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Dad reports:
Yesterday was not a good day for Tommy and I. After missing his bus he was asked to put the clean dishes away. He griped and moaned and complained and begged to do it when he got home from school. Mom and I explained that another load would have to be done while he was in school. He started yelling and was sent to the porch but he was carrying a strainer and I was afraid that in his aggitated state he would fidget a hole into it. So I step out on the porch to ask him for the strainer and he freaks out and jumps off the porch landing on the wet ground. He may have actually turned his ankle some but he overreacted and dropped to one knee. He was dressed in new jeans and a good shirt and was actually looking pretty handsome. I barked at him to stand up and when I lunged toward him to help him up he dropped to the ground and started rolling in the mud.
I got mad and tried to pick him up but couldn’t budge his mass so I begged him to stand up. I begged him to get on the porch. He just lay in the mud yelling “my ankle my ankle.” I wanted to get him out of the mud. I wanted to check on his ankle. I could not move him and I could not look at his ankle positioned the way he was and I was getting angry. We were also in a time crunch as I had an appointment that would not/could not move. So I did the one thing I’ve been threatening for a long time. I took my belt off and let him have one across his right butt check. He howled and jumped to the porch. I said to get in the chair and he refused to move. I raised the belt and he jumped into the chair.
Mom and I talked about this later and how wrong it was. She is adament that the children should never be struck. Frankly, Tommy is so over the line sometimes that I’m not in agreement but I have agreed that it was a mistake and should not be repeated. I had to ask myself in post mortem, “would you have done that to a five year old?” It is so hard to remember that despite Tommy’s 44 inch waist and growing, his adult features, his intelligence, and teenage smell that he really is just a big 5 year old.
Tommy spent the day complaining about his ankle. The ankle had no bruising, no discoloration at all, no swelling, no nothing. I gave him a motrin to which, when offered another later, he groaned “I don’t want it. Why would I want another when the first one didn’t work?” Eventually Tommy got tired of not being able to move around the house easily and he discovered that if he walked sideways while dragging his foot he didn’t feel pain. Throughout the day the various things he did with his foot while “we weren’t looking” were to push the couch back a foot, roll a toy between his ankles, flex his toes (a fidget), among other things. His limp was exaggerated to Igorian dramatics.