Earning Trust

My crazy liar is at it again. Last night I let him stay up late to watch the football game. We are all about football in our house, even the very littles! LOL But Rob most especially so. Staying up late is a pretty big gift in our house also because he has a hard time functioning with less sleep. He just as my grandmother used to say, "can't think his way out of a paper bag with both ends open and a pair of scissors" when he is tired. So I always plan for the next day to be super low key if he is up late.

I was alternately watching Project Runway and the football game. (I know, weird, but it is still preseason guys!!) I realized I could hear this weird unidentifiable noise. I went to our hall and peeked into the living room. There I watched Rob slowly tip his head back to the ceiling, then haul off and spit onto the living room floor. Actually make that living room rug. Can we all have a unison "ewwwwww" here! LOL OK I am not sure if I was really just mesmerized by the grossness or if I was being diligent in making sure my eyes were not deceiving me, but I watched him do this 3 more times. At which point I went into the living room and told him he could go to bed now and why. That would be when he told me he wasn't spitting, he was blowing on a fly. Uh, huh. Swamp land in Lousiana for sale!!! I don't know what all he could have come up with to explain the tell tale wet spot on the rug, but I didn't give him time to create.

This morning I asked him to write 10 pairs of adjectives for the word "spit." That was really just his English brush up for the day. We have been struggling with getting him to use sufficient meaningful adjectives. I figured use what he was apparently interested in. I must say the pairings were well thought out and effective in their descriptive abilities. Ugh. (laughing though)

Then I asked him to write me three paragraphs about honesty and responsibilty. He wrote this while I was at work and I read it after supper tonight. It was telling. It is clear that he feels the need to be honest to his siblings and that he feels responsibility to them. But there is nothing there that would indicate those feelings translate to Kirsty or I.

This is undeniably sad. It is also what I expected he felt. My guess is that he is perpetually waiting for us to show him that we can not be trusted. That we will fail him somehow in some way that I don't even know about. Because the first five years of his life, that is what the adults in his life did. Over and over. And at some deep level all adults are the same to him.

What he doesn't know is that I will keep working every day to show him that I may not always be the parent he wants. But I am the parent he can trust. Always. That I follow through on my promises. That I love him unconditionally. Even when I have to steam clean my rug.