Se7en

My youngest son is now seven. This child was 7.14 at birth. He came quick and easy and was really a pretty easygoing baby, very laid back, slept well and ate well, all the things you wish for in a newborn, save for the random screaming at about 5:30pm every single day until he turned four months old. It was like a clock. My mother tells me I did the same thing.

I think I've mentioned before that he came out peeing, and I am not even kidding, before I saw the doctor lift him up above my sheet-covered knees I saw the stream of pee arc out and hit her smack in the face. (She was not new to this process though, and was wearing a mask not unlike something you'd see on someone preparing to solder steel, so it got in her hair, but not in her eyes.)

This turned out to be something of an omen for him, the peeing. He's a bit mischievous.

Anyway, Will is now seven ears old. He likes being seven, he likes being in first grade, he's not a baby kindergartner, he's a -grader now just like his brother. He's very competitive, mostly with his brother and it probably doesn't help things that brother is a little on the wee side, and therefore Will is pretty much the same size, and I think this adds to the competitiveness. It allows him to ride the same rides at theme parks, therefore passing the fear factor milestones earlier or at about the same time as his brother. I don't know if this is a good thing or not.

He really never had any fear, anyway.

We've been having a really hard time with his behavior recently, his temper has apparently come into it's own, and where he's always been an exceptional child in terms of just how bloody stubborn he is, lately I've become completely unable to deal with his throwdowns and we often end up screaming at each other. I wish I was kidding. He is still sometimes the toddler who is cuddly and likes to snuggle, he hasn't lost that sweetness, but more often than not he is also angry, and beligerent. He growls at me when I suggest that he stop playing with his toys and come to the table for dinner. He runs to his room and slams the door like a teenage girl when I then reach down and wrench that toy from his hands as a discipline for that behavior. I noticed recently the hinges on his door need to be tightened, it's been slammed so many times the screws are coming loose.

Some of this stems from his frustration with his brother, how they pick at each other constantly. Some of it stems from his inability to focus and pay attention at school, or here at home, he knows that his mind wanders and that he forgets what he was doing and it frustrates him as much as it frustrates me and his dad and his teachers and anyone else who's ever tried to get him back on task fifty times. He knows his mind seems to be working differently, that he can't pay attention even if he really wanted to, that other kids in his class don't have this problem. And I struggle, I tell you, I really struggle with how much to tell him about that. Whether to tell him I went through it too, when I was his age, only I didn't have as much help as he will. Whether to explain it to him fully, and help him find the tools he needs, or to just keep that knowledge and that help behind the scenes, where maybe it won't damage his self-esteem.

But of course, If you've ever taken a child to a pediatric behavior specialist who mostly works with families of ADHD patients, and seen the look on his face when he starts to figure out what's going on, you know that you've already damaged his self-esteem. And there's nothing you can do about it.

Let me just tell you how much it freaking sucks, as a parent, that you are damned if you do and damned if you don't start the early intervention process when you know you've got an ADHD kid on your hands. And you know it when it becomes obvious, you know it because Oh My God, this feels so familiar it's like static electricity, and there's nothing you can do about it except ask for help, even knowing that help will get him labeled different at school, among his teachers and peers. There is no drug that can make it go away, there is no fucking Omega 3 gummy vitamin that tastes like sugar crusted fish oil that will fix this.

You know it because he's frustrated, and he's angry, and he's quick to throw down, and yet all he really wants to do is snuggle up in bed with you and read Magic Tree House and forget all that other stuff.

Which is actually all I want to do, too.  But now he's seven. Do seven year olds still snuggle? God I hope so.