Warning: head banging pity party

Let me just say, the level of supervision my son needs is insane. The alternative is to throw up my hands and cease to care. There is a reason "they" say RAD kids should be only children. If a RADish is supervised well, there's never a moment when that one child doesn't have at least half your attention, leaving only the other half to be divided among the rest of the children. And if Mama ceases to care, there are four heartbroken children wondering what just happened.

Let me also say that I love my dear husband. It has taken him many years to be able to see our son's behavior. How could that be? Well, Daddy has always been the preferred parent because he's not the primary caregiver. So when Daddy's around and awake, behaviors are often different. (When he's really on a roll, our son even uses a different voice with each of us.) Because of that, it took a very long time for Loren to be able to connect the behaviors I described to the behaviors he saw firsthand. I am SO thankful that he does understand most of what I'm going through with our son now.

Our house has several alarms; I would like to install a few more. When we started using alarms in our other house, Loren and I went through a bit of conflict over whether they were necessary, and realized that while they are not part of a normal household, ours is not normal and does require the use of alarms. When we moved, we repeated that conflict and resignation to the truth that we do need to use alarms.

Unfortunately, there are certain alarms I'm able to sleep through. This frustrates me because it limits their effectiveness. It also frustrates me because I'm selfish. I deserve a good night's sleep, uninterrupted by alarms in the first place, and it's not fair that my ability to sleep should result in our son successfully doing something stupid.

What happened last night and this morning is not earth-shattering. It's not illegal. It's not particularly dangerous. And in a normal child, it's rare and maybe even funny. But when it's typical and consistent and just one of a number of issues, oh boy does it get old!

And now we come to the point in my processing of this event when I wonder why I'm going to tell you. I imagine two responses on your part:

1) What's the big deal?
and
2) If it's not available, he can't do what he did.

The big deal is that it never ends. It's always something. Always. Unless he's swimming. And I already tell myself nearly every day that if I could just do better, this or that wouldn't happen. So far I still fall short.

Ok, so here it is: he ate the pie.

I woke up when I heard him come out of his room this morning to use the bathroom. I gave him 5 minutes... I didn't hear him go back in his room, so I got up and checked on him. He had removed a few items from under the sink, and was holding a pieplate and leftover pie in his hand. Apparently he had already consumed one piece in the middle of the night, and hid the remaining pieces behind the under-sink items for this morning.

And so the pie gets added to the list of interesting bathroom findings, and also the list of "Hey, didn't we have some ________?" items.

I know - if I don't want him eating it, I shouldn't have it in the house. I'm on it. (Dear hubby isn't fully on the health food bandwagon with the rest of us yet. Therefore, turkey dinner must include at least two pies.)

I know - no dessert leftovers. That's one of our new resolutions - hubby IS on board with that one since hearing the latest.

I know - he probably needs the same radically controversial treatment his brother needed a year ago. I'm considering how I can give him a full treat bucket and a puke bucket and find the same mindset I had with his brother, which made the whole thing ok. (BTW, it did work with his brother!) I'm afraid that initially, my level of anger and resentment might just go through the roof.

In the time it's taken me to write this, my thoughts have been racing. Now I find it hard to return and neatly conclude my post. Please keep us in prayer today. I have a fun day planned for the kids, which is basically a guarantee that Jon will do his best to screw it up. And please pray for my friend, Kathleen, whose day will be far worse than mine.