Week twenty one

My boy loves to roar. He loves Dinosaurs that roar, lions that roar, tigers that roar... you get the picture. He also is not great at knowing when is a good time to roar and when is not. We had a rough twenty-first week of the year, with lots of boundary testing and little patience. Our boy stomped one minute and was in tears the next. Whether it was in the lead up to Saturday's full moon (Clark was born on a full moon) or just something in the wind, it was not helped by being snuffly and blocked up. While you and me may become a bit hard of hearing when we are all blocked up with a cold, Clark's unilateral hearing loss means he really does struggle more when sick. 

I had a rough week myself and on Thursday when picking up our most precious bundle from childcare was informed that Clark had been playing fairly roughly most of the week. It was being noticed more when he playing with toys of animals that roar. Clobbering another child in the head with a big heavy plastic lion while roaring is generally not considered appropriate. Mind you, he had been on the receiving end of the same thing earlier in the week. In an attempt to curb this behaviour, the teachers in his room at childcare have decided to not let Clark play with the animals that roar. Hoping it will calm him down perhaps. While my husband and I have been joking about how Clark may now only play with mice and bunnies, I have been feeling a little sensitive about it. Because my boy loves to roar. And he is great at roaring. He adores dinosaurs and knows their names. It is something that he is confident with. And I do not want to take this away from him. So the Mama Lion in me comes out and I want to defend my boy. Yes, we work with him on appropriate behaviours and inside voices, but I also want to make sure that his environment is appropriate to his hearing ability. I will follow through on removing Ryan the Apatosaurus when his tail is repeatedly used to fling a lesser (but usually harder) toy across the room, but I also will ensure he has enough quiet time at the end of a busy day of straining to hear above the general ruckus. 

Sometimes it is hard to know when to accept other's assessment of what is happening for my child, and when to push back knowing that I know my son and what he needs. I have many years of this ahead of me, and have been so grateful this week for the other mothers-of-boys around me who have given me good advice on trusting my instincts and that we know our boys best. 

And let's all be honest. Who doesn't want to romp and stomp (and roar) like a T-Rex sometimes?