Parenting, I found can be a challenge and one would think that as a child got older that parenting would become less of a test of skills but, this does not appear to be the case. When my children were infants I could not wait for them to talk because then they could just tell me what was wrong, now I cannot wait for them to stop talking. There are three boys in my house that I believe I am the mother of but sometimes it may be iffy whether or not they are mine. The oldest is a twelve year old boy and seems to be having premenstrual syndrome or something to that effect. Next is the middle who has so many different diagnoses that it is hard to keep up. Lastly, the youngest seems to have the highest intelligence level in the household, although probably not maybe just the highest reasoning level. Sarcasm helps me with my challenges as a parent; laughter makes it possible to continue on throughout the days of parenting.
Since it would make the most sense to start with the oldest that is where I will start. He was a whiny baby that turned into an excellent toddler. Never had the issues associated with the dreaded terrible two’s. Looking back maybe it would have been better if he did. He did fairly well until about the last year, then his behavior became so insane that we were really thinking that aliens had taken our son and replaced him with some almost clone. For the past few months he has to be experiencing premenstrual syndrome or PMS for short. A few weeks ago a sample of tampons came in the mail I handed them to him and told him that they accidentally addressed them to me but I was sure they were for him. When trying to communicate with this child, which most of the time we must be speaking a language he does not understand, he will just get up and go to his room and slam the door. Apparently, slamming the door must do something but I haven’t figured out what exactly it is.
Now, we will move on to the middle child. He is ten years old and we found out this year that he has Asperger’s Syndrome which is a form of autism. Before we found out that he had attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, well we always knew just needed a doctor to say that he did, at the same time he was diagnosed with ADHD we also found out he had oppositional defiant disorder, he was our biggest challenge. I would have much rather of joined the army and go through boot camp the rest of my life that to wake up every morning with him. He has an impeccable memory except for when he has done something to break the house rules, and then he does have a selective memory. This could be just a child being a child or just a boy trying to be a man. I am not really sure which and I honestly do not believe that it matters. We found a medication that helps him with the issues he has with certain aspects of his life, and so ours has become much better.
Lastly, there is the youngest that is now four years old and seems to think that he is at least twenty maybe older. He has been in preschool by accident since about the age of two. Needless to say that he knows too much for a child his age, and most of the time he appears to be smarter than my ex-husband but that is a different story. He has a huge fascination with the computer and has recently started adding new programs to it without permission. So far he has been able to do this without any viruses. The really nice thing about his computer fascination is that he is now able to spell cartoon network but cannot figure out to wear shorts in the summer and pants in the winter.
Without having sarcasm to help me deal with parenting issues I do not know how far I would have made it. If I could not sit back and find a joke out of the daily antics I believe that I would become a very disgruntled parent. When I wake up in the morning to a four year old yelling because he has fallen into the toilet while trying to stand up on the seat and wipe, it is so much easier to laugh that he has no problems spelling but has trouble wiping.
