To read my diary introduction and more entries, please click here.
Entry 2: Bowling, Disrespect & Mama Tantrums at DD
Sigh. It’s been a rough couple of days with my 10 year old. Really. Rough.
It started this past Saturday at the kiddo’s youth bowling league end of season party.
“Awesome! You got a strike!”
Met with eye roll. But, call me persistent. “Woo, hoo! Two in a row!”
He walks quickly over and slams his fist on the counter where I am sitting. “Mommy, stop. Please.”
“Okay. Sorry, dude.”
Next time up, he bowls a 9 and then a spare. True to my word, I say nothing but I do smile. He half smiles at me.
My 13 year old then rolls a strike. “Great job, buddy!”
“Thanks, Mommy!”
I watch the entire game in this manner, my eyes on them the entire time.
Huh, I am thirsty, so I fish through my purse for some change for the soda machine, and it takes me 5 whole seconds to find it. I raise my head to my 10 year old with his head in his arms on the table across from where I am sitting, crying and my 13 year old glaring at me. “Wait? What happened?”
“I got another strike on my last throw and you weren’t evening paying attention to me!!! You missed it.”
‘Yeah, Mommy. You can tell me, “Good job, buddy,” but you can’t tell him any good stuff the whole game and now you made him sad.”
Wait. Hold. The. Phone. What. Just. Happened?
I am so confused.
Thankfully, the pizza arrived just then, quickly ending the tears and leaving the lady sitting next to me chuckling.
After bowling, I, being the nice mom that I am, head up the road to Dunkin. I swear that it had absolutely nothing to do with the pounding, “I missed my morning cup of coffee”, headache I had, or the five buck gift card I came across the night before. “I am going to get a coffee. Would you like a donut?”
13 year old says, “Sure, thanks! I’ll have a chocolate with sprinkles, please.”
10 year old says, “What? Just a donut? That’s it? I want a coolatta.”
Ladies, let me tell you, that was the straw that broke the proverbial camel’s back. I seriously lost it. “I didn’t offer you a coolatta. I offered you a donut! But, it’s not good enough!!!! Do you know how many kids would KILL for a donut??? How many parents can’t afford a stinking donut??? How many other little boys would be deliriously happy for a donut?? I don’t know what’s going on with you kiddo, but, oh, you just wait, friend. I see a long, sad summer for you!!”
I order a coffee for me and a donut for my 13 year old. As I pull away, actually feeling guilty I didn’t get him a donut, the 10 year old wants to know where his donut is. WHAT!?!
“WHERE’S YOUR DONUT? It wasn’t good enough, so I left it there for some other kid who will enjoy it. Let me tell you something. You kids want for absolutely nothing. Your every need is provided for and then some. And yet, day after day after day, you want more, more, more. I am tired of it!”
I can’t really tell you what I said from there on. At some point, I realized they were both tuning me out. It wasn’t my finest moment.
Saturday evening my ten year old had bouts of so much disrespect that he ended up being yanked up the steps by my husband and into his room where he fell asleep on the bed. His disrespect is mostly aimed in my direction, and ranges from yelling to name calling. I am left so angry and end up losing my cool and dishing out consequences of lost gaming systems until who knows when.
He does it all over again on Sunday, even after apologizing. I then have the conversation explaining, for the hundredth time, that when you apologize and ask for forgiveness, you are indicating that you are not just sorry for your actions, but that you will strive not to do them again. He is totally not getting that.
I shared my weekend at C.O.P.E. on Sunday evening while the kids were in youth group. (COPE stands for Circle of Parental Encouragement. We meet once a month during the kid’s youth group and it’s an awesome thing.) I am a bit encouraged by the words of other parents who have been there, done that. It seems this is the proper age for all this stuff to be rearing its ugly head. However, I am really taken back because my 13 year old, while he has moments of disrespect, he almost always is genuinely sorry for his actions. He never pushed me this much when he was ten.
My mom says it’s an attention thing. I don’t know. Any other place that I go, whether it is school, church or other places, I get these glowing reports on what a well behaved kid he is. Intellectually, I know that he is testing me. Testing his boundaries. Seeing how far he can push me. Etc., etc. But, my heartstrings are seriously being pulled. What. Am. I. Doing. Wrong?
My 10 year old is fiercely independent and head strong. He is seriously the most competitive person I have ever met, and he has been that way since he was a toddler. He is more stubborn than a cantankerous old man. I know that all of these qualities need to be harnessed and not squashed. They are what make him, him. He is also a kid who is fiercely protective of his brother and me, loves to hang out with his grandparents on the weekend, and will randomly bring me flowers from the yard or a snack when I am reading a book. I know in the deepest places of my heart, that God has great and fantastic things in store for him where He will weave all of these personality traits together in my awesome kid for His purpose and according to His will.
But, holy cow…he could push just a teensy, weensy, bit less.
To read previous entries in my Diary of An All Boy Mom series, please click here.