11:59

Today has been a rough day. What have I been busy doing, that is so rough, you wonder? Mothering. Mothering and laundry.

I feel guilty for this whole damn day. I feel guilty for my feelings, guilty for the way I reacted, guilty for the words that came out of my mouth today.

My son, my joy, my reason for being, my heart, my son is difficult. One of his biggest issues is rigid thinking. He has always been like this but as we enter the teen years, I fear we will be experiencing a whole new level of this. I fear for my already fragile sanity. I often wonder what the neighbors in back of us think of us. My son likes to yell. The therapist tells us to remain calm and not engage, but by gosh by golly that is fucking hard. We just want him to be a happy well adjusted child, who learns how to manage frustrations, and can follow directions. We want him to be able to hold a job.

Today, from the second he got up, til the second he went to bed, he argued with me. He argued about ice cream choices in target. We left with none. He argued about the time he would show up to a friend's house tomorrow for a pool party. The invite said 12:00, he decided 11:50 would be perfect. Of course I politely tried to launch into a teachable moment about why we don't show up to people's parties early. He relented to arrive at 11:59. Um, no, 12:00. Mr. Control Freak did not like that and continued to press 11:59. I internally chuckled to myself for a moment, but then it started to get really annoying. He argued about dinner. He wanted tacos. I had no ingredients for tacos. If I asked him to take something out of the car, I got a resounding 'No, I am not doing that'. Honestly, he knew he would be doing it, he just seemed to enjoy the act of telling me no. He really enjoyed it as he did it at least 10 freaking times today. Did I mention the incessant tapping and drumming and noises he can produce. I know that some of it is involuntary, and whatnot, but when I ask  you to stop, for fucks sake, stop. Don't mutter under your breath 'never'. Don't.

If I vent to my husband,  he will tell me to take things away. I can tell you that taking things away, does not really move the needle.  I think the only thing that will help is if I act like a zombie. Dead inside and non reactive to any of his shenanigans. Say it once, and walk away. I can say it once, but the walking away part is kind of hard to do. I think that is more of a 'state of mind' in this house as there really is no where to go to get away from him when he gets upset and starts ranting.

Now that I have made my son sound like a maniac, I need to say that for the most part, he saves this behavior up only for me. I get compliments all the time about how polite he is. How well mannered he is. Tonight as he sleeps, I will relive each interaction we had today and mostly blame myself. I feel  like I somehow fuel this fire and don't handle the control issues all that well. I wonder if my control issues somehow make this whole thing even worse than it should be.


Mommy needs a spiked seltzer tonight. Or two or ten.