Isobel: "Daddy, can I go outside?"
Daddy: "No way, it's much too cold out."
Isobel: "I could wear like a sweater and my hat and snow pants and my gloves."
Daddy: "It's not a question of what you're going to wear, Honey. It's just too cold outside."
Isobel: "It's not that cold out!"
Daddy:"Isobel, it is minus twenty three with the wind chill. Do you know what that means?"
Isobel: "No."
Daddy: "It means that it is cold enough to damage your skin in a matter of minutes and damage from the cold is permanent."
Isobel: "What's damage mean?"
Daddy: "It means you're not going outside."
Isobel: "Winter is stupid."
Daddy: "It sure is...still not going outside."
It's been quiet around here...too quiet apparently. I am always amazed at how reality rears it's filthy head and makes sure you are all paying close attention. The reality of our life is that The Boy has ADHD. It's not a secret and we have never kept it as such. Nor have we used it as a crutch for him. It is what it is and as a result, The Boy often experiences and deals with things differently that the rest of us do. Tonight was such a night.
He was desperate to get on his precious computer because he had been doing homework for about two hours right after school. He has a certain amount of time per night to be on the electric glowing brain Hoover and he knew the clock was ticking. I have said before that I get the excitement and I get the not wanting ever stop, really I do get it but there always come the time when you have to step up and be the adult in the relationship. No matter how much it sucks. Suddenly, 'This will hurt ME more than it will you.' makes absolutely perfect sense.
So he was given ample warning to get off the computer and supper came to the table. Supper is one of the only times when we sit down as a family with little or no distractions. It has always been that way and it remains one of the cornerstones of our family dynamic. It is not a Brady Bunch kind of affectation, were not doing it because we feel we should, we do it because it a ritual that has built our family into what it is. For good or ill and we all four of us know and understand it. Food was served and The Boy did not come. Three sat down and still no Boy. Voices began to raise and still no. Threats were made and still nothing. So it came down to an ultimatum. "Either come and sit down or you lose the computer.' And still he sat, so he lost the computer...And then The Boy lost it.
In retrospect, as I sit here writing this, it was much the same as someone going through the stages of grief. If I video taped it, I bet it would make a hell of a school project. At first, in total DENIAL, he sort of ignored the fact that it had been taken away and actually asked if he could go back on. I think we were both taken aback by that. Mrs. Narrator actually asked him if he was serious. But not in that 'I know you're joking' kind of way because the tone of his voice said he clearly was not joking.
Then he blew up and ANGER came sailing on in. He threw a tantrum the likes of which we have not seen, literally, in years.
"That's not fair! he screamed.
"It's not supposed to be fair," said Mrs. narrator. "It's supposed to be a PUNISHMENT." Which brought on ore shouting and stomping and if it wasn't so light due to the hollowness of its core, I'm certain he would have slammed the holy shit out of his door. Now during the screaming and yelling with and at his mother, I watched The Boy's body posture fairly closely and even when she was doing the yelling, his posture didn't change to a submissive one...not once. He then decided he wanted to go outside. Seemed to be a theme today. He then announced that kids at our house weren't allowed to have any fun at all, they were to just do nothing all day but go to school. Of course that isn't true...but it did get the wheels turning. Then he turned on his teacher for giving him homework and not enough time to get it done in the class room. It was an old testament melt down. Thunder, lightning, stuffed sheep rocketing earthward.
He was upstairs in his room a while and then he came down to BARGAIN. There was quite a bit of;
"If you just let me play tonight, you can take it away for the rest of the week." which turned into "If you just let me play for thirty minutes, you can take it away for the rest of my life! Honestly, you can trust me this time!" He had by now worked himself into a lather and was almost in hysterics. Tears and snot were flowing freely and unfettered. I doff my cap to Mrs. Narrator, this is usually the point where my resolve crumbles. If that makes me a sucker or worse yet a shitty parent, then I'll stand guilty as charged. There are few things that really upset me. Seeing either of the kids that upset is top of the list. And he was really that upset. I've cried enough crocodile tears to know when I'm being taken for a ride and these were not the tears of a reptile. These were the tears that come from way down deep and tend to bring other upsets with them. Like bashing your knee when your at school. You don't dare cry in front of your friends, so you bury it down deep and swear you'll deal with it when you get home. You never do. Tears like that always come out at times like this, times when you are so upset over something that your brain just decides to lump all the tears together and start pushing them out.There were more cries of 'not fair' but I just don't think he had the energy left to keep up the fight. Though he did stomp back upstairs, all remained quiet after he got up there. Mrs. Narrator gave it a few minutes and headed upstairs to deal with DEPRESSION.
"What the hell is that about?" Izzy asked.
"He's upset," I said. He's very upset and when people are very upset things don't always make sense. They just say and do things that they hope will stop them from being upset."
She looked a little confused but went back to writing in her book so I assumed she understood what I said on some level.
After twenty minutes or so, ACCEPTANCE came down the stairs and all was right and good again. He played a game on his Xbox but did not go back on the computer, nor did he ask to. I don't know if I would call what happened a victory on the parental front. I mean he didn't get the computer but I didn't feel any better about it. I don't think Mrs. Narrator felt any too great about it either.
'This is going to hurt me more than it will you'...absolutely god-damned right.
Izzy was at a birthday part on the weekend. A bowling and pizza party to be precise. I stayed home and did homework. (Read no bowling and definitely no pizza). When I went back to pick her up at the appointed time, things were still rolling at full speed. They had just finished mini golf-indoor glow in the dark mini golf (again..homework) when I showed up. Izzy dutifully handed in her putter and prepared to get her coat.
"Izzy, you didn't get to go to the arcade yet." one of her friends called after her.
Indeed she didn't. Now I can be a a hard ass when I want to get out of somewhere but sometimes you just gotta go to the arcade. Especially the kind that gives out tickets you can redeem for prizes.
She picked two of the worst machines for ticket winnings. Some of her friends were already walking around with two or three feet worth of tickets. I wasn't about to let her walk out of there with nothing so off to the token machine we went.
Now just as an aside, Isobel discovered SkiBall. That favourite of all old school arcade games. She rolled the ball and it rolled right back to her.
"I don't think that's right." she said.
"Throw it a little harder." I said.
"KRANG!" said the ball as it bounced off the metal grate covering the digital counters.
"Maybe not that hard." I said. "Let me see the ball."
I demonstrated the technique with a decent roll that netted her 5000 points.
"OK, you try now." I said.
The ball rolled up and rolled back.
"Just a little harder," I said. Just a whisper harder."
"KRANG!" said the ball as it bounced off the metal grate covering the digital counters.
"Maybe not overhand, Pick." I said. "Give it one more try."
"I can't do it." she said.
"Sure you can just take your time and don't throw it," I said. "Try to roll it a little harder."
"SPLASH!" said the ball as it landed in the bubbling water trap of the mini golf course.
"Now why would they put a golf course in the middle of the bowling alley?" I asked.
The tokens were gone and we leaped into the frenzy of redemption. After all was said and done she walked out of there with three pixie sticks and a fizzy candy. If she'd have let me play it might have been substantially more thanks to many a misspent summer on the boardwalk of Wasaga beach but this was all her effort and she was happy with her performance.
She was quiet most of the way home, examining her birthday gift bags and her gaming spoils.
"Daddy?" she began.
"Yup?"
"Thanks for staying at the arcade."
"Did you have fun at the party?"
"YES!" she said.
"That's good, that's what's really important."
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