By: Revanche

My kid and notes from Year 3.10

January 23, 2019

Filling dat bucket

The kids spent a long while learning about the idea of filling someone’s bucket emotionally and JB spent weeks asking for validation when ze would do something positive: Momma, am I fillin your bucket? Momma, I am doing great listening, does that fill your bucket?

It’s unclear whether ze quite gets the concept but ze spent a lot of time trying to suss out whether what ze was doing was a bucket filler or not.

Daycare bullies

I wrote about this kid, dubbed Jerkface, early on when I was exasperated at the havoc he wreaked as a 2-3 year old and my opinion hasn’t changed now that he’s five except for the worse. I felt bad for judging in the past but now that we’ve had to share a classroom with him for over a year I just have exasperation. To all appearances he’s not struggling with LD or ED, they’re very open about when kids need accommodations and that’s not the case here. He’s kind of like the Haley.

What I’ve observed is that while he does have high spirits just like most of the kids there, the big difference is that he is also allowed to act in completely unacceptable ways: hitting and kicking his parents, even spitting on one memorable occasion, and those behaviors pass without comment. What follows from that is what I observed in my young cousins with negligent parents: He’s taken swings at me and PiC, trying to hit or kick us any time we’re near him, knocking books out of PiC’s hands, trying to kick a chair at me because I was listening to their teacher instead of paying attention to him. One of the teachers we’ve become good personal friends with confirmed that she’s observed the parents being totally irresponsible and negligent, consistently allowing this behavior between his siblings as well.

Our paths cross an awful lot and it’s unpleasant every single time. It galls me that JB doesn’t understand that he is constantly leading zir into trouble. We patiently explain, over and over, that he’s not allowed to take zir things just because he wants them, that just because he orders you to around you’re not obliged to follow him, that real friends don’t pick on you or treat you as badly as he does. I don’t get the appeal and it worries me a little about the people that ze gravitates toward when we’re not around. Ze has a lot of other “friends” who behave generally fine but ze doesn’t talk about them one-tenth as much as ze talks about this kid. Day to day, the rest of the kids register across the spectrum of nice, mean, warm, standoffish. They share, they don’t share, they’re loud, they’re quiet, they’re playful, they’re petty, they’re generous, they’re selfish. They’re just kids – those are all totally kid behaviors. Jerkface is a whole other quantity of consistently being a pill to kids his age and physically striking out at adults. Surely he must not be so unpleasant all the time, otherwise why would the kids want to play with him?

Normally I think it’s important that ze be exposed to all kinds of people, and we’d navigate that as we go but I don’t want them around each other, he’s pretty much a terrible influence.  We don’t tell zir not to play with him though because they’re stuck in the same classroom for a while yet. At this age, I think that’s too difficult a thing to push when ze doesn’t want to avoid him. We just have to have A LOT of talks about appropriate behaviors and good life choices with every tale brought home about how he did something “so funny” that wasn’t. A lot a lot a lot of talks. He’s the one who came to school calling people fat and laughing hysterically about it so we have already had THAT conversation.

I really look forward to having a break from him when they start kindergarten. I know that ze will be around unpleasant people like this at various times of zir life but goodness this level of awful is exhausting.

With your nose so bright …

JB has been signing Christmas carols all year long but we finally had a chat about the song of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, and the idea that if someone didn’t like you because you were different before, was it likely that they truly changed their minds because someone else decided you were useful? Probably not.

Also all the other reindeer who “Used to laugh and call him names / They never let poor Rudolph / Join in any reindeer games” were mean. It wasn’t ok to taunt and exclude him just because he was different. We have young cousins who are developmentally delayed and it was helpful to set it in real world terms: that behavior would not be acceptable toward them or anyone else. (Much like calling people fat and laughing at them!)

Training the trainer

One of the suppress-your-laughter moments we’ve been experiencing a lot of is with Sera and JB. Sera came to us with no manners and possibly no common sense. JB is used to Perfect Dog Brother, and so ze is QUITE impatient with Sera but the perk (did I say that??) of an untrained dog is the opportunity to teach JB about reading dog body language and how to effectively train them. Still, because Sera is slow to obey commands, we have to choke down our laughter when JB hollers REAL SIT!! when Sera veerryyyy slowly almost sits in hopes of getting away with not actually sitting. She does that with us too, it’s not a snub at JB even if she were bright enough to do such things, but it amuses us that JB is getting the full training experience, balkiness and all. Of course we correct JB’s training, and teach zir not to yell each time, but that’s going to take a lot of time.

Precious Moments

JB: I want to stay in bed to sleep.
Me: Me too, I’m sorry you can’t though. I have to get ready for the people to come fix our heater. They took out all our ducts and they need to put in new ones that will give each room heat.
JB, blearily: Real ducks? That swim in water?

I don’t know why I thought that’d make sense even if ze was fully awake.

Science!
JB: *hack hack*
Do you need water?
JB: no the air kwal-ity is bad.

JB: my pee is bad for the environment

JB: What makes me sick?
Me: A virus. It’s a little organism that people can pass to you when you share food or drinks, or cough or sneeze, and it gets into your body and it makes a lot more of itself. That’s what makes you sick. …. that is the worst explanation for a virus.
PiC: Eh.

JB over breakfast: Some animals die.
Me: … yes they do. Why…?
JB: Because people hunt them.
PiC: OH Cal Academy. There was a wall of Andy Warhol endangered species images.
JB: The orangutan, the gorilla, the donkeys. The gorilla is a lot a lot endangered.

Canid communication
Me: go get a blanket for brother.
JB has the choice between an unused blanjet and the one Sera is on: Can you get off PUH LEASE?
PiC: Sera is a DOG. She doesn’t understand that
JB: woof woof!
… That’s not going to work either.

Someone has to be held responsible
JB: I’m so COLD.
Me: Maybe you should wear pajamas with sleeves and pants tonight instead of shorts and short sleeves.
JB: Yah. My daddy did this.

Time is entirely relative
On Halloween: mommy I want it to be Halloween again!
It will be, next year.
*Gasp* Halloween is coming!!

JB: It’s Thanksgiving today! I love Thanksgiving!
Me: Yeah? How come?
JB: I love Thanksgiving because ice cream! I want it to be Thanksgiving again!
Me: It will be, next year.
JB: Thanksgiving is coming!!

My criminal mastermind always tells on zirself
JB: Mommy are you going to check my hands?
Me: Did you wash with soap?
JB: Ummmmm yes?
Me: I’m going to check.
JB: Nooo!!

My food is not my food
JB: What are those for?
Me: My eggs? For me to eat.
JB: All for you?
Me: Yes.
JB: bursts into tears. MOMMY TOOK MY EGGGGSSSSSS!!

I did not steal your eggs! You ate oatmeal for breakfast!

This was well-loved this on Twitter ages ago, forgot to share here:
JB: oops.
Me: oops what?
JB: I accidentally touched the cream.
Me: wipe it off.
JB: on what?
Me: your leg…
JB: my leg is not available.
Me: ……

Sharing is caring!

Email

Twitter

Pinterest

0