Monday 2 July 2012

Dealing with doctors and nurses and anger in a 5 year old.

Oh, it's like having a mini-teenager in the house. He's 5. Going on 15. I know he's tired from a long school term, and every morning we have the same conversation about how many more weeks before holiday. I know he's had enough of bloody Kipper and Biff (what sort of name is that for a girl anyway?), and would rather read his motorbike encyclopaedia, as would I, and I never thought i'd write THAT.  I know he's probably having a hormone surge and has come over all weird about some things. (I'm allowed to wipe his bum if it's a particular type of poo, but nobody must see him on the toilet, EVER). He's suddenly aware of being naked, he's suddenly cross about everything. He's had enough of of the little git that bullies him and wants to thump him. (I must concur with him here: a bloodied nose might stop him more effectively than a term being sat on the bench for five minutes at playtime does). He playfights and is a spy. He's not going to marry me anymore, it is going to be Harriet. Or Phoebe. His temper flares up erratically, he shouts, he stomps up each individual stair and yells downstairs that he doesn't CARE! He puts on CD's loudly and lies on his bed, muttering. He's 15. He's 5. He doesn't realise that it's highly amusing to me that he's put on Louis Armstrong, and is being cross to "Blueberry Hill". He hates me, he hates the tea, he wants a Nintendo DS like everyone else, he wants guns (he's 5!)

A lot of this is school. He's mixing with kids who have different boundaries, older siblings. He's mixing with little shits, some of the time. I can't control what he's seeing or hearing come playtime. Some of it is hormone surges, that commonly happen between ages 4-6 for periods lasting months at a time, leaving your previsouly placid boy a raging loony who wants to playfight all the time and look at things on YouTube he shouldn't. (In son's case, a rather alarming Lego re-enaction of "Saving Private Ryan". Er, no). Hence we have the situation where his sister dobbed him in for wanting to see a girls "minny". Much weeping, much wailing, after he finally admitted it, although the object of fascination herself had wandered off unharmed or un-looked at and was eating a packet of  haribo. Much low key discussion about privacy and right and wrong, and a quick description of a diagram I have a half remembered version of in my head, and me left wondering if I handled that properly or he'll be a serial killer blaming me in twenty years.Or if the girls mum now thinks i'm harbouring a pervert.

Worst of all though, after he's had a stomp off and is silent on his bed, he'll say he doesn't mean to be naughty, he just can't help it sometimes, it's his head getting bigger and wanting to know more stuff. And I flashforward to doing the same thing when he's 15. Only hopefully without a pregnant girlfriend.