We Gather Together

Here we are, four kids, our significant others, and all our kids, squished into 2100 square feet of house for five days.

My mother turned 80 on Monday, so in addition to Thanksgiving, we are celebrating that momentous occasion with a dinner out tonight, which means an extra long stay for us.

We know better. We know the dysregulation that comes with endless hours of movie watching and other screen time. But it was either two day trips out in one week or just stay here and make the best of it.

T's big cousins brought out their Wii system. And T took to it like a fish takes to water. Yesterday he was playing even after everyone had wandered away. So I thought I would pick up one of the remotes and play with him. It was the first chance I'd had at sitting with him to play.

I should have known better. If he "wins" in anything, he feels superior to me and disrespects my role as his parent. I hear that it makes him feel not safe if he feels like he's better than me at something. I'm told that if I can't win, I have to cheat. Sort of like never playing tug of sock with a dog. If the dog gets the sock out of your hand, he has won, and then becomes the alpha dog of the house.

But, I thought it might be fun to play. However, it's important to note that I never played Nintendo games -- I am of the Pong generation -- and the couple of times I've tried to play Donkey Kong, it's been disastrous. But hope springs eternal.

I picked up a remote and started playing after a five-second tutorial from the small one. Things seemed to go okay for about three minutes. Then my guy got stuck somewhere and T was yelling, "Hit two; hit two!" And I'm looking at my remote and I don't see a one or a two anywhere.

"I don't know where the one and two buttons are," I explained, just as both of us died a cruel death because of my ineptitude. 

"Really?" he demanded, his voice dripping with antipathy. "Really, you don't know what a one and a two are?" as he pointed to, what appeared to me, two blank buttons on my remote. Clearly he thought I was the stupidest person on earth and was letting me know about it in no uncertain terms.

Well, I might be too dumb to play Donkey Kong, but I have the power of the TV. And I grabbed his remote out of his hands and told him Wii was over for the day. I didn't even know how to turn off the game, but someone else took care of that for me. And as it turns out, when I looked at the remotes in the light of day, the numbers are totally worn off the one I was using and still clearly visible on the one he was using, just so no adults reading this here also think I'm the stupidest person in the world for not being able to identify a '1' and a '2'.

Then, we happily went on our special outing to Lights in the Park with cousin Boo. Boo happily slept through the whole drive. For T, little was right. If we saw something, he saw something better. If we saw something, we weren't seeing it right. I'm beginning to understand why he's having some peer relationship issues at school.

Inside the lakehouse we waited in line for much too long to get a ballon reindeer hat for him and a candy cane for Boo. And I remembered how long we waited the last time, and even though this time the line was only half as long, it's just still too long for him to wait. Whine and whine and more whine. If only he served cheese with his whine. If only they served wine at this event, it might make it all bearable. 

Speaking of bears, when we finally went back out to our car to leave, I pointed out some polar bears  to Boo, who had missed 98 percent of the lights display during her dead to the world nap.

"No the polar bears are over here!" he corrected. Win at Wii, get to tell Mommy she's wrong.

"Yes, I see those polar bears," I informed him, "But there are polar bears over here too."

We pointed out the few pitiful displays to Boo on our way out of the display -- all advertisements from the sponsors, but the Dunkin Donuts one was kind of pretty -- and T griped, "Why do you have to always say, 'Look at this, look at that?'" I ignored him. I was in seething mode.

The in my head conversation on the way home went something like this. "I went into motherhood hoping to have good times with my child. And yet everytime we try to do something special, he finds a way to sabotage it. Take him on a hike without another kid along, he will crab about how boring it is. Bring another kid and he will spend the entire time turning it into a competition. I didn't realize that I was signing on for someone who would never like anything we do. I didn't realize I was signing on for a kid who just would always find something to complain about, no matter how hard I try to find fun things to do. This was our second attempt at Lights in the Park. I guess I will spare myself the 25 bucks it costs for entrance fee and face painting and balloon creations in the future, and just not go. I would like to build some holiday traditions with my child, but the holidays are just impossible. They are something to get through, not something to enjoy. Every time he hears the word 'Christmas' he starts jumping up and down and exclaiming, 'Presents for me! Presents for me!' And don't even try to talk to him about buying toys for kids whose parents don't have any money. If we have so much as a dime, it is to be spent on him. Not some kid he doesn't know. And the thing he wants to do most in the world right now is go to Disney World. If he can't stand in line for 30 minutes one time in one outing without dissolving into a melted pile of whines, how is he going to manage Disney World? Where you wait in line for 45 minutes to ride a five minute ride. Then wait in line for another 45 minutes to ride another five minute ride. And repeat for an entire day, for three to four days in a row.  Ugh. This is so not what I signed up for. What was I thinking, thinking a four year old would somehow be able to get over losing his first family and becoming part of ours?"

And upon our arrival home and putting him to bed, I realized that we'd had one small victory. "The last time we took him to Lights in the Park," I told Hubs, "When we got home, he lit into me. This time he didn't try to beat me up. So I guess we should feel like there was some small success in this trip."

All this to say, I am not in the crowd of, "I love being a mother." I sometimes feel like I barely get to be a mother. I am the person in the house who feeds him and makes sure he has clean clothes and helps him with his homework and gets him into and out of bed. Who takes him to the doctor and makes sure he gets his medicine and knows when he needs to be nebulized and who refills his prescriptions. 

This morning, he woke up, came out to the dining room, and demanded. "I want toast with butter. You make it for me!" and turned as if he was going to play until I called him to breakfast.

So this motherhood thing? I don't know. I spent some time this morning coaching myself on not taking any of this attitude thing personally. I put myself in his shoes. None of this was his choice. He's not with the family he was born into and spent his formative years in. He's not angry with me; he's angry with life. "Think of his needs," I reminded myself. "Think of how hard all of this is for him." 

And I feel a little less pity for myself and am working back around to therapeutic parenting as opposed to defensive parenting. 

But there is still no more Wii for him this weekend.