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Ever had one of those days? It seems ironic that just last week I was talking about “two mocha days”. Because, I had no idea then that Sunday would register off the mocha scale. It was just that bad. If it could go wrong, it did. It was fiasco central here yesterday.

Life is fairly chaotic here lately. IZ has been managing his own work chaos. We hear him feverishly typing but we’re steering clear to make sure he has space to deal with client melt-down. And, it’s end of term for Boy Wonder and the last minute push to get it all done keeps us crazy busy. Not necessarily a bad thing, unless of course, you realize that you have missed on portfolio item altogether. Portfolio items need to be mailed in and while school ends on Wednesday and that’s theoretically enough time to do the work, it’s not enough time if you have to mail the portfolio on Monday. Which we do!

So, in a classic, “Stop the Presses” move, the boy and I sat down and did the project. We will now attempt to make up for lost time today. It’s all good. Really, it is. It doesn’t matter that the boy has to tape his speech today and he seems to be coming down with a case of Laryngitis. Oh my.

The Laryngitis is self-induced, which brings me to the mother of all disasters: the church dinner. You’ll have to trust me on all the gory details. I’ve rehashed them all with IZ so much that I’ve driven my self to distraction. The wrong kind, too! The basics are such:

  • We attended a newcomers dinner at the local Episcopal Church last night.
  • We thought it was a family deal, it wasn’t. It was an adult deal. They’d hired (somewhat insufficient help) one 15 year old girl to watch a passel of kids.
  • Hell broke loose.

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Half way through cocktail hour (I know what you’re thinking here: Church dinner and Cocktail Hour does not compute. One word: Episcopalians. You on board now?) Boy Wonder comes rushing in, with tears streaming down his face,visibly shaking, and announces, “We have to get out of this place, NOW!”

Joy, joy. He then proceeds to explain through his sobs that he felt “threatened”, “held against his will”, “in danger”, and that he had “no other choice but the bust out of there.” He actually described his “ordeal” as “torture and HELL” and he just had to “escape.”

Now, before you panic, my child has inherited my gift of hyperbole. He’s no stranger to the dramatic. But I should also admit, the tears are not all that common any longer. He used to melt-down like that. But he was 5 and 7. Not 10. No, 10 has brought with it a sort of calmness in the storm. Now, when he gets angry or upset, he lawyers us. It’s exasperating and it rarely devolves into tears.

When I finally got to the bottom of it all, it turns out that the room the kids were being “held” in was rather small. Too small for such a group of kids. And the 15 year old, refused to let Boy Wonder leave to come find us after telling him he wasn’t going to get dinner. Uh, low blood sugar and small space= bad reaction! According to Boy Wonder (and the 15 year old collaborates this.) he attempted valiantly to persuade her with words. But she refused him out of hand and was snarky in the process. Then, when he attempted to leave, she physically restrained him and dragged him across the room and barricaded the door with her body and another child. GREAT!!

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Now, my kid was NO angel in this. He yelled at the top of his lungs to the point of losing his voice. That’s easy for him to do, it doesn’t take long in his case, but just the same his yelling caused another child to start to cry. And this babysitter chose to escalate the situation every chance she got.

I know, I told you no gory details. I lied! Man, this is a long post—feel free to skim! What I found fascinating, is that she felt she had every right to physically engage him. She’s a size zero, wears pants smaller than my kid, and my child is trained in Taekwon Do. Oh my. Fortunately, it didn’t get to that point. He managed to ram his way past her and out the door. On his journey to find us, she left all the other kids in the room alone and proceeded to follow him around stepping on the backs of his shoes attempting to trip him up. And when asked, she felt he owed her an apology.

As he relayed the story he quoted the Taekwon Do principle that he should act in honor. He explained how he looked for non-violent ways to solve his problem and was apologetic for ramming her and pulling her hair. But every time he was asked,”Couldn’t you have just waited until I came and checked on you?” He would begin to shake and cry in the re-tellng, “Mom, I was being held against my will. She made the place dangerous.” He wouldn’t back down from that.

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Was he in danger? Probably not. More likely he had a panic attack under the supervision of a 15 year old on an obvious power trip! But I don’t deny he thought he was in danger. That part was very real. Irrational, but real. In retrospect, he can see why she was compelled to keep him in (for the record, she was motivated not to keep him safe but by not getting in trouble. SOME MORON told her that she wasn’t supposed to have the kids bother the adults!). She, on the other hand, could see no problem with her behavior. Boy Wonder wasn’t the only irrational child last night!

As I told him, I’d rather he trust his instincts and be wrong. I’m willing to clean up the chaos in the end, it’s part of being his mother. Somewhere along the line, though, I did ask him, “Didn’t it ever occur to you to just ask to go to the bathroom? You know, like a diversion tactic?” He laughed, slapped his head and said, “Oh, Mom, I did panic! I should have thought of that! That would have been perfect and it would have worked, too!” Then he melted down in laughter.

Obviously, the peonies have nothing to do with this. However, I think they add a bit of calm to this otherwise chaotic event! For me, this lone peony from my garden has been a nice distraction. A diversion tactic as I face the swirling chaos of the week. I’d say it bloomed at just the right time.

Now, I’m off to mail our Portfolio!! And then to tape a very froggy Boy Wonder speech about how to make paper boxes. Which, may or may not be appearing on a YouTube near you. And then write a much promised email to Miz S on my thoughts about rearing children and religion. You can imagine, I have an opinion about that subject right about now.