Penni Drysdale - P Plate Parenting

He sucks and sucks and sucks. Oh, hang on, you might not know who I’m referring to. There are, after all, three males in the house. It’s not the Baby (no, he has been convinced to give up the nipple addiction..sort of..though his lunge towards the drooping left one in the bath tonight suggests that he still has some way to go in therapy). It’s not my husband either. That leaves the School Boy.

Anything will do – cords on clothes, buttons on clothes, toys, the TV remote. He’s not even aware that he’s doing it. So why does he do it? I know that our rabbit used to lick our skin in order to get extra salt. I know that babies suck for comfort, and probably out of boredom too. Has he decided that his little brother was on to something and there is great joy to be had by having a suck? Is he parched? Does he enjoy the tingle and sting of the eczema that surrounds his mouth as a result?

To my great relief, I’ve seen other kids in his class do it too – the cords on school hoodies and hats seem to be popular for a suck. But that doesn’t make it any less bizarre or disgusting. The handles of his library bag are drenched and stinky. The cord on his big blue hat is disintegrating. And his mouth resembles that of a clown’s (let’s hope that school photos fall on a day of less sucking activity).

Why? I don’t know, he doesn’t know. Let’s add it to the mounting pile of ‘Why does my child…?’ questions, along with smearing poo on the wall and waking at the crack of dawn regardless of the previous night’s bedtime.

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There’s been plenty of toil and trouble in our house of late, and emotions may have gotten a  little out of hand.

Of course, the Big Boy (who shall be known from this moment onwards as the School Boy) has started school, and his behaviour has been a little bizarre. I may have mentioned poo on the walls. But that’s nothing compared to the flash backs to those glorious days of the two’s. In the last week, the docile library and a clothing shop have fallen victim to the School Boy’s tremendous, tormenting tantrums. Tiny triggers have sparked major defiance, followed swiftly by screaming and kicking. Nothing, absolutely nothing will calm him down as he continues to howl and make labour-like animal noises all the way home. That’s him. Me?

Perhaps it’s the frustration at knowing that I couldn’t get away with his tantrum, when in fact I have a deep desire to do exactly the same. But my temper doesn’t fair much better. The fury that is ignited when he insists on being defiant, laughing in my face and being completely sociably impossible, is scary. My eyes threaten to burst forth from their sockets and my hands ache to strangle or rip a head clean off. The capacity to feel such anger and the fear that I will one day let go of the thin thread that keeps me from snapping is terrifying.

‘Just walk away,’ I hear the crowds urging. Walk away? Leave him to throw items off shelves and to trip up the frail elderly (with his running down the isle at full pelt followed by skidding along the polished wooden floors on his knees…)? Leave him to understand, by the absence of reprimand, that such behaviour is okay? True, it’s probably a better option than the one that I took, which resulted in afore-mentioned major meltdown. But how would I feel if he did break stuff, injure someone else or even himself (he is known to be just a tad clumsy and prone to the oopsies)?

‘Oh, go easy on him love. He’s just started school and he’s probably out of sorts.’ True, again. But how much do you forgive? How much do you loosen the reigns during each and every transition in life?

He’s not two, and neither am I, and yet we both seem to find a way to behave and react as such. The only difference at the moment, is that I am managing to contain a little more of my rage than him. Just.

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