Not An Actor?

Zane was having a hissy fit, a conniption, a tantrum. There was the screaming and crying and the required throwing of the self onto the floor as a dramatic flourish. I think that there was some kicking thrown in for good measure***

He yelled that he wanted...

"Boy," I stand over him, interrupting. "You are not getting a single thing until you stop acting this way."

Zane stopped mid-scream.

"I not acting, Mama!" he said, with a completely straight face. Then goes back to his screaming and crying.

I developed a sudden coughing fit and had to go into the other room for a moment.




***I am saving up all these blog posts about my son for blackmail purposes when he's a surly teenager. I am sure that this makes me a bad person, but if it gets him to behave with a modicum of respect when he is hormonal, it will be worth it.

In Which Zane and I Throw Down.

Zane has developed a bad habit of throwing all of his toys on the floor.

All.

Over.

The.

Floor.

I am not a neat freak; I understand that kids like to play with toys, and sometimes this is messy. A little mess is lived-in, and I'm okay with that. What I can't stand are toys left lying around which I inevitably step on, trip over, slip on, etc. I either end up breaking the toy or injuring myself. (The one positive is that I've invented quite a few 'colorful metaphors' which should be making their way into the collective unconsciousness shortly!)

Tonight the boy stepped on My Last Nerve when he dumped an entire box of train parts into the middle of the living room. He has his own play area, but he wants to play near us, so he brings his toys to where ever we are. This would be acceptable if Zane ever put these toys away.

I asked Zane to please pick up the toys and put them back into the box. Nicely.

He said no. I asked him again.

He said no. He even turned his back on me and resumed playing. Oh, no-no-no, little boy. It is ON. There will be none of THAT in MY house.

"Pick up your toys off the floor NOW and put them in the toy box or they go into the trash," I spoke in my VERY CALM VOICE. Larry suddenly noticed the enormous thundercloud building above my head, and hightailed it out of the room. Zane remained obliviously ensconced in his defiance. He felt that he had won the battle.

I went into the pantry and grabbed a trash bag. I returned to the living room, opened the bag and began throwing toys into it.

"NOOOOOOO!!!! MY TOYS!!!!!" Zane started screaming.

"I asked you to pick up your toys. I told you that if you did not pick up your toys, I would throw them away," I continued throwing toys into the trash bag. Zane threw himself on the ground, having a tantrum. I kept picking up the toys and throwing them into the bag. Zane started following me around, screaming and crying, trying to grab the trash bag from me.

"Zane. I asked you to pick up your toys. If you do not pick up your toys, they are going in the trash," I repeated.

Zane finally saw the light and started running around picking up toys and flinging them into the toy box as fast as he could. I just stood there and held onto the trash bag until he was finished. Zane cried the entire time, and I had to redirect him a couple of times, but he got the job done.

When he finished, I picked Zane up and hugged him and told him that he did a good job. We had a brief conversation about taking care of his toys and that when Zane left his toys all over the floor it told me that he didn't want those toys anymore, and those toys would be thrown away.

I have no intention of throwing all of Zane's toys away; I intend on putting toys up in the closet and getting them back out in six months or so. I'm not a completely horrible parent. But it seems to me that every boy should grow up with a healthy Fear Of Mom, who will love him always, even if it requires occasionally that I become a big Meanyhead.

Pediatricians Are Very Patient, But Mama Needs Valium

We took Zane for his three year wellness check today. His birthday was in October, but he was sick, and you just can't do a wellness check when a kid isn't well. Really--it's in some manual somewhere. Almost immediately after I made the appointment, Zane developed s very croupy sounding cough. No fever, no significant congestion, just a honking cough. He sounds like the Aflac duck, as a matter of fact.

"It's whooping cough," announced my husband.

"It is NOT whooping cough," I replied. Larry remained unconvinced, and I had to explain that since Zane had received a vaccination against pertussis, which is whooping cough, he did not currently have whooping cough. I also pointed out that Zane did not have a fever, and that pertussis was called Whooping cough because the cough does NOT sound like the Aflac duck. Larry was still unconvinced, but at least he stopped talking about it.

We finally got back to the exam room, and the nurse told us that we needed to strip Zane down to his underpants for the exam. She then left the room and closed the door behind her.

Zane did not want to strip today. We took off his shoes, and he started crying and protesting. We took off his socks, and Zane upped the decibel level. The pants and the shirt required extra effort, because Zane was as much determined that these articles of clothing should remain on his body as we were to get them off. By the time we got everything off, Zane had worked himself into a fit of epic proportions. He made that girl in the Exorcist look like calm. There we were, wrestling a screaming, writhing, mostly naked child, and all I could think of is that the entire staff, and any other patients, were likely thinking that we were Very Bad Parents indeed. Of course, nobody came in to check on us, but I suppose they figured they would avoid being collateral damage.

Zane tantrummed himself right to sleep while we were waiting for the doctor. The doctor came in eventually, and we talked pleasantly about the cough a minute or two, and the doctor spoke to us about a new vaccine that he wanted Zane to have which would offer more protection from ear infections and other pneumo-baddies like meningitis, and about the flu shot. We decided to postpone any vaccines until Zane was not honking like a duck; no sense in tempting the fates by introducing a new set of viruses when the immune system is off fighting Orcs in the Pellinor fields.

Then the very nice doctor, who has known Zane since right before he left the NICU, wanted to listen to Zane's lungs/heart. Zane woke up and was not agreeable to that, and started crying again.

If you've ever played with a stethoscope, you know that it amplifies sound, which is great when you need to hear what is happening in someone's chest. Not so great when the chest you are listening to happens to be carrying on a tantrum.

"Zane, sweetheart, please don't make the doctor go deaf," I murmured. I was pretty sure that they charge extra for that, and definitely sure that such an event would not be covered by our insurance.

But the doctor maintained his happy demeanor while he checked Zane's abdomen for hernias and his muscle tone and such, then gave us a couple of free samples of cough medicine so we didn't have to worry about a prescription over the holiday weekend. He was smiling, and I was a nervous wreck after all that screaming and crying! I decided that he was probably happy because we were his last patient for the day. Well, that, and nobody had thrown up on him.

In his line of work, any day that nobody throws up on you looks good. Actually, that is a good day for most jobs.