Ritalin War

My day is horrible. Horrible! What a way to end the week. It started when I had one day back at work yesterday after the Passover holiday. From freedom back to slavery. Isn't it supposed to be the other way around? I sat quietly while my boss gave me simple orders to follow.

"Don't sit here. Sit there" he barked, ordering me to sit in a chair a few feet in back of his secretary, amongst his usual queries of "what are you doing?" while he sees me toiling away at stuff that he didn't dish out to me.

My son was supposed to go back to school today and told me he was going to take the ritalin perscribed to him so I don't have to get daily calls from frustrated teachers and school staff about his behavior and maybe he might even learn something to boot. But I spent from 7:30 am to 9:30 am talking, cajoling, bribing, threatening, crying and God knows what in order for him to take his pill. It's a tiny fucking pill. And he's too nervous to swallow it. I sat down by the piles of filthy laundry, utterly exhausted and threatening him with no computer for the weekend if he doesn't just try. I began to cry. My Good Daughter comes out of her bedroom and yells like a wayward preacher at Mr. Werewolf.

"Look what you did to your mother. You will burn in hell for this. People burn in hell for making their mothers cry." I just thought what a true fuckhead he is. He is 14 years old and such a wimpuss. Life would be so much easier for him if he only tried. He'd do much better in school and maybe even have a chance in life. Not to mention I paid a fortune for the top Jerusalem psychologist to test him for Dyslexia and ADHD and other stuff, which I couldn't afford and together with all those "if onlys" piling up in my head I couldn't stop weeping. Then my Good Daughter calmed down before I did and just warned him he'll end up like those crazy Jerusalem homeless men, if he doesn't take his pills. She tried to persuade him and then her boyfriend arrived, and took his turn cajoling him with brotherly camaraderie.

"I want to see YOU swallow a pill" ordered my Werewolf son to the boyfriend. As no one had headaches yet, no one was ready to swallow anything for show. I remembered I had vitamins downstairs. Bingo. And it was 4 times as big as that puny pill. I showed him.

"Look"! I said - gleefully downing the plastic coated thing.

He still wouldn't put the fucking miniscule thing in his mouth.

He wanted to try it with eggs. I whipped up a batch of them and rolled the egg around the pill. And he refused that as well.

I called the school, told them he wasn't coming in today. We'll try again Sunday.

I called up a friend who had a kid on ritalin. How did she get her 8 year old onto it??

"You melt it with hot water, then throw it in the drink. Try some yourself, all the mothers get addicted to it"

At least half her advice was useful, but I also think he has issues about taking the pill, thinking it'll turn him into the Fly or some other horror movie character.

After picking up some stuff at the bakery, I came home to find him gone, out of the house. I checked the balcony. Last time I saw him, he was sitting there and I neurotically thought we tortured him with this pill business. Oh God. Did he fling himself over the balcony, in teenage angst??? Nah. Not a chance. Not when he's too afraid to take a teenie weenie meenie pill.