I’m not digging this month. I didn’t expect to dig this month. But I didn’t expect to have as many problems with it as I have. Of course, I’m not one to just blame a month, am I? I haven’t ever done that before, have I? Regardless, I can hardly blame August. Not when it’s generally a pretty decent month. My anniversary is in August, after all.

But this month has been hard on us. Last month was too. It’s been a rough couple of months period. I’m still riding this hormonal wave and it’s driving me nuts. I did better at the birthday party we went to yesterday but I believe “the damage” was already done. Or maybe my hormones are reading too much into the frosty temperatures I picked up yesterday and today. Why the hormones? Why NOW? I hate hormones. But I also don’t have a lot of patience for bad behavior.

Harry’s been dealing with friends who haven’t been exactly friendly lately. The things he tells me (after I’ve had to almost literally drag them out of him) have gotten steadily worse and the things I’ve seen myself have gotten bolder and more frequent. And I know, once your child gets to a certain age you can’t protect them from that sort of thing. They need to learn how to deal with their friends themselves and work things out. But if I’m in a position to alleviate some of his pain I’m going to do it. If that means stepping in and standing up for him, I’ll do it. And if it means removing my child from the situation, well I’ll do that too. Boys will be boys but I’ll be darned if you’ll call my son a name 10 steps away from me and I’m going to ignore it.

Kids do embellish a bit, I know that. Harry doesn’t have much of a record of that yet, thank goodness. Any time he’s even tried to fudge the truth a little he’s been so easy to read that we’ve caught it right away. For now, he’s straight as a poker and even when trying to get him to tell me WHAT name he was called, he is loathe to repeat the vile word (even when the word isn’t that vile to begin with). Even then he’ll use “code” (the “BH” word took me a minute to figure out). I’m afraid this doesn’t make him too cool on the playground, however. He may never be a “cool kid” and have a small army of kids clamoring for his attentions. I’m fine with that, I wasn’t a “cool kid” and neither was his father. And we’ve both decided that we ended up better off for it too as many of the “cool kids” we knew has a lot of pressures and stresses put on them that we were glad to escape. Plus, you know, they were jerks. Being a jerk is part of being a “cool kid” half the time these days and I definitely don’t want my child to be a jerk. Better to have only one or two good friends and retain his self than to sell his soul for popularity.

Anyhow, I think I’ve gotten off track here. I’m looking forward to this month being over and done with. A little less than two weeks now. I don’t know what will make September so much better but at least it will be a fresh start.