TGIF Finally!

For it only being 10:12 AM, it has already been a really long day!

The eldest son woke me up at 2:00 AM with an upset stomach, for which I got him out medication, which he didn't take and instead preferred to just go back to sleep.  Took me a little longer to get to sleep.  So when he got up for school at 6:00, I asked him how he felt and he told me he felt better.  That his stomach was still a little upset, but when I asked him what he wanted to do, he said he would go to school. 

Then he proceeded to miss his bus.  So I threw on a hoodie and slippers over my pjs and drove him to school, leaving little brother asleep in his room.  On the way to school, I again asked him about his stomach and he said it was better.  I told him that unless he started to feel really bad or threw up to try to stick it out as he only had a half day of school today so he is out at 11:30 because I really needed to go to work today to get stuff done for Sunday as I worked from home yesterday.  When he got out of the car at school (did I mention it was 10 degrees this morning?) he smirked, which I found odd, but let it go and went home to shower, dress, get little brother up etc.  I took the eldest son to school at 7:15.  At 8:05 the school nurse calls.  He was complaining of an upset stomach but he had not gotten sick and he had no fever.  When I talked to him (please understand, I was slightly annoyed as I gave him opportunities to not go today) I told him he could either come to work with me or stay in school till 11:30.  He elected to stay in school.

Now the smirk I feel was that he had every intention of trying to come home today, though I'm not sure of why.  Had there been no smirk, I would not be suspicious.

The other thing is that I would bet my weight loss that he neither showered nor brushed his teeth this morning (so this is a playing games morning for him which we have from time to time) because there are just clues.  Bath rug totally dry, shower barely wet, the new container of body and hair wash for men not even opened, no toothpaste spit in the sink, etc.  So either he suddenly became a neat freak about the bathroom (highly doubtful) or he did his trick of just turning on the water and never getting into the shower and then just wetting his toothbrush.

So I think it is time to change tactics as we have been fighting this hygiene thing for far too long now.  I plan on telling him my assumptions about his bathing/teeth brushing this morning, and will preface it with "I could be wrong".  I could be.  Don't think I am, but I could be.  Then I will tell him that I am no longer going to engage him in these argument.  He is 13 years old and old enough to know he needs to be clean, but if he elects not to be, then that is his prerogative.  I will also tell him that it is my prerogative that if he stinks (puberty is a smelly time when boys don't bathe, trust me) I can ask  him to distance himself from me so I don't have to smell him. 

I was watching Dr. Phil yesterday (Yes, I am a fan) and they had this 13 year old boy and stepfather arguing over the same kind of stuff.  I so identified with this as it could have been eldest son and I as we have had the same discussions.  This boy was giving the same token answers my eldest son likes to give (I don't know, I didn't, etc many lies, blah, blah, blah).  Now the stepfather dealt with him by a lot of yelling, which was not the way to go, but as the doc said "The tail was wagging the dog" in this relationship.  The kid was pulling the dad's chain all over the place.  The interviewed the kid on camera and the kid admitted to thinking he had won when he makes his stepfather angry or got him to engage in an argument.  It sort of makes sense to me, because when I do get angry with the eldest son, I am the one who is VERY engaged, while he just kind of stands there and says nothing.  So I'm all riled up and he is calm as a cucumber. 

So I am going to try to not engage over some of this stuff.  If he doesn't want to shower, he doesn't have to shower.  My hope is that if the assessment is true, once he can no longer engage me about it, he will probably more often shower than not.  I'm also going to advise him that it will only take one kid in one of his classes deciding he smells bad, for the whole class to know he smells bad, because we all know how most kids are at this age.  If they can pick on someone else, they are not the ones being picked on.  So, I'm going to try a little reverse psychology with him and see what happens.  What we're doing now isn't working.  So we need to try something else.

Dinner at Paula's tonight and then sleep lab...ugh!