Ungracious Host

I haven't been writing here for a while, because everything has been going pretty smoothly up to this point.

Spane has a friend, Leo, that he likes very much. Leo and he are the same age. He also has a friend named Mateo, that he also likes. Mateo is also an only child, and is a year younger than Spane. So, I thought it would be nice if we could have a Kid's Christmas party, and Spane invited Leo and Mateo and Noelle. He also invited David G. and his sister, Helen, but they couldn't make it.

When Mateo's mother dropped him off, she warned him that he had to do everything I said, and that he had to be a good boy.  I wondered at the time why she would say something like that because Mateo is such a sweet boy.

Everything was going just fine until Mateo took Spane's Lego helicopter and started playing with it, without asking Spane's permission first. Spane got very upset. I told him he was not being a nice host, and then I got all the kids together, and told Mateo that we really liked him, but could he please ask before he used something. Mateo apologized but, Spane would not accept the apology.  Mateo kept playing with the Lego helicopter.

He actually managed to scare both Leo and Mateo with screaming and accusing.  Poor Mateo had to hide in the bathroom.    Both Noelle and Zeik tried to reason with him, but to no avail.

Finally, John arrived and I thought maybe things would get better.  Instead they got worse.  He started hitting John, and kicking me.  Finally, while Amber took hold of his feet, John took hold of his arms and tried to calm him down.  I went inside to tell Mateo that I was going to call his mother to pick him up - but that it was not his fault.

Leo's mother arrived and took Leo home.  I don't think that Leo will ever be coming over here again.  Spane was so horrible.  If I were Leo's mother, I would not let my child come around Spane at all - and I told Spane that.

After everyone but John left, he kept on going on about how bad a parent I am and how he wants new parents.  He slammed the bathroom door repeatedly. At one point I asked him how he would feel if he had a parent that beat him all the time, was drunk all the time, and yelled at him all the time, that left him alone, didn't feed him much.  He said that even though I wasn't any of those things, I might as well be because I was such a bad parent.  The last thing he said to me was that my Christmas present sucked.  John asked me what I was getting him for Christmas and I said, "Not a damned thing."

I mean it, too.  I'll put things under the tree from Santa, but there will be nothing from Mommy.

I'm sitting here typing this.  He's playing with John, still not quite right, still angry, but much calmer than earlier. He has not apologized, or even acknowledged that he hurt me.  I'm very, very hurt.  I know I'm a good parent, and I know he loves me very much, and I know he thinks that I am a good mother.  But, what he said has hurt me to the quick.  I'm done.

A while later, Amber called me and asked if I still wanted to make the roll-out cookies.  I asked Spane if he wanted to, and he said, yes he did.  Then I told him that he needed to say he was sorry to a whole bunch of people.  I made him get on the phone and personally apologize to Mateo and Amber.  Then he apologized to me, and John.

Amber came back with Noelle and Mateo.  Spane and Mateo started at it again, and John told them both to stop.  Mateo wanted to spend the night at Amber's, and Spane wanted to as well.  The deal was that Spane and Mateo had to be nice to each other or Spane would have to stay home.

At one point, Amber took me aside and told me that she was watching Mateo push Spane's buttons.  I felt really bad, because all this time, I thought it was Spane being a bad host.  Now I know why Mateo's mother said what she said.  Apparently, Mateo gets attention by pushing buttons - that's not a good thing.  I feel terrible now, because Spane kept on saying that no one believed him.  I really was being a bad parent because I wasn't listening to my child enough.

I want to discuss this with Spane's therapist on Wednesday.  I want to see if there might be some kind of social skills or anger management class Spane could go to.  If he had been able to tell us what was really wrong, maybe some of this could have been avoided.  The other thing Spane needs to learn is how to deal with button pushers.  Hey, I'd take that class, too.  I've got very sensitive buttons myself.

The Douglas is a Dick Show

For those of you who have been following the Douglas is a Dick show, he called me tonight and bragged that he had just come back from Nevada, where he won a bunch of money, but he went shopping and spent it all. I just kept saying "that's nice", "that's nice".