A Visit With St. Nick or When NOT to Attempt Christmas Shopping
A week ago Sunday was not our best day. To understate it.
We went to our town's fire department for the annual Pancake Breakfast with Santa. They really do it up with home fries, eggs, sausage -- although no veggie sausage --, toast, coffee, orange juice, and of course...pancakes. It's a lot of food for not a whole lot of money. And my guess is although you have to take your own photos of your child with Santa, it's way cheaper than paying for "professional" photos with Santa in the mall. And I don't do malls.
Last year breakfast with Santa was the one Christmas related activity that T handled well. Even though we had to go twice, because we forgot the camera on the first round. So I was lulled into a false sense of optimism.
We managed to get the camera in the car, but hubs, who was sitting with the camera, forgot to actually take it out of the van. Which was probably good, because then he wouldn't have been able to sprint after the list that T had worked on and worked on and conscientiously remembered to bring with him, only to have the wind rip it out of his hand and blow it across the parking lot toward the four lane road while he chattered on, oblivious to the cold air blasting past him at 30 mile per hour, about there being a bouncy house inside the firehouse.
Wrong event, T, that's for the open house. But I digress. Because he was distracted, he wasn't holding on to his list tight and the wind was very gusty and the list took off like an eight pack of flying reindeer.
We were in a parking lot. I started to sprint after it, but Mr. I Can Run Faster'n You took off too. And a car was backing out. This, parents, is why you don't constantly scream at your children. Because when you do, it needs to matter.
"STOOOPPPPP!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, even as the list skittered closer to the road and toward a seemingly inevitable doom of becoming Santa list roadkill. I think the driver of the car heard me too, because the car stopped moving.
Hubs, the fastest of us all, took off after it, hat and coffee mug in hand. He finally managed to nab it with his wet boot, but dropped his hat and travel mug in the process. So child saved from being backed over and list rescued from disappearing into an Earth Day road adoption clean up bag. Hubs cranky about the muddy hat, child cranky about the big, wet, Daddy-sized black footprint on his Santa list.
Ho Ho Ho.
We went inside, paid for our meals, and the kind firemen gave T a clean piece of paper to rewrite his list on. T had specifically asked if he could see Santa first and then eat breakfast, because last year we ate first and then went to see him, and that was hard for him. Noted, and reasonable. So we started to work our way through the firehouse to the events room where Santa would be waiting, when I turned to Hubs and asked, "Do you have the camera?"
No.
Sigh. He headed back for the car. If he'd been lugging the camera bag, I'm not sure he'd have been able to catch up with the list, so it may have been fortuitous that he forgot it initially. Meanwhile, I had the bright idea of "Let's go on ahead and get in line and Daddy can catch up with us."
Except that...there was no line. Santa was waiting for children and their wish lists. I pulled T aside and said, "Let's step out of the way and let these people through," -- they had their kids and those handy smart phone that take photos and don't need lugging -- "We need to wait for Daddy to get back with the camera."
Mistake.
Oh my word, we let people go in front of us. And never mind that he was going to have to wait all.of.30.seconds for the little girl to finish up before he got his turn, once Hubs was back with the camera. Our Breakfast with Santa experience was ruined. Because Mr. Has to Be First in Line For Everything had to step out of the way until Daddy got back with the camera. It's difficult for me to explain how damaging this is to his ego. He.has.to.be.first. Which may serve him well someday in the Olympic marathon. But doesn't do so well in social situations. Needing to be first in line to see Santa or climb a mountain or go to the library in school or get his coat from his locker -- that's an unhealthy need being driven by lower brain survival behavior. And I don't know how to fix him.
I calmly told him to sit in a chair and just sit there until he could tell me he was ready to stop being angry and was ready to be nice and see Santa. And sit there we did. Tick tock, tick tock. I finally told Hubs and YSD (younger stepdaughter) to go eat. I would wait it out. So they went to eat. Tick tock, tick tock. Children came and went, tick tock, tick tock. Finally, hunger was getting the better of me, and I don't do well on low blood sugar, so I set a time limit. 9:05. That was seven minutes away. If he couldn't pull it together by then, we were leaving. Without seeing Santa and without eating breakfast. Tick tock, tick tock.
YSD returned from eating breakfast. I had her leave -- an audience is never a good thing in these situations. I myself was sitting four chairs away staring out the window. I told him when he was down to five minutes. Tick tock, tick tock.
Then, there was a bit of a commotion as another family entered. I recognized the child as one who had attended T's birthday party. "Look, there's Friend," I pointed out. The two kids shyly said hello and then Friend, with much coaxing from his Dad, went to sit on Santa's lap.
That was the break that T needed. Suddenly he snapped out of freeze mode and was back in the world, ready to be pleasant and sit on Santa's lap. We got some nice photos and then went and ate a hearty breakfast and all was fine with the world.
Until I took him with me to go shopping at Kohl's to use our Kohl's bucks, which were going to expire. It's Christmas time and I had a free 45 bucks to use. Seemed like a waste to let it expire, and Hubs had a band rehearsal, so I had no option but to bring the child with me.
Mistake.
We entered the store and he immediately wanted to know where the toy section was. As far as he was concerned, these Kohl's bucks were going to be spent on him. I explained that we were there to shop for others. This did not go over well.
We picked out an item for Hubs and then I said, "Okay, we need to go to the other side of the store to get the glassware I need. Oh, wait, no, it's straight ahead of us. In the other store it was in the other corner."
In the 30 yards between where we were and the kitchenware section, he asked repeatedly when we were going to the other side of the store. And my answer never varied, it was always, "We don't have to go to the other side of the store, what I need is straight ahead; in the other store it was in a different place, but here it is right up ahead."
"But you SAID we had to go to the other side of the store." Repeat this conversation 12 times. And then ask yourself when you would break. On the fourth repetition? The eighth? Would you make it to ten?
Yes, button pushing behavior at its finest. This is the latest behavior. He asks a question, gets an answer, and asks it again, as if he's confused by the answer. And we go around and around and around. And I keep answering because I think if I phrase it slightly differently, he'll get it. In other words, I get sucked right into his little maneuver for control And if called on it, he'll grin a little "you got me" grin. He knows what he's doing.
And after patiently explaining and answering and trying to get him to understand, I blew my lid and got down on his level, grabbed him by his jacket, and screamed to the point I made my throat sore. I'm not even sure what I said, but it was to the effect that I had answered him a dozen times and the answer wasn't changing and he was to stop arguing with me. People were staring. I didn't care. Yes, I DID say we needed to go to the other side of the store, but then I realized I had been wrong. And I had explained it enough times and he's a smart kid and he was just asking and asking and asking to be DIFFICULT. And he was to stop arguing with me NOW. "DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!"
The little nod of the head.
What was I thinking, that I could do a 30 minute dash through Kohl's with an attachment disordered child to pick up a few items so that I didn't have to actually spend my own money? Thirty minutes to him without him actually getting something for himself probably seemed like an eternity.
The rest of the shopping expedition was spent with me flying around, trying to pick out stuff before I started hearing, "This is boring." I don't even know what I got. It was probably a wasted 45 bucks, except for the glassware. It really wasn't worth the money. I was just grabbing stuff to grab it before we had another meltdown and it's not even stuff that is really needed. It was just stuff to use up the 45 dollars.
He picked up the arguing line again as soon as we got in the car. Actually, it started while we were waiting in line for the cash register; blissfully we were only three or four people back in line, and I mostly kept him in check by stopping him in his tracks. "That sounds like arguing. I'm not going to talk about it." At least he didn't try to climb on top of the register counter this time. Baby steps, and I should be grateful and acknowledge that behavioral improvement.
But then a tenth of a mile from our house, I stopped to let someone turn into a parking lot while my lane had a red light. I had to keep an eye on the traffic behind me while watching for when she could actually make the turn, because there are two lanes of traffic there and also keeping an eye on the light, which turned green before she was able to turn, and then I had to try to make the light before it turned red again, because it's a short light, and God help me from the One in the Back Seat if I missed that light.
Somehow in there, in the space of about the 10 - 15 seconds that that all took, Mr. T in the back seat decided he had a question of national security interest that had to be answered then and there. My brain was busy processing the traffic situation and I was not able to hear, process, or answer his question in that exact moment. The next thing I knew, he was screaming, "Mom, MOM, MOOOMMMMM!" in a an answer me RIGHT THIS MINUTE demanding tone. I swear I adopted my ex husband. I swear.
We turned the corner into our street, pulled into our driveway, screeched to a stop, I got out, told him to GET OUT AND GET IN THE HOUSE NOW and slammed my door for emphasis. And then I wonder where he gets his ability to slam doors when he's angry. I shut myself in my room to give myself a time out, because I knew I was now parenting from my lower brain, which is never good, then called Hubs at band rehearsal and told him, between sobs, that he needed to come home and come home NOW and not to yell at the kid because it wasn't his fault that I had asked him to do more than he could handle.
What was I thinking? Going to see Santa was too much for him -- and then I put him in a car to take him shopping? There have been times we have successfully shopped in a large store when it wasn't for stuff for him, but this was not one of them. The concept of "You don't get to buy stuff for yourself with three weeks left until Christmas" eludes him. Maybe next year I should do that. Just take him to the store, tell him he has one hundred dollars to spend, and that's it. That's our Christmas. Nothing to anticipate, nothing to look forward to, nothing to get dysregulated over. Just one day out of the blue we go to Target and he picks out his toys. And no, Virginia, there is no freak in Santa Claus. Christmas morning can dawn and we can....sleep in and eat breakfast and read books and watch a movie. Maybe the Grinch movie where the message is that Christmas isn't about the gifts and the tinsel and the wrappings and the bows.
Because this whole Christmas thing is just something he.can't.handle. And at this point, neither can I.
The day wasn't a complete failure. I'm calling it a learning experience. I learned not to try to pick out socks with a dysregulated six year old in tow. And if Christmas events can't be fun, and only end up in arguments and cranky children and equally cranky adults, just avoid them. I wanted this more than him. I wanted photos of my child with Santa. I didn't get this chance when he was an infant, one, two, or three. I missed out on most of the years he'll be willing to have his photo taken with Santa. This was something I wanted. Mistake. Mistake. It can't be about what I want. We have next year to try again. Maybe. If he still believes there's a fat guy in a red suit who brings i-pods and i-Pads. Ho ho ho.
We went to our town's fire department for the annual Pancake Breakfast with Santa. They really do it up with home fries, eggs, sausage -- although no veggie sausage --, toast, coffee, orange juice, and of course...pancakes. It's a lot of food for not a whole lot of money. And my guess is although you have to take your own photos of your child with Santa, it's way cheaper than paying for "professional" photos with Santa in the mall. And I don't do malls.
Last year breakfast with Santa was the one Christmas related activity that T handled well. Even though we had to go twice, because we forgot the camera on the first round. So I was lulled into a false sense of optimism.
We managed to get the camera in the car, but hubs, who was sitting with the camera, forgot to actually take it out of the van. Which was probably good, because then he wouldn't have been able to sprint after the list that T had worked on and worked on and conscientiously remembered to bring with him, only to have the wind rip it out of his hand and blow it across the parking lot toward the four lane road while he chattered on, oblivious to the cold air blasting past him at 30 mile per hour, about there being a bouncy house inside the firehouse.
Wrong event, T, that's for the open house. But I digress. Because he was distracted, he wasn't holding on to his list tight and the wind was very gusty and the list took off like an eight pack of flying reindeer.
We were in a parking lot. I started to sprint after it, but Mr. I Can Run Faster'n You took off too. And a car was backing out. This, parents, is why you don't constantly scream at your children. Because when you do, it needs to matter.
"STOOOPPPPP!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, even as the list skittered closer to the road and toward a seemingly inevitable doom of becoming Santa list roadkill. I think the driver of the car heard me too, because the car stopped moving.
Hubs, the fastest of us all, took off after it, hat and coffee mug in hand. He finally managed to nab it with his wet boot, but dropped his hat and travel mug in the process. So child saved from being backed over and list rescued from disappearing into an Earth Day road adoption clean up bag. Hubs cranky about the muddy hat, child cranky about the big, wet, Daddy-sized black footprint on his Santa list.
Ho Ho Ho.
We went inside, paid for our meals, and the kind firemen gave T a clean piece of paper to rewrite his list on. T had specifically asked if he could see Santa first and then eat breakfast, because last year we ate first and then went to see him, and that was hard for him. Noted, and reasonable. So we started to work our way through the firehouse to the events room where Santa would be waiting, when I turned to Hubs and asked, "Do you have the camera?"
No.
Sigh. He headed back for the car. If he'd been lugging the camera bag, I'm not sure he'd have been able to catch up with the list, so it may have been fortuitous that he forgot it initially. Meanwhile, I had the bright idea of "Let's go on ahead and get in line and Daddy can catch up with us."
Except that...there was no line. Santa was waiting for children and their wish lists. I pulled T aside and said, "Let's step out of the way and let these people through," -- they had their kids and those handy smart phone that take photos and don't need lugging -- "We need to wait for Daddy to get back with the camera."
Mistake.
Oh my word, we let people go in front of us. And never mind that he was going to have to wait all.of.30.seconds for the little girl to finish up before he got his turn, once Hubs was back with the camera. Our Breakfast with Santa experience was ruined. Because Mr. Has to Be First in Line For Everything had to step out of the way until Daddy got back with the camera. It's difficult for me to explain how damaging this is to his ego. He.has.to.be.first. Which may serve him well someday in the Olympic marathon. But doesn't do so well in social situations. Needing to be first in line to see Santa or climb a mountain or go to the library in school or get his coat from his locker -- that's an unhealthy need being driven by lower brain survival behavior. And I don't know how to fix him.
I calmly told him to sit in a chair and just sit there until he could tell me he was ready to stop being angry and was ready to be nice and see Santa. And sit there we did. Tick tock, tick tock. I finally told Hubs and YSD (younger stepdaughter) to go eat. I would wait it out. So they went to eat. Tick tock, tick tock. Children came and went, tick tock, tick tock. Finally, hunger was getting the better of me, and I don't do well on low blood sugar, so I set a time limit. 9:05. That was seven minutes away. If he couldn't pull it together by then, we were leaving. Without seeing Santa and without eating breakfast. Tick tock, tick tock.
YSD returned from eating breakfast. I had her leave -- an audience is never a good thing in these situations. I myself was sitting four chairs away staring out the window. I told him when he was down to five minutes. Tick tock, tick tock.
Then, there was a bit of a commotion as another family entered. I recognized the child as one who had attended T's birthday party. "Look, there's Friend," I pointed out. The two kids shyly said hello and then Friend, with much coaxing from his Dad, went to sit on Santa's lap.
That was the break that T needed. Suddenly he snapped out of freeze mode and was back in the world, ready to be pleasant and sit on Santa's lap. We got some nice photos and then went and ate a hearty breakfast and all was fine with the world.
Until I took him with me to go shopping at Kohl's to use our Kohl's bucks, which were going to expire. It's Christmas time and I had a free 45 bucks to use. Seemed like a waste to let it expire, and Hubs had a band rehearsal, so I had no option but to bring the child with me.
Mistake.
We entered the store and he immediately wanted to know where the toy section was. As far as he was concerned, these Kohl's bucks were going to be spent on him. I explained that we were there to shop for others. This did not go over well.
We picked out an item for Hubs and then I said, "Okay, we need to go to the other side of the store to get the glassware I need. Oh, wait, no, it's straight ahead of us. In the other store it was in the other corner."
In the 30 yards between where we were and the kitchenware section, he asked repeatedly when we were going to the other side of the store. And my answer never varied, it was always, "We don't have to go to the other side of the store, what I need is straight ahead; in the other store it was in a different place, but here it is right up ahead."
"But you SAID we had to go to the other side of the store." Repeat this conversation 12 times. And then ask yourself when you would break. On the fourth repetition? The eighth? Would you make it to ten?
Yes, button pushing behavior at its finest. This is the latest behavior. He asks a question, gets an answer, and asks it again, as if he's confused by the answer. And we go around and around and around. And I keep answering because I think if I phrase it slightly differently, he'll get it. In other words, I get sucked right into his little maneuver for control And if called on it, he'll grin a little "you got me" grin. He knows what he's doing.
And after patiently explaining and answering and trying to get him to understand, I blew my lid and got down on his level, grabbed him by his jacket, and screamed to the point I made my throat sore. I'm not even sure what I said, but it was to the effect that I had answered him a dozen times and the answer wasn't changing and he was to stop arguing with me. People were staring. I didn't care. Yes, I DID say we needed to go to the other side of the store, but then I realized I had been wrong. And I had explained it enough times and he's a smart kid and he was just asking and asking and asking to be DIFFICULT. And he was to stop arguing with me NOW. "DO YOU UNDERSTAND?!"
The little nod of the head.
What was I thinking, that I could do a 30 minute dash through Kohl's with an attachment disordered child to pick up a few items so that I didn't have to actually spend my own money? Thirty minutes to him without him actually getting something for himself probably seemed like an eternity.
The rest of the shopping expedition was spent with me flying around, trying to pick out stuff before I started hearing, "This is boring." I don't even know what I got. It was probably a wasted 45 bucks, except for the glassware. It really wasn't worth the money. I was just grabbing stuff to grab it before we had another meltdown and it's not even stuff that is really needed. It was just stuff to use up the 45 dollars.
He picked up the arguing line again as soon as we got in the car. Actually, it started while we were waiting in line for the cash register; blissfully we were only three or four people back in line, and I mostly kept him in check by stopping him in his tracks. "That sounds like arguing. I'm not going to talk about it." At least he didn't try to climb on top of the register counter this time. Baby steps, and I should be grateful and acknowledge that behavioral improvement.
But then a tenth of a mile from our house, I stopped to let someone turn into a parking lot while my lane had a red light. I had to keep an eye on the traffic behind me while watching for when she could actually make the turn, because there are two lanes of traffic there and also keeping an eye on the light, which turned green before she was able to turn, and then I had to try to make the light before it turned red again, because it's a short light, and God help me from the One in the Back Seat if I missed that light.
Somehow in there, in the space of about the 10 - 15 seconds that that all took, Mr. T in the back seat decided he had a question of national security interest that had to be answered then and there. My brain was busy processing the traffic situation and I was not able to hear, process, or answer his question in that exact moment. The next thing I knew, he was screaming, "Mom, MOM, MOOOMMMMM!" in a an answer me RIGHT THIS MINUTE demanding tone. I swear I adopted my ex husband. I swear.
We turned the corner into our street, pulled into our driveway, screeched to a stop, I got out, told him to GET OUT AND GET IN THE HOUSE NOW and slammed my door for emphasis. And then I wonder where he gets his ability to slam doors when he's angry. I shut myself in my room to give myself a time out, because I knew I was now parenting from my lower brain, which is never good, then called Hubs at band rehearsal and told him, between sobs, that he needed to come home and come home NOW and not to yell at the kid because it wasn't his fault that I had asked him to do more than he could handle.
What was I thinking? Going to see Santa was too much for him -- and then I put him in a car to take him shopping? There have been times we have successfully shopped in a large store when it wasn't for stuff for him, but this was not one of them. The concept of "You don't get to buy stuff for yourself with three weeks left until Christmas" eludes him. Maybe next year I should do that. Just take him to the store, tell him he has one hundred dollars to spend, and that's it. That's our Christmas. Nothing to anticipate, nothing to look forward to, nothing to get dysregulated over. Just one day out of the blue we go to Target and he picks out his toys. And no, Virginia, there is no freak in Santa Claus. Christmas morning can dawn and we can....sleep in and eat breakfast and read books and watch a movie. Maybe the Grinch movie where the message is that Christmas isn't about the gifts and the tinsel and the wrappings and the bows.
Because this whole Christmas thing is just something he.can't.handle. And at this point, neither can I.
The day wasn't a complete failure. I'm calling it a learning experience. I learned not to try to pick out socks with a dysregulated six year old in tow. And if Christmas events can't be fun, and only end up in arguments and cranky children and equally cranky adults, just avoid them. I wanted this more than him. I wanted photos of my child with Santa. I didn't get this chance when he was an infant, one, two, or three. I missed out on most of the years he'll be willing to have his photo taken with Santa. This was something I wanted. Mistake. Mistake. It can't be about what I want. We have next year to try again. Maybe. If he still believes there's a fat guy in a red suit who brings i-pods and i-Pads. Ho ho ho.
This is so hard. And I recognize so much of it. Ayub also has an insane need to be first in line. First to walk out the door. First to get in the car. First to get served at dinner. (Oh, my, the poor waitress who brought everyone else's dinner, and not his...) And I have also locked myself in the bathroom sobbing because I made mistakes that pushed Ayub over the edge.
ReplyDeleteBut, I hope that you don't ever have to give up on what you want, either. Maybe you need to determine if it's something you want or REALLY WANT, but I hope that some day you can compromise and get what you want in a way that doesn't set him off. This may involve hiring your own Santa...can you pay with that with Kohl's cash?
It's all very hard: holidays, winter, waiting for holidays, cold, dark, blech.
ReplyDeleteParenting from the lower brain. I so get that. Unfortunately I cannot shut myslef in my room. Either my son or daughter will just follow me...sigh.
ReplyDelete