If it ain't broke...

Biding my time

It has been a very long week. Something has happened every day this week to push me further over the edge into insanity. When I was a kid, and I'd misbehave, my mom would tell me that I was driving her crazy. I always assumed she meant it in a figurative sort of way. Now that I'm a mom myself, I understand that she meant that I was, quite literally, driving her crazy. And for that, Mom, I'm genuinely sorry.

To say that my oldest is a challenging child would earn you an award for tact. Reed is the sort of child that doesn't push boundaries, he rips them to shreds, stomps on them, and then sets the pieces on fire. Each day at our house is a struggle to keep him from hurting someone. Most of the time, his mischief is purely curiosity playing out in the overclocked mind of a hyperactive 4 year old. I can't believe that most of his crap is intended to hurt anyone (although he often does). Other times, however, he seems bent on destruction. When he's run out of inanimate objects to reduce to rubble, he starts in on the animate ones.

Now please let me take a moment to tell you the other side of my little man. If you ask him at any given time what he'd like to do, his answer will almost always be to curl up in my lap and read a book. He breaks into tears if we don't spend at least 10 minutes cuddling on his bed every night. And though he often gets carried away, he lives to wait on his little brother. Poor Owen is usually buried under a mountain of toys because Reed has difficulty with the concept that Owen gets overstimulated if he has too many choices. For Reed, the more toys you have to play with, the better. He picks me anything that flowers in the yard, and puts them in a vase full of water himself.

Everyone I know that has raised an intense child like Reed tells me that this stage will pass. He will get older. More mature. He will find constructive outlets for all this energy and curiosity of his. It is this reassurance that helps me hang on to my last shred of sanity. Until that day comes, I am biding my time, and trying not to search for airfare to the Caribbean.

posted by Steph at 8:52 PM