People tend to say nice things about my parenting, and although I very much appreciate the sentiment, I rarely really believe them. Because ultimately I get it wrong every single day. I get confused every single day. I worry all manner of things so often that I find it questionable that anyone can compliment me on something I wing it with more often than I know what I’m doing. (Sometimes I tend to feel the same about my teaching profession, but please don’t tell my boss that I wing it more than I feel like I truly know what I’m doing)
But the past four days have been the most challenging and not because anything traumatic or major has happened, although his tantrums are becoming more regular and over seemingly more menial reasons. He seems to be getting to a new stage that I’m not sure how to cope with. And in actual fact, I’ve spent some time away from the Bean this weekend, but I have/am struggling with being a parent at the moment because I’m so confused.
I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I’m not sure which expert to listen to. I’ve read stuff about Asperger’s and I’ve listened to psychologists and early childhood educators and websites and parenting specialists and friends with kids on the spectrum and so on and on to infinity. And I know that every kid is different.
I get that.
I also get the other clichés that say you have to do what feels right to you. That know one knows your child as you know your child.
Ok.
But I’ve also been reading a book about enlightenment and awakening. A book that confirms and is aiding my understanding of things like ego and awareness that I’ve been trying figure out for years.
And herein lies my problem.
As I head on a personal journey of figuring out the ego and the awareness of my ‘human’ and my ‘being’, I have observed that my son’s ‘disorder’ is ALL ego.
Peadiatrician speak suggests that I have to teach my son how to function in society. That all of the early intervention that will help him later on focuses on training him so he can cope with life’s rules.
I’m not sure about that.
I don’t want him breaking down all the time, but I don’t know that I cope very well with life’s rules.
Do I need late intervention?
Do I take him to the acupuncture man instead who I trust with my qi and try and get his energy sorted out? Do I read him books about enlightenment and hope his ego becomes a little less in charge? Do I hope he grows out of this latest phase of incomprehensible tantrums? Do I stress? Do I forget any future overseas travel and go into debt to send him to the coolest and best independent school around? Do I sit here and write blogs instead of making myself dinner, instead of doing my year 11 marking, to boost my ego, to feel recognition, to complain, to identify myself with the form of the exterior madness that is my society?
Do I give up?
Things The Bean has said:
1.
Me: Aaaarrghh, fuck it!
TB outraged, and rightly so: What?!
Me: Dragon just attacked me! Bloody, pox, ouch, god dang it… (rant continues)
TB: We don’t talk like that, Mama. It’s not friendly and not nice to say to baby cats.
2.
Me: Are you going to have some sushi?
TB: No way! Sushi is for adults.
3. Playing Dinosaur investigation with his Aunty Lee.
TB: What’s going on here?
AL: The rain came from no where and wet all the washing.
TB: Oh No! That’s it! That’s the emergency!
4.
TB: I’ve got a new job.
Me: What’s your new job?
TB: I can run and fly. It’s called a run flyer.
5. Running.
TB: Look Mama, I’m as fast as a hypothesis.
6.
TB: I tried to figure it out. So I just looked around in my brain and then it came out.
7.
TB: Dragon doesn’t really talk much.
8. Coughing.
TB: That went down the wrong hole.
*has a drink*
TB: Hmmmm, that went down the right hole. The other one went down the coughing hole.
9. In the car and if I wasn’t driving, I would have fallen over. This was the first time he’d asked me this.
TB: How was work?
Me: Wow, yeah good thanks. It was long though. Monday’s are so long aren’t they?
TB: Yeah I was thinking about that at kinder. I was thinking about when you were coming to get me.
10. Overheard when he was in the bath. Playing with two different kinds of ‘dragonosaurs’.
TB 1: So you play that game with your dad?
TB 2: Yup. Let’s play ‘breathe fire along’.
TB 1: We’re pteranodons, we LOVE that game!
TB 2: So where’s your dad?
TB 1: My dad is a boy dad and I’m the teacher. I teach him how to be a dad cause I’m a boy, too.
TB 2: Yeah?
TB 1: Ok…. Let’s fly!
TB 2: Let’s play breathe fire hide and seek!
TB 1: Yeah, that’s a good idea!
TB 2: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16…
Ready or not here I come!
11. On way home from Aunty Bronya’s
TB: I think we should get Aunty Bronya to being her cats to our house so we can have a cat race. Dragon would love that. Because he would win. We could ask Thomas to bring Satchmo, too. Satchmo’s a nice cat. He’s a boy cat. There are boy cats and boy people, did you know?
(The discussion of how the cat track would be set up, the sequences of the starting lights, the sound of the siren, the order in which the individual cats would win each race, the way it became about dinosaurs and cats racing, where the people would sit, which dinosaurs were coming, which trains were coming went on for about 25 minutes, I couldn’t write it down while I was driving, it didn’t make much sense and at times I switched off… But the general gist was one of spectacular cat races as the new in thing to do.. He even got home and asked Dragon how much he’d like to have friends over for a race.. Then he showed Dragon where the track would start.. home ground advantage I guess)
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