riddle me this….

How many licks does it take to get to the proper support center of the HSC book?

It’s ok to laugh. Because seriously folks, if I can’t laugh at this shit, I will lose my fucking mind. I have at least 11 more years of raising this kid and holy fuck, I have to laugh.

And just because it feels good, I’m gonna say one more time (and feel free to say it with me)…

FUCK!!!

This entry was posted on Monday, June 11th, 2007 at 2:10 pm and is filed under And This Is Why I Drink, Evidence File for The Betty, This Mom Gig. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.