Feeling somewhat vindicated...

... after one-of-those days which sees no resolution to "behaviour" issues other than Other-Half giving little sermons on the virtues such as "mercy" and "patience" and "kindness" and "tolerance". Yes, yes, so promptly left them to it in the garden while hubby tried to do some work out there. Oh wow what a surprise when I heard not half-an-hour later the same nagging comments coming out of his mouth that had come out of mine not an hour earlier. Was tempted to remind him of his sermons but managed to bite my lip and enjoy doing my own jobs in peace.

Was talking to my Mum about this this afternoon, about how some days Boss is just off the scale and she remembers very well the year we went to visit for a whole week and how she had made the mistake of telling me to "lighten up" and "don't go on at him so much", which meant I promptly sat on my bum and did *nothing* for an entire week - her Royal Dalton - her problem, then. Nothing like shoving people in at the deep end of your life for them to appreciate your struggles a bit more. After many platitudes of "Well, Debbie, I have raised three of my own children, I think I know how to cope..." we finished the week with a "My goodness he *is* a little dynamo - I don't know how you manage day-in day-out!", and even my sister admitted that she realised how much effort it is to watch him for even 5 minutes.

And granted, he has calmed down a lot as he has gotten older and only occasionally does he revert to his manic modes (which were once the every day norm), but I still find those days bewildering. I have noticed though how I have managed to ignore a lot of behaviour issues which used to get me popping blood vessels in the side of my head. I think after an afternoon of letting Hubby deal with what I generally deal with all day has left him realising (in his own words) that Boss "must like being nagged or something", because there are some moments when he is just in-yer-face-stupidly-destructive, and if we didn't love him I think we would drop-kick him.

Which, in a perverse kind of way, makes me happier to HE him. I can't imagine a teacher putting up with this type of, erm, "robustness" for very long. My cousin is a primary school teacher and if they haven't learned to line up, sit down, be quiet and knuckle down within a term she wants them on Ritilin. Patience may be very thin on the ground when you are a parent, but at least we love our kids enough to try to sort through it all rather than labelling them as "issues" that must be "dealt with".

There is a book entitled "Raising Boys" which I've only ever flickered through, but one thing I read was that boys are needier than girls in terms of needing constant contact with their mothers/parents for the first three years of life, thus meaning nursery isn't such a red-hot idea for boys below that age. Boys also need cuddles and affection, even though they don't readily accpet or ask for it, but because of the way they are - the way they interact with others and their energy levels etc - they tend to get pushed away more, receive less affection and get smacked much more than girls. I try to remember that when my first instinct is to shut the door on him and get on with some work while my blood vessels return to normal levels. Now I just go in and cuddle him extra tight and read a book snuggled up. Most days that is just the ticket. But today... today was the day he bit my nose. *Sigh*

So.

Feeling somewhat vindicated, even though I fail on many levels most of the time...