Ah, gotta love two-year-old preschool. Now that Ollie’s in a program, I think I appreciate teachers even more than when I actually WAS a teacher. Not only do I have a few hours of free time per week now where I can run to the grocery store sans child or get my brows waxed without a screaming toddler trying to burn down the salon, but Ollie is actually LEARNING! And becoming better behaved! Preschool is literally a miracle.
I mean it when I say his teachers are saints. In just a few short weeks since school has started they have helped teach my wild little beast the alphabet, his numbers, and even rules of social conduct (i.e. keep your pants on while in public and don’t pick your friend’s noses). Even though my son is the classroom hitter (and pusher, and screamer, and barker…), they show a tremendous amount of patience with him. Plus, every day I get a detailed note sent home to me explaining his daily behavior. Most of the time the notes are filled with lines like, “Ollie tried to attack the prayer leader today — just wanted to make you aware” or “Still working on aggression issues. Does he usually use toys as weapons?” sometimes I’ll be pleasantly surprised to find notes like, “Ollie had a great day! Very cooperative and didn’t hurt any one!!!!!” that warm my heart.
The teachers may as well sign the notes, “Wow! He isn’t a sociopath afterall! ” but of course they don’t say that. I can imagine all the things they’d love to write to me about my unruly son, but everything is always communicated in a positive way. For this, I am so grateful. Really. And even though every night I pray he’s not kicked out of school for aggressive behavior toward his peers, at least I can breath a sigh of relief that he’s in good hands when I drop him off.
Some suggested reading material for my lil angel...
PS: As I go to post this, I find it ironic that today is my dad’s 64th birthday. I mean, could he have a better present than a wild grandson? I’m sure he’d say no…and remind me, “Paybacks are a bitch!” (I was a biter and an aggressive child like Ollie and realize now how much my behavior probably troubled my parents.) I guess one day I can look forward to having even wilder grandchild of my own!
Yesterday, Ollie was in rare rare rare form. Although lately he’s been acting out more and more (hitting people, pushing, scraping other babies’ eyeballs with his fingernails, etc. etc.), I haven’t been too concerned because he’s 19 months and at that age, he’s still too little to understand his actions.
But during a trip to the park yesterday I began to get sincerely worried that his aggressive behavior wasn’t normal. As in PSYCHO. Literally, at a park of 60 kids he zeroed in on the same one and attacked her twice. And when I say “attacked” — I’m not kidding. He got all Hannibal Lecter and mauled the girl’s cute little face with his hands and teeth. After the poor baby’s mother took her away, Ollie found other victims and did the same thing to probably eight children. Ollie doesn’t discriminate: all ages, all races, all genders. Their only common thread is that their mothers want to drop kick him.
Finally, things culminated with him lunging toward another kid on the jungle gym and tackling her down an entire flight of stairs. They were rolling down the steps like you see fight scenes in the movies — although in this scenario the other kid was screaming and Ollie was laughing. When they landed, Ollie tried to bite off her nose. That was the end of our visit to the park. I grabbed my son and left before the police could haul us both away.
On the drive home I was truly worried — almost near tears. At home I even looked up “early signs of sociopath” on the Google, but then began thinking that I was actually the undiagnosed sociopath because as a child I displayed all three of the “Macdonald Triad” behaviors: wetting the bed, cruelty to animals, and obsession with fire. Could I be the insane one?
Putting my own issues aside, I decided to take Ollie to our local nature center just to see how he treated the animals. He loves his grandparents’ dogs, but I knew if I found him trying to squash some hamster with his sneaker, maybe I should worry. But, WHEW. Nothing. He was so loving and sweet with the animals that my fears were allayed. The guinea pig is still alive and kicking.
I never really have bad days. I have challenging days and exhausting days, but I’m a firm believer in the power of positive thinking. So, most times, I can simply will myself into being happy after doing things like stepping in a big pile of dog shit with my cute new patent leather pink pumps. What they say about smiling when you’re down works — usually.
The other day, however, I had had enough. It was one thing after another until my bad luck culminated with me almost severing a finger.
Luckily, I still have a prescription for Ambien from when I had a severe fear of flying — so one little pill later, I was dreaming of gummi bears sliding down chocolate waterfalls and all my troubles vanished! Yes, I woke up with a sore finger that kind of looked like someone had sewn on a dead albino dwarf’s teeny penis to my hand, but oh well…I was pretty much all better and ready to tackle the day.
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