We had Adlani’s parent-teacher conference last week and luckily his teacher hasn’t given up hope on him (yet). She is trying various strategies to get him to finish his work, and is hoping that good behavior will follow. I’m not quite as patient. I don’t know why he can’t just FOLLOW THE RULES!!! We were obviously spoiled by Aliya.
1) He fibs. (I am only using this word because Viviana gets mad at me when I say bad things – which happen to be true – about Adlani.) This morning I asked him if he had socks on. (Why should I even have to ask him this question?!) He said, “Yes.” When I saw bare ankle peeking out of his pant leg at the bus stop, I realized that he DID NOT have socks on. A couple of weeks ago the school nurse told me that he had come to her because he has a plantars wart and was not wearing socks then either! What kind of mother am I?! Don’t answer that.
2) He uses bathroom words. Aliya went through a potty-talk phase too, but I think she was around 3. His teacher told us that he says “butt,” “poopy,” etc. at school to get a laugh. He’s not getting laughs at home and he’s still using them. The other day I yelled at him for saying “poopy” and he started the indignant cry and went on and on, wailing that he didn’t say poopy. I said, “OK…what did you say?” Adlani: “Boobie?” Me: “BOOBIE IS ON THE BAD LIST TOO!!!”
3) He tries to spell swear words since he can’t say them. He has recently realized that people spell things they don’t want to say out loud and somehow he figured out how to spell A-S-S. He got in trouble for that (at home), and a few minutes later I heard him say to Aliya, “I’m gonna kick you in the O-S-O.” I asked him what that meant and he said, “I’m gonna kick you in the bear.” Oso is the Spanish word for bear. Maybe I should just be grateful that he’s learning to read.
4) He’s sneaky. Over the weekend I told him about 10 times that he needed to clean up his room. Last night I finally lost it and decided to follow through on my threats of picking up everything left on the floor and putting it in “Toy Timeout.” In the process, I realized that he had shoved EVERYTHING under his train table, so all of that went into Toy Timeout too. I now have 3 king-sized pillow cases full of stuff for him to earn back. Judging by his ability to control his actions, I think I should probably just pack it up for the spring yardsale.
5) I don’t know what goes on in his head but it doesn’t resemble logical thought. Last night our neighbor said she liked his milk mustache and he ran off to the mirror to look at it. He came back to the table and said, “I’m going to make myself a milk beard!” and poured the milk straight down his chin. WTF?!?
I’m really getting worn out. 1-2-3 Magic worked for a while, but it’s losing its effectiveness. Last night I heard him say, “One…two…don’t MAKE me get to three!” Yes, I do realize that this is all my fault.
The newest habit that’s driving me toward the liquor cabinet is the constant singing. He does it at school too, and his teacher is using it to help him learn to read. Again – patience that I just don’t have. Since Adlani and Aliya are both in the Drama Club which is rehearsing for a production of Seussical, he and Aliya are constantly singing the songs. Even Norah knows them. I like music and I don’t want to stifle their passion but how many times can one hear Solla Sollew before jumping off a bridge?!
This morning at breakfast I asked them at least 10 times to stop singing so they could answer my questions about what they wanted for breakfast, snack, etc. After the 10th time I was so exasperated, I asked Aliya, “Do you ever notice that I go out to a lot of PTO meetings, Zumba, and computer classes at night?” Aliya: “Ye-es.” Me: “Why do you think that is?!” Aliya: “Because we’re so annoying?”
Bingo. The picture at right is Adlani’s “singing face”…at least he’ll have an alternative to soccer.
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