Everyone should get an Abby--but you can't have mine, she's busy enough as it is

I was in the middle of composing the most sorrowful, self-loathing post ever when my friend Abby called. Abby, whom you may remember from our mall adventures or that time she murdered a chipmunk, is one of my dearest friends and will be for life because I will never let her go. She has three kids, and sometimes I think she tells them to scream/cry/cavort extra loud before she calls me so I can feel better about only having one. They're among my favorite children in the world, but they're children, and when they interact they do so at high decibels and with things around them crashing to the ground. I find it hilarious that she can engage in a conversation when it sounds like the children are setting everything on fire a few feet away.

Her son is the oldest, and he's exactly one month older than Henry, so we often check in to see if some recent aberrant behavior means that one of our children is having a problem, or there's just some developmental age-related mischief at work in their increasingly lanky bodies. Henry and her son Ben are really similar, both of them smart and intense and maybe a little too sensitive for their own comfort. I think Ben is far more easygoing, but that might be because he's not mine and therefore does not push my buttons.

Which brings me back to how I was writing this depressing post, the gist of which was that I am the worst parent ever, have no idea what I'm doing, and should probably pack up and find my son a well-trained governess or related expert who can deal with him in a manner that doesn't involve 1) shouting and 2) more shouting. Because my buttons these days--oh, friends. My buttons. They are all pushed. They have been mashed down so far that they're all broken and I'm like a stuck apartment door buzzer that won't turn off and is just buzzing NO STOP IT I SAID STOP IT GAAAAH.

It's not that he's doing anything that horrible, but oh my god, everything is so…dramatic, lately. There is so much noise. It seems to be noise that is specifically designed to drive us to the limits of patience. It is usually high-pitched and/or repetitive until we are begging for mercy. There is yelling. The yelling is ignored. (And then there is more yelling. The illogic in this does not escape me.) Everything--getting dressed, getting teeth brushed, not petting the cat until she lashes out in cat-fury--everything is a fight. Everything. It's becoming so predictable that the minute we start up I just begin to yell because I can't take it. And then I end the day with a headache and a sore throat and I feel like a monster. Oh! And my child tells me that he thinks he's a bad person and I fully blame myself, and I wake up in the middle of the night wracked with anxiety because I've probably ruined my child's life.

But then Abby called. And Abby described life with her son, and life with HER son is eerily similar if not IDENTICAL to life with mine. All the same behaviors are on display. The noise- and trouble-making. The emotions running at a fever pitch. The expressions of low self-esteem. It's like the two of them have been comparing notes! And Abby is waaahaaay more even-keeled and parenting-skilled than I am. She's definitely not screwing up her kids. Therefore, I concluded, I may not be screwing up mine!  Oh, I'm so pretty sure!

We toyed with some strategies. Abby mused that perhaps we should just be extra-tolerant and humor them until they grow out of this phase. I thought this was sweet and adorable and I bet she'll be able to do it! As for me, I wondered if maybe they weren't looking for excuses to rage-weep because of some kind of internal turmoil, so maybe I was doing my son a favor by losing my shit. (Abby seemed skeptical but I think I nailed this!)

Although we reached no life-changing conclusions from our talk, there's already been an improvement around here. Because I'm no longer filled with despair. And I managed to get through the night without once leaping out of bed choking in panic. I can't tell you what a relief it is to discover that my parenting is really not the problem. The problem is nine-year-olds. Which unfortunately he's going to be for ten more months. Now that I'm getting some sleep, maybe I can figure out a way to ride this out.

Someone's been watching The Ten Commandments.

Henry's in a pro-Dad, neutral-on-Mom phase, and I am utterly, completely okay with that. "Only Dad plays right," he tells me, putting a comforting hand on my shoulder. "Oh," I say, and try to look bereft. So I can't sit on the ground and play with guys for hours, is that what you're telling me, son? I have to sit here and read a book or talk on the phone or just NOT PLAY LEGOS while Scott gets all the quality time? I will somehow choke down my disappointment. Somehow.

Scott even won the religion wars. I didn't know we were fighting them, but Henry began and ended the conflict in one devastating blow. Henry and I were talking about his half-Jewish, half-Catholic status, and he asked me, "which one is Dad?" "Jewish," I said, and that was all Henry had to hear. "Then I'm Jewish, too." He kissed me on the cheek. "I love you, but I'm Jewish."

I called the Pope, and we had a good cry over it.

When Scott got home, I told him about our discussion. "What did you decide, Henry?" I prompted.

"That I am a Hebrew," he said, "like my father."

Then Scott muttered something like the metal is ready for the Maker's hand, and they demanded that I set them free, to build their glorious Lego temples to the God of Abraham. Of course I allowed it, for I am a just and benevolent ruler. So it is written, and so it shall be done.

Operation Bore My Son to Tears

is not going well.

Today is Henry's third day home sick from school. On Monday he insisted that he didn't feel well but all I could hear was "I want to play with my new birthday toys." He slipped that into his tirade regarding his various symptoms but I heard it, all right. I had him all figured out! So I dragged him there, insisted that he was fine despite his loud protestations, pried his little fingers off of me, and made a run for it. Two hours later his teacher called me. He had a fever. And was crying about ear pain when he coughed. Nice job, crappy mommy.

Once I got him home, of course he cheered right up, and spent the rest of the day playing with his brand new toys. There was nary a word about his supposed ear pain. Could a child elevate his internal body temperature, just out of an obsessive need for Legos? I suspected so.

The next day Henry was as bouncy and cheery as ever, but then I took his temperature, and damn it all, he still had a fever. A small one. Could I pump him full of Motrin and send him off? I considered it, Internet. My heart is a little smaller than a raisin. But in the end, I did not, which was a good thing, because two hours later he turned all gray and glassy-eyed and his temperature shot up to 115 or something. Okay, it was 104. Every time Henry gets sick his temperature goes up to 104. I find this somehow laudatory, because I never seem to get fevers anywhere near that high, and I remember being little and sick and miserable and wanting some impressive number that would elicit the sympathy of those around me. So here he is with 104, and I'm scared but also kind of want to high-five him. You are seriously sick, dude! Score!

Off we went to the doctor, and got some antibiotics. That part's not interesting. Actually none of this is. But this is all I have. So you just sit down and keep reading.

All of this brings us to today, Day 3 of sick leave. He's clearly better, but I wanted to play it safe, not bring him back to school only to have his teacher call to say he's still sick and p.s. you're a worse mom than we thought, and that's saying a lot. At the same time I hated the idea of keeping him at home, not just because he never stops talking ALTHOUGH THAT'S CERTAINLY PART OF IT, but because he's resisting school these days, and I don't want to reinforce that with another Super Day of School-Free Fun.

This newfound hatred of school is hard to comprehend in my child, who last year would weep like I had smothered his puppy if I told him he couldn't go to school. Who I'm sure told his teacher that he didn't want to go home because his cruel parents didn't love him like she could, and he should probably just live at the school, subsisting on graham crackers and apple juice and sleeping on the bean bag in the reading nook.

Now every morning includes at least fifteen minutes of weeping over the horrors of school, how the playground is stupid and all the kids are babies and the teachers are idiots. Because this year we can walk to his school, we get to enjoy a Bataan Death March each day, except worse. Because at least at the end of the Bataan Death march the survivors weren't forced to play in a stupid playground. And eat pretzels for snacktime.

So I'm trying to make this, our Last Sick Day, as un-fun as possible, but the kid's still enjoying himself, damn it. This morning he played with his new Play-Doh Fun Pak while I typed in the next room, first darkly announcing that I couldn't play with him because I had important work to do. (Read: I was emailing my friends.) "That's fine!" he sang, and proceeded to bounce in and out of the room, handing me intricate Play-Doh desserts and declaring that I deserved them because I'm the best mother there ever was.

"Soon," I growled, "we have to run errands," and he told me that errands are his favorite thing to do, as long as he can do them with me, because I'm his best friend. Wha? We went to the supermarket and he expressed fascination with every item on my list. Romano cheese, he informed me, smells fantastic. He shoved it against his nose and breathed in deep, beaming at me. He's either the best liar ever, or there's a hallucinogen mixed in with his antibiotics.

When we got home he asked to go to the playground, and inside I cackled with glee, my raisiny heart shrinking even further into the recesses of my chest cavity. "If you're home sick you can't go to the playground," I explained, and waited for the tears. Surely this would make school seem more palatable! Ho ho! "That's okay," he smiled. "I don't mind playing inside." And then he offered to help me unpack the groceries.

Next up: I introduce him to the vacuum. Even if he's still cheerful, hell, at least I have a clean floor.

Om mani padme hum

When your child has a week off between school and camp, and you are helpless to do much of anything but go along with his childish whims, you learn things. Happily, you learn that when you adopt a Zen-like attitude, abandoning all wants and desires and living purely in the moment, your child can be ... fun.

You will realize, quickly, that most of your annoyance (which is sometimes unfettered rage, because let's face it, you have issues) stems not from your son's actions per se but that his actions generally run exactly counter to whatever you need him to do. The timetable of the preschooler is not compatible in the slightest with the timetable of reality. For instance, you could say to the preschooler, after giving many friendly time-is-almost-up warnings, "Time to go!," and the preschooler will say, "Yes, but first I have to do X"—x being "construct a lego battleship" or "tell you a long, convoluted story involving a transformer" or "watch two hours of Jimmy Neutron." Once he's announced this, there is no moving him, although you still do, hoisting all 45 pounds of him into the car as he shouts I AM NOT DONE YET ARE YOU LISTENING. Sometimes this will happen as you are crossing a street and you will find yourself pulling at your child's wrist and hissing there is a car coming MOVE IT but he believes that time has simply frozen while he provides the backstory on his imagined rocketship adventures. And to do this he must stop walking. To concentrate on the hand gestures. While a painful death swiftly approaches. But I digress!

But when you have no agenda, nowhere to go, and nothing in particular to do, you can pass the day at the leisurely pace that the preschooler demands. And you see that his adventure-filled brain is not without its entertainment value. You can, say, spend an hour in the backyard engaging in a "tickle battle," and watch your son strike all manner of hilarious ninja poses before he strikes at your midsection with his Tickling Fists of Death. You don't have to hurry him through bathtime because he's not an hour late for bed, so he can spend a full hour lying on his back with his ears underwater, singing songs he is composing on the spot, your little half-submerged Marvin Hamlisch. You can play Magneto and MagLady, with MagDog and MagKitty standing by in case of extreme peril. He can list his many favorite colors (every one of them but yellow, in case you're interested) and you don't feel like you want to pierce your skull with a fork—because you're not late, no one is expecting you, and there's nothing you have to cross off your list.

Of course, you can do all this knowing that he'll be in camp by Monday. Thank God.