Jeff's Journal

My 43rd year has concluded, and I begin my 44th year of my ongoing mission to seek out new challenges & new experiences in my life as an adult and a parent.

Updates of Important findings from the past year are as follows:

After I grew up & became an adult, birthdays generally for me (minus a few very special ones) are "just another day". Don't get me wrong, I always appreciate the sentiment & yes I realize that I am another year older, but what I mean by that is usually I don't feel any different than the day before. Today is different, and I'm not especially happy with the reason why. I ended my 42nd year in an argument with my son. Not just any argument, but one where I "blew a gasket" (verbally only) in anger. I'm not going to get into the details of the argument, but suffice it to say, it was a slow escallation of annoyances between him & I, and then he said something that struck a very sharp nerve with me, and off the rails I went. The words that I said to him in return, letting him know what he did wrong and how wrong it was for him to say it weren't hurtful in themselves, but with the level of anger that I was at, the "presentation" most certainly was. Thankfully, after a few moments of this, cooler heads prevailed, but not until after my hands were shaking, and Jonathan was in tears. It dialed back further, and it ended with us uncomfortably hugging it out, him still in tears.

So today, how do I feel?

Sad, that I let my (thankfully rare but explosive) anger get the better of me.
Embarrased, with myself because it got the better of me with my son as "the target" .
Old, because these are the types of moments from my childhood that I promised myself that I would never repeat with my own child, and yet here we are.

"Happy" 43rd birthday to me....

Thanks to everyone who came and made it a great show!

Thankfully I am not referring to my son. Who, am I referring to , you might ask? My Sister-in-Law's son. When ever he comes over (we are babysitting him this evening through tomorrow morning), he is this mean, vindictive little boy, who has picked up on the nastiness that is given off by his mother & father (mainly toward each other, they never married, but when they split up a few years ago, it might as well have been a "bitter divorce", and to this day, they deal VERY poorly with each other). A good example of this nastiness that he has picked up on, can be best shown, by the fact that his mother (who dropped him off) mentioned something to us, while her son was in earshot, that he shouldn't have heard, and then later this evening when his father called to wish him a good night, he immediately "tattletaled" on his mother to his father, so that it could be used against her.
But, that as an aside, whenever he comes over, not only is he difficult to deal with, but Jonathan immediatly switches into a defensive mode, and basically becomes instantly opposed to ANYTHING that his cousin wants to do. It becomes a battle just to get the two of them behave themselves, nonetheless to get along for more than 10 minutes at a time. He is constantly trying to do things to get Jonathan in trouble, or just flat out doing things in a mean and smart*ss manner, with a smirk on his face that quite clearly means "I'm going to do what I want, and f*ck you while I do". There are not many 7 year olds that know this look, but he has it down pat. Unfortunately, yet another "pickup" from his parents. Now, outside our home, he may, and very likely does get away with that behaviour with his own parents, but not the hell in our home!
Over the years, my interactions with my sister in law have cooled to the point where we deal relatively well with each other, and thankfully, she only asks us to babysit her son, once in a blue moon, but over the past few years, as he has grown up, he has just become more nasty & mean. It's never a pleasant experience dealing with him. 
But what can one in my position do? Tell my sister-in-law that her son is a royal terror/ PITA & I don't want her son to have anything to do with my own son? I'm at a loss on this one.