It’s bad enough that my husband has to live with me.? I fully admit that I’m not all there up in the head.? Just last week I found a lump on my back that I was sure was cancer (it was just a muscle that didn’t like being crouched over weeding all day).? Then I had paid bills and figured we had to be “creative” in our meal planning the next two weeks and then he told me that my computer was all effed up and I simply lost my shit.? Luh-host it.? It was a whole lot of “I’m a horrible mother, wife, friend, person.”? Crappy thing is that was the second time in two weeks that I’ve gone to the loony place.? The other time was when my son told me he didn’t like me and that he liked daddy instead.? That was right after I rammed my knee into the chest at the end of our bed.? There may still be mascara stains on the bedding from me sobbing like a little girl.
However, I am certain that Derek is going to have to spend thousands of dollars in therapy for this child from having me as a mother.? It probably is a good thing that I am not the mother to a girl.? I wasn’t raised to be particularly girly (despite my monumental Barbie collection).? At least as a grown-up I have the most memories of times with my dad when he told me to rub dirt in it.? Not something you tell a girl really.? Especially when her uncle just pegged her in the face with a snow/ice ball.
You see, I have this issue with the child.? He has a fear of pine cones.? Actually they are cones off of the hundreds of millions of Douglas Fir trees we have in the Northwest.? Most children in the Northwest find something to do with pine cones.? We pretend they are food while we make mud pies, throw them at each other, generally step on them because they are crunchy or use them as a device to rid out front yards of stray cats.? It is a part of living in the Northwest that makes all the gray and rain fun.
Not my child.? I haven’t quite been able to flesh out exactly what freaks him out, but whatever it is it is baaaad.
A few weeks ago I’d had it with the pine cone fear.? When the kids would go out to play on the playground at school my child would stand immoble at the gate with a paralyzing fear to even walk past a pine cone.? Working in the garden (which he begged me to do) was a nightmare because he would scream everytime he got near one.? So I grabbed a pine cone and tried to put it in his hand.? His little hands were like turtle heads shoved way up into his coat sleeves.? He stood there screaming like a banshee.? I scooped him up and took him inside, pine cone in hand.? Once there I went through a whole process of trying to get him to hold the damn thing.? He continued to scream and shake.? I’ve never seen a fear like this.? Now at this point you are probably thinking, “what does it matter if he has this fear?”? If you are asking that you are obviously not from around here or have never been to Washington, Oregon or lower British Columbia.? Douglas Fir cones are everywhere you go.? I mean everywhere.? There is no avoiding them and telling my over observant 4 year old to simply ignore them was not going to work.
Eventually, through a process of, “does this hurt mommy?? no.? Does this hurt you? no” we got through (or so I thought) the fear of pine cones.? So much so that all the child wanted to do was go around and collect them in a bucket (but only with gloves on).? Fine.? I could live with that.? He could collect all he wanted.? Less for me to rake later.? Hell, he’d even roped my MIL and mom into helping him.
Problem solved.
Riiight.
This afternoon I asked him to go grab my stool on the side of the house.? He trotted off only to return a few minutes later sans stool.? I asked where the stool was and his response, “I don’t want to go get it.”? Liar!? I sent him off again to retrieve the stool.? A few minutes later I could hear my child screaming like someone had seriously hurt him.? I went running and could see he obviously was not hurt.? “Show me what’s wrong,” I said.
“THAAAAAT,” my child screamed, pointing at a mother effing PINE CONE!!
Now he’s not afraid of pine cones, but broken pine cones.? Oh for the love of gawd.? I had to go through the whole process of desensitizing my child to the horrors of the pine cone.? Just to add to the trauma I took a broken pine cone and put it in his pants pocket.? I thought it was rather funny, but I’m not thinking my husband will find it so funny when he gets home and I tell him I cost him another $250 in therapy for the kid.
Girl, you kill me. I have nothing meaningful or helpful to add, but I did laugh a lot while reading that.
(OK, I do rather love you even if you are a touch nutty. And I think the Boy is incredibly blessed to have you as his Mom. You were chosen for him.)
Just when ya think ya got it licked…
Yes well, at least yours is potty trained! I now have E freaked out anytime I change him. He thinks i am armed with a suppository now…bad thing when you trick your kid that way….But how else am I to get him to poop? AHHHHHHHHH Laura was not this hard AT ALL!!!!!
No, not therapy. He’ll just write about it in his blog…..:)