Shouting – an update of sorts

Warning: contains parenting and a degree of positivity or even optimism.

One of my more commented on posts (not that that this is saying much) is Eight is a difficult age, an agonised cri de couer about the whining (him) and yelling (us) that dudelet, then eight, was putting us through. He’s now nine. Time to check in.

Back in last February, we were experiencing meltdowns and tantrums that could go on for an hour then flare up again if you looked at him funny. Literally anything could be a trigger. We ultimately put it down to a long list of age related circumstances with ‘tiredness’ at the top of the list. A year later, Dudelet still gets up at 5:30 most days and reads then stomps downstairs to (clunk) unlock the downstairs rooms (and wake us all up) and get himself breakfast, watch television or otherwise amuse himself. By 7:30pm in the evening, only the matchsticks are keeping his eyes open.

His sleeping schedule dominates the whole household in that the rest of us stagger through the morning feeling grumpy, hard-done-by and liable to snap.

Not surprisingly, he sees this as grotesquely unfair – he can’t help waking up early, he says, and once he’s awake, he can’t get back to sleep.

“But you don’t even try? Look at you, you’ve got huge bags under your eyes!”

“STOP HAVING A GO AT ME!”

(Slams upstairs. Sound of sobs.)

And so on and on. 

He’s also hyper-aware of any distinction in the treatment that his little sister gets. She’s five so, as you can imagine, that happens a lot. It wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t have a mother who, pre-children, regarded getting up before 8:30am on a workday as an act of barbarism and getting up before noon at the weekends as something you after a really exceptionally long lie-in. Supermum isn’t just grumpy in the mornings – she’s the original Mamma Grizzly.

So mornings are all too often a perfect storm of bad temper. If we could only get him to sleep in even half an hour…

On the other hand, a screaming fit is ten times more likely to be followed by a teary apology and cuddle than a year ago and it’s even possible to send him up to his room to calm down (“This isn’t a punishment – you just need to take some quiet time then you can come down when you’re ready”). He’ll generally be up there for five minutes then will rejoin the rest of us in a reasonably civilized state of mind. 

My own shouting is more under control. I think this relates to dudelet and I at least trying to discuss issues reasonably, even when he’s utterly furious with me over some inadvertent slight. At nine, he’s much more capable of – eventually – taking on board the other person’s point of view.

And last week he made us all tea. By himself. He even let me help with the kettle without an outburst of “I can do it myself” moodiness. I suspect the last is a key milestone – he’s starting to learn to accept help and risk failure (that’s another post, I suspect – dealing with children who are afraid of failing).

Meanwhile, I’ve kept up Three Things (three things he’s done that day that I’ve appreciated, regardless of how small or trivial  night after night – no matter how difficult it is to remember at times. It still seems to matter to him. And it certainly matters to me.

The Return of Listen With Dudelet

It’s felt like it’s been ages since dudelet listened, really listened, to a record with me. At some point, the toddler who’d boogie in his seat to Aphex Twin or the five year old whose favourite record was Arcade Fire’s Neon Bible became the eight year Harry Potter fanatic who only wanted to listen to the John Williams soundtrack and build towers in Minecraft.*

Attempts at “What do you think of this?” or “Do you want to choose anything?” met with a shrug or a “Whatever.” Meanwhile, Minecraft seemed to be colonising most of the conversations we were having.

Don’t get me wrong – we were talking a lot. But it was 40% Bin Weevils, 40% Minecraft and 10% whining about being required to get off whichever screen he was accessing either of them through. (The remaining 10% tended to be me commiserating with him about the latest bout of appallingness from his little sister. But that’s another story).

Anyway, there seems to have been a sea change. Possibly he’s humouring his rapidly aging father but he caught me the day before yesterday listening to Led Zepellin 2. He paused, then sat, nodding along to the first few bars of ‘Ramble On’.

“I really like that,” he said.

“Uh huh,” I said. I felt like a caveman (well, we were listening to Led Zep) keeping a hungry wild dog in my peripheral vision as it edged cautiously towards the firelight and a scrap of left-over reindeer meat.

“It’s really…it’s got a good tune.”

“I’ve had that record for 32 years.”

“And it still plays?”

Little elf bounced in and sat down to listen too. A few minutes later, supermum stuck her head into the lounge, probably to find out what all the lack of noise was about (apart from the very loud music) and found little elf on my lap, dudelet leaning on my shoulder and John Bonham pounding through a slightly surplus-to-requirements drum solo (‘Moby Dick’ hasn’t aged well). She backed out again, quite quickly.

Yesterday, dudelet asked me to put on “that pretty song” again and gave us a full-on demonstration of virtuoso air guitar. Then I played him the guitar solo in ‘Whole Lotta Love’ and he wanted me to start the record again so he could hear it twice.

Perhaps tomorrow, I’ll see how he gets on with Baroness…

*I feel I should add that there are a million and one things he could be doing that are less worthwhile than the admittedly creative pursuit of Minecraft. But there’s only so many brick-by-brick descriptions a dad can take.

Smoking

Dudelet and I are walking to the Underground on the way to pick up supplies from the Japan Centre.

“Look, those girls are smoking!” he says, clearly disapproving but also fishing for my reaction.

“Not good for them, is it?” I offer feebly.

“How did they get the cigarettes? I thought shops weren’t allowed to sell them to children?”

“Well, maybe they got an older kid to buy them. Some shopkeepers don’t pay as much attention as they should/“

“Did you ever smoke?”

Oh dear. Here it comes.

“Yes,” I say, wondering if I should lie.

“When did you stop?”

“January 1st, 1998. Wish I’d done it sooner. Hope it wasn’t too late.”

“When did you start?”

“When I was thirteen or fourteen.”

“Why?”

Why indeed? I’m stuck with being honest now so I plough on.

“I suppose I was trying to impress other, slightly older or cooler boys – at least I thought they were cooler at the time.” I decide to leave out the fact that I actually started smoking in Scouts.

“Oh. Were they a bit thuggish, then?”

“Er…possibly.”

“Mummy says she never started because she tried one cigarette and it was so disgusting, she never went near them again.”

“She was very sensible, then,” I say, half-wishing I’d given the same answer.

“Yes. Did I tell you I’ve started writing a script?”

Eight is a difficult age

There are times when I really don’t want to be in the same building as my eight year old. I’m sure I’m not the only parent who thinks this. Two nights ago, I walked into the bathroom following twenty minutes of intense prevarication on dudelet’s part and asked him if he’d cleaned his teeth.

“You’ve already asked me that!” he whined.

I know, I wanted to say, and I’m asking again because you ignored me. And because you’ll ignore me this time and then again until you finally get the reaction you’re looking for: an explosion of frustrated rage on my part generating dramatic tears and an even larger explosion on your part culminating in your slamming the bathroom door on me and screaming every time I try to engage you or attract your attention. The previous night I’d been foolish enough to tell him that I’d actually been waiting for half an hour and had triggered slammed doors and inarticulate howls of rage and sorrow every time I’d come near him until he finally fell asleep, still furious.

This time, I didn’t say anything. Ten minutes later, he cleaned his teeth. But I felt like I was walking on eggshells.

You can probably tell that we’ve got a bit of a cycle happening here – we ask him to do something, he doesn’t do it, we wait a reasonable amount of time and ask again and he explodes in fury. It’s unpleasant, it happens on a daily basis and we still don’t really know what to do about it. Eggshells, many of them broken, all over the house.

We know it’s related to a number of issues:

• Self-esteem

• Tiredness

• School

• Growing up

Growing up is the easiest one to accommodate. We know hormones and testosterone are raging throughout his (still) little body. He’s an increasingly independent being who struggles with that independence and the responsibilities. There are changes going on with his body and it’s both interesting and frightening for him. The good news is that he at least talks to us about him and the those conversations (that’s a whole other post) are going well. The bad news is that it contributes to the thunder and lightning of the other issues.

Tiredness is a big problem. Dudelet is an early riser. Four thirty isn’t unknown. At eight, he knows to keep the noise down and to find something quiet to entertain himself with and we’re lucky that he’s a good reader. But if he wakes up before five during a light sleep phase he just won’t try and go back to sleep again. There are simply too many distractions and short of stripping every book out of his room and putting a lock on his door (NOT under consideration for even a single moment!) there isn’t a lot we can do about it.

But this means that by six or seven o’clock, after a long day at school, he’s often cranky, grumpy and carrying huge bags under his eyes. He’s generally asleep before eight thirty but we’re pretty sure he isn’t getting all the sleep he needs.

School is another challenge. His tiredness is starting to impinge on his behaviour in the classroom (his teacher reports that he sometimes ‘loses it’ over the tiniest of things) and getting him to engage in out of school activities is a constant battle. He seems to be well socialise and popular but he’s clever and still hasn’t learned how to manage how he uses that cleverness. In other ways, he’s immature for his age – he cries more readily than other children. He’s physically timid (this frustrates supermum, who can be a bit of a Hemulen, a great deal) and avoids teamsports or physically activities like the proverbial plague. I suspect (and feel rather guilty about it) that he gets a lot of this from me. In other ways, he’s ahead of most of his peers ( a full stage above in areas like maths and reading).

Looking at books and commentaries leads us to believe that self-esteem, or lack of it, at the core of dudelet’s tantrums and difficulties in coping with everyday elements of family life. On some occasions he’s come right out and said it – “I’m no good at anything” “You don’t love me” “You think I’m rubbish” – and it breaks my heart.

It also makes me feel terribly guilty, as if my own feelings of inadequacy and failure have somehow infected him like an airborne virus

So what are we doing?

Nothing very spectacular. We’re biting our lip, we’re avoiding getting drawn into confrontations (which always end appallingly badly), we’re praising when possible and avoiding being negative. We’e already doing most of the things one finds on typical parenting checklists (except, of course, when we forget ourselves – we get tired too). I can’t help feeling that a lot of these tensions would dissipate if he could only learn to go back to sleep. But that’s not something we can impose – he has to learn to do it himself.

Anyone else find themselves trapped in this sort of a cycle? How did you manage to break out of it?

Genital origami, or I get a vasectomy

“So you got a vasectomy. Well, bully for you!” I hear you cry.

Oh, come on. It’s got to be a more intriguing post than my usual Friday fodder of a few links or an obscure black metal band I’m way too old to be listening to.

Anyway, if you’re a dad of a certain age and with a certain number of kids, this is bound to be something you’ve thought about or even had done.

Supermum and I began discussing more permanent ways of contraception a year or two ago. She’s been on a particular  kind of pill (Yasmin) for about three years and there are a number of good reasons why she shouldn’t carry on putting additional hormones into her body (e.g. the additional small risks of cancer). On top of that, we’d agreed after Little Elf that we wouldn’t have any other children. I’m in my late 40s and supermum is only five years younger so the idea of going though another couple of years of sleepless nights and mayhem, let alone dealing with the physical impact of another pregnancy on her part, didn’t appeal. Also, there’s the matter of age. I don’t want to be retiring just as the third one starts agitating for college fees. And I don’t want to be playing catch in a Zimmer frame.

Anyway…

Condoms split, coils are icky, sterilisation for supermum wasn’t something I ever considered at any point other than typing it out right now and as for the rhythm method, I’d rather trust “Am I fertile?” answers delivered by cutting a deck of cards and assuming the answer is “No” if its spades or diamonds*. So that left vasectomy if I wanted us to carry on having sex. Which I did.

After a chaotic attempt to have a vasectomy through the NHS ended up in their moving the appointment forward two months to an impossible date with no notice and substitute offered, I checked out how much it would cost to go to a Well Known Provider of birth control. It wasn’t insignificant but it wasn’t bank-breaking. I booked and today I showed up and had the deed done.

The particular branch was apparently where M**** S***** moved her first clinic in 1921, a narrow Georgian townhouse near Fitzroy Square. I hoped, as I read the blue plaque, that they’d updated the equipment since. Across the road, a lone anti-abortion protestor knelt, clutching a set of rosary beads. I passed him on the other side of the street and we eyed each other up warily. He was surrounded by scattered plastic baby limbs which (a nurse told me) he’d try to press into the hands of already stressed women on their way into the clinic. A kind of emotional terrorism of a deeply unpleasant kind. I went and got a sandwich and by the time I came back, he’d evidently gone for lunch.

Inside I checked in, paid the balance of the fee and was soon taken into the basement to the pre-op/recovery room. Two other men were already resting on the blue recliners there. We all avoided each other’s eyes. A nurse took my blood pressure, explained the procedures to be followed after the operation and went through the consent form. Then I waited, Classic FM softly torturing my ears. I twittered a little and reviewed the kindly thoughts of my Twitter followers:

tikkabootwo @dadwhowrites It won’t hurt as much as your wife being sterilised. Good for you manning up …… or not

Snowgirl1972 @dadwhowrites that can mean only one thing. Condolences’

scrummycupcake @dadwhowrites on my hub they didn’t wait for local anaesthetic to take effect before making the 1st cut, heard him scream from waiting room

scrummycupcake @ dadwhowrites hubs was in agony for days…in contrast, my dad went back to work an hour after op.

And my favourite:

pureartifice @dadwhowrites aubergines. Expect them. That is all I have to say. Good luck x

Soon after, the surgeon came out to collect me. I think he was Nigerian and, whilst I’ve no doubt he was fully qualified**, his English wasn’t entirely up to speed. His first question was

“Tell me about your history of heart problems.”

That nearly started a history of heart trouble there and then – I’ve so far never had cardiac problems of any kind. I think he heard something in my tone as he quickly rearranged the question as “Have you ever had any heart trouble?” which made much more sense. After that, he left the questioning to the lively Chinese nurse. I mention their nationalities specifically as I found it interesting that the medical and surgical procedures were carried out by foreign nationals whilst British staff dealt with all the admin.

The other thing I noticed as soon as I entered the small surgery was a strong smell of burning.

Anyway, the nurse had me take off my trousers and lie down on the padded surgical table with my underpants about my ankles. It was all too business like and matter-of-fact for me to realise that a strange woman was looking at my penis and a strange man was apparently carrying out some form of genital origami before it was too late to argue. The surgeon (who was highly professional and inspired a lot of confidence, despite his English) warned me that there’d be a scratch. There was. “OW!” I said. He ignored me  and carried on manipulating my scrotum. I suspect he was shaving it. I haven’t dared look properly yet. The nurse engaged me in cheery, hairdresser like conversation (“Do you have children? Do you work near here? How old are they?…”) as various weird prods and sprays and twists carried on in the by-now numb area of my groin.

“This will scratch a bit more…”

“OW!” That was the main local anaesthetic.

“Do you have a boy or a girl?”

“Ah…one of each…What exactly is he doing down there?”

“He wants to know what you’re doing down there.”

“I’m looking for your tubes.”

I didn’t ask any more questions.

“You’re done.”

That’s it? My underpants apparently weren’t supportive enough so they provided me with a fetching pair of briefs in white netting.

“All the way from Harrods! High Fashion!” the cheery nurse chuckled. The only evidence of the surgery I’d just had was a white pad of bandages. I felt nothing in my groin whatsoever.

“Thank you,” I said. “But that burning smell is a bit off-putting.” The nurse nodded sympathetically.

“I know,” she said. “We’ve tried to get rid of it but nothing works. And we have to work with it all day!”

She had a point.

Afterwards, I hung out in the recovery until the light-headed feeling generated by the local anaesthetic went away and then I went home to lie on a bed and feel a bit sore.

I wouldn’t take it up as a hobby but it was ok.

*Look, if you’re interested in trying out this method, I accept no responsibility. But let me know how it goes.

**I’ve had occasion to work with non-UK medical staff in an NHS context. Current GMC requirements are very rigorous and anyone who doubts a Nigerian or Indian doctor’s professionalism is reading from a Daily Mail script of misinformation.