Infections

The grossest thing happened when we were at the grocery store yesterday. It looked like there was something on D's earring, so I touched it to see if it would come off, and pus exploded out from behind it. Ew ew ew ew ew!!!! Yes it hurt and he doesn't know why he didn't tell me. So emergency ear first aid was needed and then I wanted to put his earring back in to keep the hole from closing. He was having none of it!! He wouldn't let me get my hand anywhere near his ear. And since he has never put his earrings in by himself before, he was having a horrible time. I guess we should have practiced the other day when he had to take them out for soccer. We eventually got everything cleaned and disinfected and back where it belonged, but man, was it an ordeal. I also learned that D does not know that word "pus". He kept asking me if it was still putting. Like a tiny Tiger Woods was playing through his ear. It looks much better today, and he claims it feels better too. I've also made him promise to tell me any time something on his body hurts so much that he can't touch it. Then he asked should he tell me about headaches, which I hear about all the time. And what if his foot itches? And what is the bottom of your foot called? Like soul like what goes to heaven? What is a soul? What happens to your body when you die? But which is really you? And there is a gate in heaven and once you go through, you can drive go-karts...GO TO SLEEP LITTLE BOY!!

In other news, my mom has gone to the hospital. Puking and pains = gallstones. She is having lots of imaging things done, and will be having her gall bladder out asap. It is bringing up a lot of stuff for me and is absolutely terrifying because my Grandma went to the hospital for stomach aches when I was the same age as D. Something went wrong and she never came home. I cannot imagine that. In fact I can't even write about it anymore.

Suspension #2

Yes. Sexual Harassment. D wrote a note that said he wanted to have sex with a girl in his class. The circumstances surrounding this incident are pretty sketchy. Lots of "SoAndSo said this and Soandso told me to write that and then I was crying and somebody told Mrs. Teacher." He did write this note though, and after several phone calls it was decided that I would handle it at home. Then another phone call to say oops we have to suspend him.
We spent the day today working on his schoolwork. At lunchtime, we had a talk about what sexual harassment is and what is the difference between harassment and flirting and how you have to be careful you don't cross the line. Etc etc...
So, now I've been thinking about how I would like him to, of course, respect everybody, but especially girls. Then my feminism screams at me about girls aren't so weak that they deserve extra gentle care. Something along those lines. My feminism sometimes screams unintelligibly. Should I go overboard about being a gentleman to the ladies to counteract all the other influences on him? Or does that lead to less respect and more feeling like men are superior to women? Why do I want him to "especially" respect girls? I think for the most part he has a good feel for boys and girls are different but still equal.
I guess in order to teach your kid morals, you better know what your own are first. Bleh Anyways, hopefully from now on he will at least have a little nagging thought about what's appropriate when the other kids start in on the sex talk.

Baby Boy

It's been a long time since I wrote anything. Things have been up and down lately. When things are really bad, I do not usually have the energy or will to write about them, and when things are going fine, I don't think about documenting the day. I was sick for a few days, and that was really hard because D can not handle not being the center of attention. My punishment for being pukey was a punch in the stomach, and for not having the patience to cater to the prince I was threatened with a baseball bat. Things like that just reinforce to me how much his behavior is a result of my own. Not that I make him hit me like some abused woman's excuse for her attacker, but that without me making accommodations for the skills that he hasn't yet developed, he falls back on older survival behaviors that appear completely irrational or maladaptive to those of us with relatively stable beginnings. I act to some extent as the brake on his out of control emotional train. Like the parent of a toddler acting as the child's control before they begin to develop self-control. You wouldn't expect a 2 yr old to be able to manage their emotions and actions in the same way as a 12 yr old, it is just that D is much older physically than emotionally. A lot of my thinking in this direction is influenced by the book The Explosive Child by Ross Green.
There are attachment therapies that rely heavily on some form of regression to much earlier times in a child's life. Like giving them the nurturing and parenting that they did not get the first time around. To that end, we have gotten a very bottle-like sippy cup, a baby blanket, baby lotion, and pacifiers for our very unofficial attachment activities at home. We have played baby D a couple of times, and I have given him his "bottle" once. Not sure if it has accomplished anything, but it is definitely fun for him. He LOVES to play doggy or baby and baby games like peek-a-boo etc. So he can be my baby sometimes as needed.
It is very late and I need to get some sleep to face the week ahead.