![](\"\/helen\/blog\/images\/Adrian_with_lens_hood.jpg\")
\nForty-eight months; four years today.<\/p>\n
\nForty-eight months; four years today.<\/p>\n
It isn’t easy to be Adrian right now. He is anxious and worried. He is tired. He is irritable and sensitive. He is angry. There is something in him or his life that is not letting him just be.<\/p>\n
He is worried and clingy. There’s no separation anxiety per se: he has no difficulty letting go of us, there are no tears when we drop him off at preschool, no problems sleeping in his own bed. But he wants to know all the time where I am, and if I by any chance go upstairs without telling him and he notices, he’s in tears and tells me to wait for him. In the morning when I leave for work he must get a chance to give me hugs and lots of kisses; just saying good-bye is not enough.<\/p>\n
This weekend when we were walking in the forest he held on to someone’s hand almost all the time, and when he didn’t, he stayed within a few steps of us. When Ingrid falls behind on the way home from school – not far, maybe just 10 meters – he starts to worry. At birthday parties (which we’ve had at a pace of about once per week) he insists on me or Eric staying there during the entire party.<\/p>\n
He is easily upset and inflexible. When things are not exactly the way he had planned or expected, he breaks down. No bananas in the house? “Then I won’t eat any breakfast at all!” Favourite pyjamas are in the laundry? “Then I don’t want go sleep at all!” He cries and shouts and stomps out of the room.<\/p>\n
Sometimes just saying no to him is enough, even in the kindest possible tone. Sometimes it doesn’t even need to be an explicit no, even something like “be careful here, the saucepan is hot” can cause tears and drama.<\/p>\n
If it’s me causing the problem (by warning him about hot saucepans for example) “then I won’t talk to you” and “I want to be by myself!” or “then you’re the stupidest mum in the world!”
\n![](\"\/helen\/blog\/images\/Adrian_angry.jpg\")
\nIt’s always worst when he is tired or when he has low blood sugar. Mornings are sensitive, especially before breakfast on weekday mornings when we have to wake him. Evenings likewise. We are very careful not to let him stay up too late because it will only end badly, and have repercussions the morning after, too.<\/p>\n
He’s almost always tired when I pick him up at preschool – I suspect he may not eat enough. He used to ride his balance bike to and from preschool; now he’s always too tired and I bring him home on the back of my bike. And he always needs at least one banana immediately after preschool. Some days he eats three during the 5 or 10 minutes it takes us to get to Ingrid’s school.<\/p>\n
The rest of us try to compensate. We do our best to be extra flexible and accommodative, to break bad news (such as the lack of bananas) gently. To mention alternatives, but suggest no solutions; to give choices, but not too many. It can become pretty taxing mentally, to have to be so careful around him.<\/p>\n
In between he is friendly, kind and sweet. Then he tells me I’m the best mum in the world. He asks me how my day was and likes to listen to me to describe everything I did during the day.<\/p>\n
He plays well together with Ingrid, and as far as I know he’s happy and sociable at preschool. He likes playing with girls best. For his birthday party this Saturday, his guests will be 4 girls. He used to have a few boys he played with but many are too wild for his taste. He especially doesn’t like the ones who play wild, angry games with “shooters” and lots of noise.<\/p>\n
Favourite toy: Lego, by far. Sometimes when he walks away in anger from the breakfast table he goes to our office (which is the room furthest away from the kitchen) and slams the door shut. Other times he notices the bin with Lego blocks on his way and stops there, and calms himself down with some building work.<\/p>\n
Favourite clothes: pyjamas.
\n![](\"\/helen\/blog\/images\/Adrian_looking_over_shoulder.jpg\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Forty-eight months; four years today. It isn’t easy to be Adrian right now. He is anxious and worried. He is tired. He is irritable and sensitive. He is angry. There is something in him or his life that is not letting him just be. He is worried and clingy. There’s no separation anxiety per se: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[633,665],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adrian","category-adrian_monthly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5375"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5375\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5380,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5375\/revisions\/5380"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.toomik.net\/helen\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}