Mea Culpa

Sometimes I am clearly the problem.

I can rant, complain and scratch my head all I want at the mysteries of my children, but my own contribution to their difficulties can sometimes be writ painfully large. Since my last post, life with S has not been smooth. All the usual problems have worn down my patience. Last week we had a dreadful day where I could barely disguise my ardent desire to simply escape from him. I'm not proud of it; I'm sick about it, but all the same, that's where we ended up. It wasn't hard to tell that he was crushed. When he was finally asleep, I was consumed with anguish. I made some resolutions, and some phone calls, and have bent over backwards since to restore some trust and affection. But even in a few days, I've slipped backwards bit by bit as I try to weather wave after wave of negative behaviour; incredibly silly clowning, aggressive play, antagonising brother, engaging in interminable nonsensical conversations, including topics such as what he would like to eat. Today was another try-hard day on my part, but I guess I am pretty tense; when he spilled a milk drink on himself and the carpet this morning (after being told not to muck around with it) I got angry. His response was immediate, heartfelt distress; it was clearly from the pain inflicted by my anger, cutting him to the core. It was terrible to hear. We cleaned up and fixed him up. We played most of the morning, not without some conflict; we must make an effort to clean up our toys, for instance, but instead of digging in, he did eventually help to pack up. So we were on a better, more co-operative footing. It is hard, sometimes, to feel good about the job that I'm doing.