Duck’s been laboring under the misconception that he’s eleven going on thirty these past few weeks.
I’m not having it.
He’s been stretching his wings and testing his skills of negotiation and delegation, along with my patience and sanity.
Duck’s in trouble.
He’s not sure why he’s in trouble, after all, he feels he’s been perfectly rational, laying out his arguments in a logical (to him) and concise manner, lacking only the power point presentation to drive his salient points home further.
But he knows it’s hit the fan.
He’s trying to do damage control by giving voice to fervent promises on how ‘it’ll never happen again, I’ll change my behavior, I give my word on this, Mom’.
Meanwhile, he’s on the couch next to me and watching me play Xbox. Badly.
Because he can’t play right now.
Turns out I have less coordination on Xbox than I do after having a couple shots of Jack Daniels. How cool.
He’s mourning his losses with pain more properly reserved for mourning the loss of a best friend.
With bitterness and angst.
I’ve got him right where I want him.
Any minute now.
Wait for it…
Mom!! What are you doing?? Jump! Hit the x button, the x button, no, the X button, THE X BUTTON!! That’s NOT the x button! The xbutton-xbutton-xbutton-oh stop, just stop! Please!! Oohh mannn!
Giving a Duck screech of frustration, he throws his arms up in the air and then covers his eyes, unable to witness the chaos ensuing on the screen.
Yep.
Nailed it.
Duck slumps into the couch, exhausted by his efforts and whines.
Have I watched enough yet? Am I done being punished? Don’t make me watch this anymore.
And then the horror…
Wait. Are you signed into my account?? My friends are seeing this??? Oohh nooo!!! Mom, please be merciful. I’m, like, totally dying over here.
Mission complete.
Growing pains are hard for me to deal with.
It means my Duck is starting to move away from his sweet, ever questioning nature to the brand spankin’ new smartass, always challenging, forever arguing and bargaining nature.
That testing his boundaries is to be expected.
I know this has to be, that he will change, that this is really a good thing disguised in the trappings of a sullen argumentative troll, I do.
But it doesn’t take away the suck factor, not in the slightest.
None of the previous punishments have seemed to stick with him until I had this idea.
Said idea being why not get a new game, the very same one that he’d told all his friends he was getting and have him watch me play it?
The absolute simplistic beauty lies in the fact that I’ve never held an Xbox controller before today.
And it’s working.
I see another piece of him shrivel up and explode into dust particles with each succession of missed jumps, wrong buttons, and my general lack of survivability.
His whines have degenerated into pleas and then to almost inarticulate howls, begging me to stop, to turn it off, anything but end the carnage.
I’m half expecting to see a tear shed.
He understands that he won’t be cuddling up to his Xbox for another week and he’ll miss it (with more passion than I suspect he misses me) but he accepts his fate gladly if it means he doesn’t have to watch me die in a thousand various ways.
I do know he’ll forget what he said to bring him to this punishment, but I also know he’ll remember the consequences for some time.
And maybe, if I’m real lucky, he’ll think before he decides to dictate his terms of living under my roof again.
Oh look. I jumped off a cliff. Again. Too bad for me.
Everyone remembers “that kid” in school. The one who never had a single hair out-of-place, always produced the right answer for any question, and got straight A’s merely by showing up for class. Or so it seemed.
Remember that kid?
Yeah. I wasn’t that kid.
But I sat next to them.
I think the teacher deliberately made the seating arrangement that way. My hair wasn’t ever not mussed, a shoelace trailed behind me when I walked, and I never. Ever. Had the right answer.
I was the kid who made “that kid” look even better by comparison.
“That kid” was bright and energetic, outgoing and considered to be cool and sophisticated by the IT crowd. “That kid” was my complete opposite.
I was the “quietly messy and completely distracted kid”
While I wasn’t exactly an introvert, that came later, it became painfully obvious in the 4th grade that I wasn’t going to stand out for my people person qualities. For all of my shyness and lack of vocal talent, never was I mistaken for the “perfect kid”. I got in trouble often, though it wasn’t for passing notes or talking.
The teacher didn’t care for my reading Stephen King during class instead of participating like the others.
I still wonder whether it was my choice in reading material or my choice to read during class, that made her the angriest. She was amazed over my audacity.
The height of rudeness, she told my parents.
The way I saw it, was why bother? I knew “that kid” had it covered. Let them have the limelight, I prefer to read, thank you. I was grounded umpteen times but it didn’t stop me..
I grew taller, got older, and continued to read. My tendencies and quirks were given an explanation of ADHD and armed with a better understanding of why I was the way I was, I could move on.
Except.
My preferences for the company of a book over real life kept me from learning the give and take of a conversation, the small talk made to pass the time, the normal everyday communication. And I’m paying for it.
Duck isn’t “that kid” or the “perfect kid” or any other label
He’s my son
I’m his Mom
And I can’t give him what he needs so badly. I can’t teach him social skills when I barely have any myself.
Do you know what isn’t fair?
Know what cuts deepest without even touching you?
I do.
It’s having a child who means the world to you. One who needs your help and guidance. One who needs what you cannot give them, because you don’t have it to give.
Put yourself in my place, just for a minute and see how that feels. Then you can tell me I’m wrong and that life is fair.
No, really. Tell me.
Because it sure doesn’t feel that way from where I’m sitting. ADHD is something I’ve had to learn to work-around, make compromises with and to accept. The benefits of it are what I normally blog about, because in my case-the pros outweigh the cons.
Swim in the Adult Pool 