The Grass Is Thirsty

George's first week of school ended.  It was a rocky start. When I called in between classes on Monday, the head of the school told me George was "testing his boundaries," and really giving them a hard time, screaming and not listening. George's tantrums are on par with a nuclear bomb going off, so I went into the week worried he might cope with the lifestyle change by acting out.

The week before, we were at a pool playdate. We've had these pool playdates frequently over the last couple months. It started out as fun, I enjoyed listening to the mom grumpily complain about everything in her life. Her gripes was generally served up with high doses of sarcasm, so I found her funny. Then it became draining, she is much more a curmudgeon than a comedian.
George was in fine form that afternoon, not listening to me and being a terrorizer in the kiddie pool. He's in his element when he's playing with a group of older boys, but he is a bull in a china shop when surrounded by babies or girl gangs, and I have to act as a George buffer. I take his abrasive play time as him getting his ya-yas out rather than being an uncontrollable beast of a child, but my playdate mom felt the contrary, and spent most of the time making judgmental faces, and moving her head back into her neck like a shocked turtle.

Toward the end of the day, after I chased George around for the last hour, she said, "Do you think he'll get kicked out of school?"
Right after she said it, I gave her a cold stare that said, "your-dead-to-me bitch." I answered, "I hope not," and then followed him off into the playground, and nonchalantly acted disinterested in her laundry list of complaints.
It was that moment when I had my reckoning. The weeks building up to this were spent reflecting on how I spend more time with this miserable person than any other adult, and it's time to say, "Adios!" A friendship breakup. The thing with unhappy people is they're like poison, and make the people around them unhappy too, and I don't need to hang out with someone who makes me feel like doo.

When I called the school on Monday, and found out George was not getting in-line, I stressed that he could get kicked out, and I'd need a back up plan. I devised one quickly. I figured we could take him to the Catholic school we moved Kiki from for being too sensitive to fit in their ridged curriculum. George would fit in well to the Catholic school if the calming sensory based learning of Montessori doesn't vibe well with him.

He did better throughout the week. Monday was rough, Tuesday was an improvement with a minor incident at the end of the day, and Wednesday and Thursday he did well. We went out to dinner Thursday night to celebrate the end of our first week. Kiki didn't completely chew her tortilla chip, swallowing the equivalent of an indian arrowhead, coming close to giving herself a reverse columbian necktie, and cried hard long after the chip dissolved. After a while, she curled up on her dad, repeating, "I want to go home."
The new schedule took it's tool on her too. Later that night she cried as I put her to sleep saying her friend was mean to George in the sandbox, and threw sand at him. I assured her that she doesn't ever have to worry about George backing down from a challenge, and a sandbox challenge is one of his favorites. "Don't worry about your brother, Kiki. He can take care of himself."
The sandbox battle was probably his favorite part of the week, and just might have been what made him want to listen to his teachers.

I have to take my own advice, and not worry about George. The truth is, the school sees this all the time. Kiki cried for the first month when we dropped her off at preschool, even her Montessori. I guess I just stress that I look like a shit parent, and I'm not sure why, since George acts like a normal 3 year old boy.
Today we kick started our weekend. George resumed his pants-aren't-an-option rule and spent an hour roaming around the yard looking for bugs and chasing his dog around shouting, "I want to to hug my brother-dog!"
I sat in the lawn chair drinking coffee. George went from pants-not-an-option to underpants-not-an-option, and after I saw him start to pee on the grass, I said, "George!! Come on! Use the toilet!"
He strolled up to me and said, "The grass is thirsty." Then I privately laughed to myself, wondering how someone could not be amused by the craziness of a little boy.

Weekending