Badlands

June 20, 2006 | Category: Family, It's a Trip

On Saturday morning, we leave for Omaha, Nebraska for a friend's milestone birthday party. On Monday morning, Bear and I will head off for the Badlands (CD is flying back to Chicago to work).

I've never been to the Badlands. Although I've created one or two...

A few months ago, when I was cleaning out my office (The end(?) of life as a corporate kinda-muckety-muck), I took the time to empty out the many boxes of pictures and negatives that I had collected into a single plastic bin - which I pushed under the craft table with every intention of finally sorting and organizing and enlarging/framing some of the favorites.

Today, Bear decided to paint some watercolors while I planned our trip to the Badlands (and to visit Sue's excavation point. I have mentioned how much Bear loves Sue[link]?). As I got on the phone to make my reservations in Rapid City, I hear a 'whoops'.

Bear had just spilled his paint water into the basket of pictures. Every picture we own - CD's baby pictures from Iceland, our wedding pictures and the negatives, the professional proofs of the portraits we've had taken, everything is in the bin - which somehow got the cover I put in knocked off AND moved out from under the table.

I stood. Gobsmacked.

And then I dove.

Bear stood by, going back to his painting, while I dumped out the bin and began shaking the water off the affected photos. Finally I shouted at him to help.

It took hours to individual check and dry every single print.

Halfway through, I went to Bear's room (I had sent him to bed more get him away from my steaming frustration than as punishment). I didn't mean to raise my voice - I thought I had calmed down - But from the tears in his eyes as he scooted into a corner, it was clear I was still exuding anger.

I was actually more mad that he hadn't tried to clean it up than anything. I mean accidents happen....

The last two days have been a growing pressure on him and I. Monday morning, after a crazy and overhot weekend, I woke up to come face-to-face with a nasty, arrogant, defiant, kid who looks exactly like my son.

Gone is my sweet smart boy who I love to spend time with. Now that we've had oodles of time, we seem to be more and more at odds. And the last 48 hours have been an all-out war of wills. I am baffled and frustrated.

Yesterday, I took him to his pediatrician appintment (for something else) thinking maybe he was sick and telling the pediatrician about how awful the day had been so far - the insults and just plain crazy-making behavior my son had pulled all day.

She checked him out and told me he was fine, except for the continuing allergy symptoms. The crazy high-energy make-Mommy-nuts behavior? She diagnosed it as transition illness.

"He's testing you, and your new relationship. Elia is gone, school's over, and suddenly all he has is you - and he needs to define the expectations and pattern of that in a new way."

"Yeah," I sighed as I watched him run in circles around the waiting room with his arms outstretched and bonking into innocent patients. "Not like emerging ADD or something like that? Like the school was right all along?"

"No," his pediatrician laughed, calling him over. He arrived at a gentle walk, smiling like an angel. "Can you spell this?" she asked, holding up a pamphlet on stopping smoking and pointing to the title.

He nodded and identified all the letters, which won him a sticker.

Looking at his frightened face after the picture-watering incident I felt like an utter monster. Like I was creating a badlands right in his haven of a home. And I wanted to just collapse into tears.

God, this is hard sometimes.

I crawled up into his loft bed and laid my head on his shoulder.

"Sorry," I whispered.

He nodded a little.

I pulled him close with my arm around his shoulders. "I was mad because you didn't try and clean up the water spill."

I could tell there was still a lot unsaid between us, so much left to sort out. But at least he wasn't afraid anymore so we got down and I went to make him some pasta.

(I offered him the broiled cod that me and CD had for dinner, but I got in response "No thanks, Mommy - I'm not really a fish kind of person.")

My stomach hurts, thinking how I must have looked to his little self when I lost my temper. I just don't remember being like this before I quit my job - and I was under 5 different kinds of crazy stress then.

Right now I'm angry with some friends, frustrated with CD's job choices, and yes - a little freaked out about money. But it doesn't feel like it should be affecting me worse than 6 months ago when I was facing million-dollar project overruns and firing staff.

Maybe because this is is real life, and in real life everything is personal?

I remind myself that I used to strap on my big girl panties every day and deal with worse than this, but ... no.

A couple of weeks ago, CD went to his therapist and complained that I was taking too long to transition into my new role. That I seemed stuck - even though each week has been a little better than the one before.

He came back and told me that his therapist helped him understand that it had taken over 5 years for me to develop the habits of professional mom and that he should expect it to take 5 months to a year for me to find a new path and fit into it.

And then he did the dishes.

But now CD is at school, and it's just the two of us again. I served Bear his pasta and curled up next to him to watch Power Rangers. During the commercial, he nodded to the bag of books we'd bought home from the library. "Can show me a picture of the Badlands?" he asked, between bites of spirals.

I picked my way carefully around the dozens of pictures laid out to dry.

"Here," I said, opening up one of the books.

He leaned his arm on me and we looked through the pages. I paused his show, and we spent a long while talking about our adventure. We looked at the map in the travel book and talked about the drive.

It's going to be a long trip, and never easy. But we're determined.

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