Not our usual week

[aeroeng]

No fights, and difficult child in training did all his homework without complaint and seemed more confident in himself. difficult child behaved well for the most part, but was rude at times. I guess it takes small steps.

On Monday, at work one of the younger engineers came in with a swollen hand. He had dislocated it the night before and possibly had a broken bone. He quietly states he did not know what to do. He had lost his insurance card, never signed up for a primary Dr. and did not even know what company he had insurance through. He also did not know were the ERs were. I was thinking, "This is my easy child when he is in his early 20s." They must never grow up! We took care of the lad, found out his insurance information, and got him to urgent care. Good news it was not broken.

Yesterday I went out for pizza at lunch. The power when out and ours was the last meal cooked. We ate paid in cash and left. About one hour later the restaurant exploded. You can view it on U-tube, search for "explosion mall Maryland". Despite the fact that I was not hurt, difficult child in training was very upset this morning. He described how he would react if it had exploded with me in it. And by his description his behavior would have earned him an upgrade to difficult child. We talked about how sometimes things happen, but this time I was safe, and I expressed that it would be OK to be sad and angry, but I would hope he would always behave. Any additional ideas? After living with difficult child I would like to discourage any thinking about bad behavior

 

[slsh]

Well first off, thank *goodness* you are safe!!! OMG, that would have left me trembling. I may be off on this completely (probably am) but I wouldn't put a whole lot of stock into difficult child in training's comments yesterday post explosion. At 10, he's so young and... well, I tend to try to (over)protect my kids from the randomness of life. Growing up in a family with a difficult child is random enough, you know? So I think your reassurance that you are okay is enough (I think). I'm not sure there's a healthy way to prepare our kids for those kinds of unknowns without making them totally neurotic, other than by dealing with the less serious randomness appropriately ourselves and pointing out how we dealt with it. Does that make any sense at all? I guess what I'm saying is walking them thru the problem solving that comes with the daily unexpected stuff, as well as talking about the emotions that the unexpected can bring, i.e. any kind of mechanical malfunction (car, washer, dryer, flood) just flips me out emotionally but it sure doesn't fix the problem. Over the years the scale of my flip out has dramatically decreased and now I can just figure out how to fix it with minimal drama. I think that's so important to teach our kids - how to take care of a problem. I don't really ever remember learning that growing up.

Small steps with a difficult child are huge leaps!

As far as easy child - he'll figure it out when he has to. Necessity being the mother of... self-sufficiency?

Sounds like it was a pretty doggone good week, all things considered.

 

[tiredmommy]

Wow! How scary about the restaurant explosion! So glad to hear you are safe!

As for GIT, I've found that my difficult child sometimes "toughens up" what she says about a situation, especially if it shakes her to the core. I imagine GIT was so upset that you were potentially in harm's way that it upset him deeply... and he acted the part of the tough guy to cover up his feelings. In other words, he put on a brave face, albeit an inappropriate one.

 

[DammitJanet]

Well thank heavens you are OK!

I think the insurance/hand thing is just a learning life experience thing. I have desperately tried to teach my kids how to do this and they are pretty good at it now. Of course, Jamie is the best at it because he was forced to do it but Cory is pretty self-sufficient too because I made him go to doctors alone for a long time. I even made him go in an ambulance alone when he cut his hand. That was hard and I waited at home for him to call me for info...lol. But I figured he had a kid and had to know what to do for another human being so he better figure it out fast!

As far as the tough guy words out of GIT...well thats only normal. All my guys would have been spouting tough guy words if they thought someone was gonna hurt their mommy. They still would be now. I have always said...heaven help the poor soul who tries to hurt me, my daughter in law's, or my grandkids cause I have some very big tough boys who will make them regret it.

 

[aeroeng]

Thanks for the replys and support. This weekend difficult child in training was much better. Although he still says if I die he will become violent at least he is not dwelling on it and seems to be letting it go.

Mother's day was good. We took our anual trip to Chucky Cheese (Yes only day of the year when the croud is down). Dispite the boys being teens they still enjoy it. We almost did not make it because of their fighting, but we managed to get through that and had a good time.

 

[ThreeShadows]

Goodness, thank God you are safe! I live in MD and saw that explosion on the news that night.