For some reason for the past few days, the childhood rhyme – “sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me” has been stuck in my head.
Why I can’t say for sure but obviously my subconscious is trying to tell me something.
No maybe that is a lie! Currently I seem to be surrounded with both ‘sticks and stones’ and most definitely a lot of ‘words’ that were meant to harm me/Bumble/Buzz and at times Waxy (although in in truth most of the caustic labelling and verbal aggression has been coming our way from him rather than towards him).
Anyway I digress. We are one week into school Easter holidays and if I sat here has started spouting off about how wonderful the week has been and what ‘angelic little angels’ both boys had been all week, I would have to change my name to Pinocchio and watch as my wooden nose grew at a rapid rate. Ok to be fair to both boys, during their 3 days of holiday club, they coped really well and I was proud of them because this was a new holiday club and neither had ever been to it before. For Buzzbee it was definitely a big step forward for him. Not only was it his first time attending anything like this, but his anxiety levels currently are at an all-time high, especially around social situations with peers and strange adults, meant that he preferred to shy away from anything that was going to push him outside his comfort zone or challenge his negative view of himself (he believes he is a horrible boy who cannot control himself and ends up hurting people). It was a big step forward for Waxy too, although he doesn’t see it the same way as we do – he did great because he managed to for short periods of time to resist the urge to micro manage every movement or action of his little brother – I say ‘short periods’ maybe ‘nanoseconds’ would be a better description but hey, Rome wasn’t built in a day. They have lived with us for nearly 5 years now and still, given half a chance, he will try to ‘parent’ his little brother within an inch of his life.
Ok so the truth is, this week the boys have been more than a challenge and therapeutic mummy has left the building on more occasions than I wish to have happened and has been replaced with punitive, stressed out, shouty mummy – when they have both started their ‘pack’ behaviour (gang up on mummy) or possibly worse still their ‘tag-teaming’, I have found myself on several occasions being triggered by their distress (I say distress because I know that once they realised they were under my skin, they no longer felt like the adult was in control and so spiralled further out of control). I am not pleased with myself for allowing them to take me down (on one occasion quite literally) but, as so many people keep telling me lately, we have had so much going on lately it is no wonder our emotional reserves are not where we would like them to be, and as I can’t turn back the clock and redo this week (although if David Tenant aka Dr Who would like to take me for a ride in his little blue box, I wouldn’t say NO). I can forgive myself and move forward in the hope that the second week will be so much calmer and that there will be less ‘sticks and stones’ and more ‘hot chocolate and marshmallows’.
This post was written as part of The Adoption Social #WASO.
3beesandahoney 