Well, maybe not a year exactly - three days in 2013 and 2 days in 2014. Close enough to a year. Would have been great if the 5 yr old had co-operated. But that was asking to much. He's having a bout of seperation anxiety that is driving all of us to distraction.
All of a sudden he won't go upstairs by himself. I had to bring the tooth brushing stuff down to the half bath down here the last couple weeks of 2013 because it was becoming a problem getting him to go upstairs "by himself" to brush his teeth before school.
On sunday a massive protest was launched first day of swimming lessons because they were just tooooo scarey to contemplate. The tears.....the tantrums. Mom finally gave up.
But monday Baba took both of them. Promised him that he was just going regular swimming. And his sister was coming with him so that seemed to be okay. But all the way in the van he kept qualifying the trip as "its just regular swimmming ...right baba - not lessons, promise" I must have heard that twenty times in the ten minutes it takes to arrive at the rec centre.
Well...baba lies - what can I say
We all crashed through the turn stalls at the same time and the teenager on patrol checking tickets didn't know what hit her. And we all managed to get through at once. My plan was to throw the sister into the water around him and sorta sneak in the lessons. Baba doesn't take no crap.
Well while waiting for them to start he sorta twigged that maybe baba lied. "I'm having lessons, arent I"
"yes you are"
well the tears started. The folded arms and the official "you can't make me" stand was presented.
He went into the water...under protest.
And just stood there against the pool wall. But before we left home I got the sister to put on her swimsuit on under her clothes. So in desperation after ten minutes of this protest and tears. He was actually standing there shaking for heavens sake. Well I threw in the sister and asked her to just sorta stand close to him. And it's like another boy emerged all of a sudden. Started co-operating. Couldn't believe what I was seeing. What a difference. The instructor was even amazed. So it was decided that the sister could join the lessons as an official "body guard" apparently. "what ever it takes" said the instructer
So - first day mom couldn't take it anymore and brought him home without evening making the rec centre.
- second day I got him in the water and he actually seemed to be enjoying himself.
- third day was up and dressed into swimming trunks before his breakfast. But held on tight to his sisters hand and ran into the water with her. (He's actually a water baby under any other circumstance----usually can't get him out of the water). She swam around his lesson group and then we stayed about two hours after the lesson. I actually put on my bathing suit that tuesday because that was the plan. Swimming in the pool for the afternoon after the lessons. As we were leaving I noticed there was a group of kids and instructors in the climbing room. And on learning that admittion included "all day" in the "whole" facility...I promised them swimming and climbing today.
He just hates doing anything new. He refused to play soccer on the team ...just threw a tantrum all day before soccer even started. Every-single-time.
And now it's the going and staying upstairs by himself.
Lately he's been climbing into mommy and daddy's bed around midnight. So they put their foot down and refused to let him last night. So I woke up to screaming and tantrums around 200 am. After a half hour of this I figured I would try calm everyone down and marched everyone into their respective rooms. And there I sat on his little chair for an hour. He kept sneaking peaks at me to make sure I was still in his room. After around 330 or so I heard this huge sigh and I crept up sloooooowly to inspect. And sure enough he seemed to be asleep ---finally.
I remember doing this about 30 years ago....until a baby sister was produced to share my sons room. So today I'm moving the mattress from his sisters room into his room (he has this weird ikea loft bed thing that usually has all his lego's in a huge tub under the bed, that will accomodate a mattress underneath the main bed) and hopefully everyone will sleep better tonight. It seemed to work for my son so maybe it will work for the g'son too. I sure hope so.
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