Making poisons

Ok, Ok, I know that you are all thinking I am about to overstep the mark here, but let me explain...

Being a person with a creative mind, I often venture off into fantasy land about how my life could be easier and how I could put my stepson to sleep for a week or so without, a) getting caught, and, b) causing him serious physical and psychological harm. I mean surely, with all the genetic engineering going on these days we could develop a safe little acupressure point on a kids ear that when tweaked, rendered the kid slumbering for, oh, about 24 hours. This would, I believe do wonders for the quality of modern parenting and bring the divorce statistics right down. Of course it could be deactivated at any time and not used more than once every 72 hours, but at least it would give sole caregivers a chance to actually take a shit in peace twice a week, and let parents have a romantic sleep in on their wedding anniversaries.

In our house, seven mornings a week, four weeks a month, twelve months a year, my stepson wakes us all up with a hearty thud on the floor as he leaps from his top bunk onto the wooden floor of his bedroom (the ladder is just there for decoration). This is followed by much chortling and chattering as he bosses around his army (who apparently are hearing-impaired given the volume of his voice!) of imaginary friends. They laugh and argue with each other and from what I can gather engage in armed combat on a daily basis. Even through my earplugs that I have jammed so far into my ears they are touching my brain, I am jarred to consciousness in such an abrupt manner I feel the hair follicles on my head expand and shed their wares. Soooo, I spend my days thinking about making poisons. Little tricks that I could utilise to ease the pain, so to speak.

Now that I have made this public – well to be honest it’s not the first time have expressed such sentiments, I also have to add that this makes it quite stressful when I am left in sole charge of my stepson. I mean, imagine if he had one of his frequent accidents, and I was the only one present?

This is the child who, every morning while waiting for the school bus (on my watch I might add!), climbs to highest limb of the tree by the drive way, and when the bus appears around the corner, leaps like an orang-utan on speed out of the tree, and sprints to the awaiting bus under the gaze of the highly bemused children on it! One foul landing and there would be splintered bone and muscle everywhere! And whose fault would this be???

My partner and I have great debates about the need to supervise this hellion. I believe that he would really benefit from firm boundaries and fairly strict management. Letting him know that he just isn’t a law unto himself... (I have flashbacks to Lord of the Flies), while my partner leans more toward the hands off approach to parenting; that being, disappear into the shed for four hours and leave the child to rampage the property...which is all good and well if you live on a desert island, however, we all need to co-exist, and ideally the child needs to learn co-operation and respect, and please god, just a wee bit of obedience.

I have veered away somewhat from my theme of making poisons in the rant, but rest assured, the cauldron is a-bubble...