Dave took the boys to The Jungle today, for a birthday party of a classmate of Julian's. I suggested he bring Gabriel to play too, as a member of the general public. But, not being familiar with Jungle parties, it turned out that keeping Gabriel separate wasn't really practical, and the generous hosts of the party invited him in for pizza and cake. Once again, a Doudna boy crashed the other's party.
The boys both had a great time, but Dave witnessed an episode that furthers our concern about Gabriel's aggression, if we can call it that yet. Gabriel and a first-grader (and Julian to some extent) got involved in some game in the ball pool. Some conflict arose, shouting and throwing balls ensued, and in short order, the other kid decided he'd had enough and tried to get out. But Gabriel went after him and restrained him, holding his legs so he couldn't easily climb out of the ball pool. The kid got annoyed enough to whack Gabriel in the face, but Gabriel wouldn't let go. By then, Dave could see this was really conflict (it's hard to tell sometimes), and intervened to distract Gabriel so the kid got free. Dave said he could see then that Gabriel was truly angry that the kid got away. As usual, Gabriel wasn't at all deterred by the fact that the other kid was older and much bigger (Julian sidelined himself from the conflict).
And this morning, Julian was crying because Gabriel hit him with his teddy bear (usually a benign, but still obnoxious act), while Julian was in bed.
So, another "intervention" talk tonight. Gabriel clearly blames us for these talks, outraged that we're doing this "to him" again. We talked sternly again about hitting, reviewed the consequences with him, and told him that he wasn't getting any TV tonight. (I'd already sequestered Julian upstairs with a Wallace and Gromit video.) He started to cry angrily and then started in with the threats, claiming he was going to watch TV anyway. Incredibly, we managed to deflect it and talk about other things, and he got over it much more quickly than we expected.
This is new ground for us, the talking-tos and serious non-immediate consequences -- how and when to carry them out, for instance. We should have taken the TV away this morning when we first heard he'd hit Julian (he admitted it), but the TV-watching is also tied to cleaning up the family room. How would we have enforced that? Would the TV deprivation later in the day be too far removed from the offense for it to sink in? These are things we have to figure out.
Later in the day, something happened that caused me to get a good look at Gabriel's shoes. And Oh My Heavens -- talk about bad mom me! They were full of holes! Not only was much of the stitching worn off, causing holes at the seams, but the toes had holes worn through the rubber toe protector things. So after working out the logistics with Dave, I took the boys to Vallco to get Gabriel some badly needed new shoes.
On top of the awful condition of his shoes, he'd grown a size too. I guess this can happen if you don't put the kid's shoes on every day anymore!
After the shoes, even though it was 5:15pm and getting very late to be out, Gabriel gave me the little push I needed to go get my little scraggamuffins some haircuts. And, we pulled it off before Supercuts closed at 6pm. New shoes, haircuts...a banner day for accomplishments for me!
But nothing matches the challenge I face tomorrow morning. Dave is flying to Phoenix for the day, leaving the house at 5am. That leaves me with all three to get ready and drop off and make a 7:45am physical therapy appointment. If I can do that, anything's possible.
2/10/08
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