Glutton For Punishment

I went to T-Bird’s yesterday evening to drop off a DVD she wanted to borrow. I had to hear how J. has outgrown all of Nate’s clothes (his size 5's I’m assuming, since when he went into 6's he started wearing slims, which J. cannot) but then I looked at the tag on the shirt he was wearing (8/10) and it was at least three inches too long in the sleeve and drooped a good 2 ½ inches on the shoulder seam. Now, you can’t tell me the kid wouldn’t have looked better in a 6/7. I have no idea why she does this shit. Its the most fucking annoying crap. Then I had to listen to how J. is only five, yet he can sit and watch Lord of the Rings. I told her that Nate could watch Lord of the Rings at six, which is I believe when the first one came out on video... summer of 2002?? She said, "No, I believe he was 6 ½." No bitch! That’s how old he was when he went to THE THEATER to see The Two Towers. All two hours and 55 minutes of it!!! And who the fuck cares????? (Nate went on Adderall the Fall/Winter of 2002) Look, when we went to see "Star Wars - The Phantom Menace" in 1999, we left right around the pod racing scene. That’s how bad Nate was. And it was torture sitting there that long. True, he was three years old but still had no capacity to sit for over 15 minutes. This is why we didn’t go to see The Fellowship of the Ring and I waited until it came out on video. When I look back on the torturous scenes of our life (any type of church service, movies etc.) I am reminded of how far Nate has come. I had serious, serious doubts about taking him to see The Two Towers. I knew it would be excruciatingly long for an ADHD child, regardless of what was going on up on the screen. I knew the theater would be crowded making the likelihood of him disturbing another patron a distinct possibility. Love his heart. He sat through that whole thing... the last 30 minutes holding out the urge to go to the bathroom. I told him I would go with him and he said, "No, Mom. I am staying and watching the WHOLE movie." All righty then! And then he sat through "Pirates of the Carribean," and then "Return of the King." Nate is the kind of kid at home, that doesn’t actually sit and watch the movie, he has his swords out (different ones of course for LOTR and POTC) and acts out the movie as its playing. (Of course, I would never do that... ahem) It’s a good thing he can’t shoot webbing out of his wrists either. However, I don’t feel a desire to bring that up all the time. I don’t feel the need to point out the things that I know he did before J. did... like walk. I don’t feel the need to compare an apple to an orange. I think its just fine to share the experiences you have with your children, anecdote for anecdote. Like the time Nate called his dad a bitch. We all have a story of verbal slip-ups of our kids. The problem is, with T-Bird, it becomes a game of one-upmanship, something I refuse to participate in. If I’m on the phone, I roll my eyes and try to think of something I have to do so I can worm out of it. If its in person, I do try to hide my displeasure but not all the time. It just ruins the entire time for me, because when she starts she doesn’t shut up. Remember the little boy and his mother at bowling? How she said that her son was really close to Nate in scoring even though he wasn’t using the bumpers? Yeah, that’s a friend of T-Birds. I do try to brag on Nate in his presence, not so much so as to embarrass him or anything but I want him to know that I’m proud enough of him to call my friends and his grandparents and tell them he made the B Honor Roll. He’s worked very hard for that. If I could even begin to explain how absolutely horrible, terrible and disheartening his first years in school were, you would understand what a huge accomplishment it is for him to do this. It seems as though someone who has been in my life as long as she has would realize this too. Yet, its "Oh, how great! Now, J. 's teacher said ... blah, blah, blah." I’ve got to the point where I just don’t care about her anymore. I’ve told her before, when we’ve fussed and she’s wondered why I haven’t come around, that she’s self-centered. She calls me to talk AT me, not with me. She calls to tell me what going on in HER life... not find out anything about mine. Or she calls because she wants something. Plain and simple. After I told her how self-centered she was, she actually improved and we had some really meaningful conversations and our friendship took a different turn. But, here we go again. Its sad because I love J. very much. I love T-Bird too, and the rest of her family. But its gotten to the point when she says J.’s name, I just cringe because I know what’s coming. And frankly, I was two hairs-breadth away from calling her in to Child Protective Services over him this past summer. She wanted to yell at him and bitch and moan about how horrible he was and I told her, finally, that he was only reacting to his environment and that environment was unhealthy and yes, I meant her. I know, realize and admit that some of Nate’s shortcomings are no one’s fault but my own. I realize that yelling at him is no better than hitting him. By losing my temper instead of examining exactly why I’m upset, is my fault and to build a better kid, you have to build a better parent. I digress. I hate feeling this way about someone. I hate cringing when the phone rings and her number comes up. I hate not answering the phone because I don’t want to listen to the shit. And really, I don’t have the time, inclination nor energy to hash out her self-centeredness again. Its part of her personality, either I accept it or I don’t. Either I deal with it, or I leave it. Eh, this sucks. I’ll bury this later. Just had to get it off my chest, again.