I don't proofread my posts before I publish them... cause I keep my thoughts au naturale.

Friday, February 3, 2012

My Son Drives me CRAZY

Let me preface with a disclaimer:  Yes, I love my son.  Yes, children are a gift from God.  Yes, I know how blessed I am.  Yes, I know there are people who have no children that would kill for an opportunity to have a child drive them nuts... blah blah blah, yeah, we all get it, but I also guarantee a lot of you can relate to this!!

My son is four.  He's been going through the terrible two's since he was 1.  Every year the doctor says it's a phase, so hopefully this phase ends before he goes to college or he's in big trouble.  Now, he's not a kid that terrorizes the neighborhood.  He doesn't break things for fun, he doesn't throw my phone in the toilet, he doesn't color on walls or cut his sister's hair in his sleep.  No, he's not a hellion.

He's NEEDY.
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Oooooh my gosh.  I am sooooo not someone who likes to enable neediness.  I don't like needy pets, I don't like needy friends and I sure as heck don't like needy men!  So, when my daughter was born, I was over the moon when she started showing signs of independence.  Now that's she's six, I'm pretty sure she's capable of getting a job and living on her own.

But not my son!  Here's my issue.  He's always THERE.  And by there, I mean, like in my line of vision.   When I'm home, he's home.  When we're home, he's constantly harassing me in one way, shape or form.  I feel for SAHM's, cause it is the last thing I'd wanna do!  But, it seems like every 5 minutes he wants something.  And when he can't think of something, he will say he wants something to eat.  Now, this kid is plenty well fed, so we all know he's just coming up with an excuse to harass me.  He's hungry, he's thirsty, his neck hurts, his foot hurts, his finger hurts, his hair hurts, his eye hurts, his socks hurt, he's hot, he's cold, he wants gum, he wants gum, he wants gum, he wants gum...

ALL DAY... ALLLLLLLLL DAAAAAY!!!  So when I get off work, it's he and I for like 4 hours and this is what I look forward to.  I'm literally to the point I don't want to come home until it's time to get my daughter from school.  Oh, I forgot to mention every half hour he asks when his sister will be home.  This kid needs a hobby.  I can't afford to send him to daycare/preschool every day, so he only goes a couple times a week when I'm at work, but of course I'm at work, so it's not me enjoying quiet time.

Then comes night time.... this is NO EXAGGERATION: EVERY NIGHT since he was born, my son has woken up crying... NO LIE, EVERY NIGHT!!!!  Of course now he doesn't have to be picked up or fed or anything like that, but he will wake up crying, lie there and cry and then either go back to sleep or wake me up for no reason.  So, about 4 or 5 times a night, my door opens (which wakes me up) and I get to deal with, "I'm hot.  Is it morning?  Can I have breakfast in the morning?  I need to go potty."  Seriously??  I might as well have a newborn because I'd have to get up about the same amount of times every night.

And every year at his check up I talk to the doctor about it.  He offers no advice, solutions, etc.  I'm going to make an appt with his ENT to look into why he wakes up so much and perhaps there's a solution i.e. tonsils/adnoid removal. 

I love my kids to pieces, but some days, I seriously wish I had someone I could call and just say, "hey, will you take this kid for the day, week, month, cause seriously- I'm about to go bat $hit crazy over here!"

Anyone else feel this way or am I just a horrible monster?

19 comments:

  1. You are so not alone my daughter its the same way except for waking up at night and she is 7 but she did have a bad habit of waking up at 4 am wide awake. I had her tested for adhd but the meds don't work for long so now they are looking into a mood disorder she its in kindergarden for the 2nd year and has been suspended once each year and I just found out she has been banned from all remaining field trips because of her behavior. she is a sweety and wants to help everyone but its getting her in trouble I'm tired lol.

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  2. Any kind of sleep interruption from kids is unwelcome- but especially when they are old enough to "know better!"

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  3. Oh my god - so here i am googling "my son drives me crazy", and i find your post! girl - i have a 9 year old boy who sounds just like yours, although he does sleep through the night. that said, he wakes up at 6:30 every morning, regardless of how late he goes to bed.

    he is a pain in the ass!! yes, i love him and i know that someday this kid is going to do amazing things, but right now, he is constantly talking, trying to entertain (and not in an entertaining way), asking for things, wanting to tell me things. he talks to himself and the tv all the time. and he's a bit of a drama boy - "my leg hurts, my head hurts, my throat hurts, my toe hurts....can i have some advil?" just this morning he woke up holding his throat, talking in a soft, scratchy voice, "my throat hurts...should i take some ibuprofen?" and then after i checked him out, he went on to play frenetically, only to complain about his throat when he came down for a breath.

    don't get me wrong - i am a very on top of it kind of mom. i don't take illnesses lightly, and my kids are never neglected in this way. but i'd be sending my kid to the doctor every week if i bought into all his little aches and pains. he's just an intense little dude.

    of course i've had him checked out for adhd, etc., but the funny thing is he is a model, straight A student. just yesterday at the parent/teacher conference, the teacher said he is a role model for others in the classroom, always on task, always well behaved. while of course that makes me feel incredible proud, it also makes me wonder why my husband and i are so frustrated at home when he is apparently so amazing at school.

    advice? take time for yourself. hang out with your girlfriends. have a glass or two of wine! let his father take over for a while. give yourself space. i have been hoping for years that my son would grow out of his ways, but it just seems like that manifest in a new way as he gets older. i still hold out hope! patience is not one of my strengths, and he certainly tests my patience on a daily basis.

    good luck to you, girlfriend! i so know how you feel! :)

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  4. Thank you soooo much for your comment! Although knowing that at 9 he may drive me equally as batty, it's great to know that he can still do well in other things!

    My son can be a bit of a hypochondriac sometimes too, but luckily he doesn't know about all the medications yet. He had his tonsils out and milked that a lot longer than he should have because he knew he would get to eat more "junk" food and less real food if he said his throat hurt. Plus he thought the chewable tylenol was candy and still tries to think of excuses to have some.

    Hopefully despite how much they drive us nuts (and we love them anyway) they will become awesome adults... and their wives' problems, lol.

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  5. This is great, I like how you put a humourous spin on the situation. (Which is important)I can totally relate to what you're going through with your son. He sounds EXACTLY like my 5 yr old daughter. The constant need for attention is so mentally exhausting I just want to scream, when I read "He's hungry, he's thirsty, his neck hurts, his foot hurts, his finger hurts, his hair hurts, his eye hurts, his socks hurt, he's hot, he's cold, he wants gum, he wants gum, he wants gum, he wants gum..." I laughed out loud, that sums up my daughter. She also wakes up all night, every night which just adds to the exhaustion and never ending cycle of neediness. Just last week we had her tonsils/adenoids removed-she's still waking up at night though. I will let you know when and if it ever stops but for now I have just resigned my self to personal slave/raving lunatic until further notice.

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    1. Luckily for me the sleep thing has been resolved. He now sleeps through the night and I am usually up before him every day. But the neediness thing is still there. On days where I'm home, he is still constantly asking for things and if I say no, he cries.

      Keep me posted on when/if your situation changes- is your daughter in school yet? My son starts preschool next week and I'm hoping that makes a difference.

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  6. I can completely relate - my son is 9 and it hasn't gotten any better. He doesn't even PLAY IN HIS ROOM! He has to be near me at all times and when I FINALLY get to the point where I cant take it or yell - he says "You hate me" or "You don't care about me" - which is COMPLETELY untrue. I get up to live and work everyday BECAUSE of him. I could be doing something SO much different with my life, but instead, I live for him...only him. Why ONLY him? Because why would a man - in his right mind want to stick around?!?!?! Ugh. I'm so tired.

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    1. NINE??? Oh no, you've officially made me paranoid. Although it does sound like you are saying he is an only child, which could be what's happening. It also seems like you are saying you're a single mom. Pardon me if I'm assuming too much. So you are his life. I purposely had my son (not the new one, the one that this post is about) so my daughter wouldn't be an only child. I couldn't imagine what it would have been like not to have my brothers to play with growing up! So, I can see how frustrated you must be and I feel for you! I think my sister-in-law had a similar issue when she met my brother. Her son was 6 or so I think and it had only been the two of them for awhile.

      My daughter will occasionally pull the "you don't love me card" from time to time, but I know she is saying it to get a reaction from us, which we don't give. I just remind myself that kids aren't rational and don't think before they speak.

      I totally feel for you and suggest finding your son a playmate or finding a babysitter that charges by the hour that can entertain him while you go out and have some peace!!! Let me know how it goes!

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  7. i feel for all of you on here! i felt like im the only one in the same boat as all of you.... my son is 6 and i feel like a looney person!! it makes me feel awful and terrible, and i feel like normal families dont have these problems...he makes me absoutely nuts... he nags nonstop literally from the time he wakes up until when he goes to bed and that is no exaggeration,constantly saying he needs something to eat and we could of had dinner literally 10 minutes before that, its become a habit at bedtime even if he has eaten dinner right before bed or he has a snack, as soon as hes told to brush his teeth" IM HUNGRY!!!!" and when hes told hes already eaten theres no way he needs anything and its an excuse to stay up longer, he will scream for 2 hours, ive tried ignoring it, taking toys away, time out.. talking to him when hes calmed down... etc. nothing works. its mentally and physically exhausting, the worst one is this kid would stay up til 3am if we let him and wants to get up at 6am on the weekends and wake everyone in the house up, but if he has school its like trying to pry a nail up out of the floor....the thing is, he never gets in trouble at school, he has friends, hes polite and doesnt have any disabilities. i dont know if this junk is all for attention, and ive talked to him about all of it, he could get out for 8 hours and play with a friend all day long and then the second we get in the car... cried and howls that he" never gets to do anything fun!" i feel like a monster for feeling this way, but i feel like hes the most ungrateful, whiny child ever... i too have been told all this behavior is just a phase... but this" phase" is starting to take a toll on me

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    1. Is your son an only child? The food thing is pretty much exactly how it goes for us. He doesn't finish the food on his plate whether he likes it or not, but then asks for something else 10 minutes later. No matter how many times his dad tells him not to ask for food while he's at work, L still does it. And it's not like I don't feed him at regular intervals either.

      Unfortunately for you, but fortunately for me, I don't have to deal with the screaming at bedtime because of the food. And I do feel bad because he is a really good kid, just super duper annoying. I do think it has to do with attention. He always wants to play and has a hard time entertaining himself.

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  8. yes I completely understand.I have been here since day one.My son doesnt go to day care of a family members house unless i am working. His father didnt meet him until he was one and he never helps out any ways. He never pays bills.I am also 7 mos preg. I have to make sure our family is taken care of all by myself every day. I get barely any hepl from him. it is annoying....

    Now my son is always up my butt. and when he is not, he is usually doing something he isnt suppose to do... IE.. Dumping juice on the floor. If I tell him no he does it any ways. then i get really mad and scream and he cries and i feel like shit for it... What can i do so i dont flip like this and how can i make him mind

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    1. I know that my kids have done okay for short periods of time with sticker charts, but I don't have a lot of advice for you unfortunately. Trying to get my son to entertain himself is difficult, but luckily for me I don't have to worry about him doing naughty things, just being (as you put it) "up my butt." I am just anxiously waiting for my 7 month old to get big enough that they can play together and not bug me.

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  9. My son is also up my but 24/7 well when he is not with his dad on weekends and holidays ...and i am doing the sahm thing now ....since i got engaged ....he is sooo winey ...no don't do that ....and.you can bet some kind of winey noise emanates from his gaping mouth ... that's if he doesn't full on start crying... he does sleep but getting him to go to sleep is real a ball!! I love him dearly and i know he is still little but geez ( 3 1/2 yrs) i really just want to know how much he gets away with at his dads !!!

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    1. You mentioned how hard getting him to go to sleep is. I notice that all my kids are much more prone to tears if they are tired... which since they refuse to sleep when they should... is often.

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  10. I was searching for "my 5 year old drives me crazy" and found your post....Now I feel a lot better...knowing that I am not bad and many of us have to deal with similar situations...

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    1. Glad it helped! I think you are FAR from alone in your thoughts!!

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  11. Omg, I have a 2 yr old and he is just like the same way your describing your son I was feeling terrible when I was thinking I needed a much needed break from mommy world.. thank god i am not alone his really needy and to top it off he don't lisen

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    1. Nope, you're not alone. I can not imagine any mom not wanting a break, but having needy children is sooooo tiring!

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  12. The kid is 4. How is he supposed to be independent? Of course he's always there. Where else would he be? A hobby ? Really?

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