Reality Check

I have always loved the theater.  As a child, I wanted to be an actress.  I didn't have the confidence (or the talent?) to pursue this fantasy.  Perhaps it is a cruel twist of fate that has presented me with the opportunity to daily experience live theater.  The melodramatics that my eleven-year old son brings to our daily lives are award-worthy.  I have grown tired and even sick (making for sick and tired) of the out-of-all-proportions responses Big G has to every single "adversity" he faces.

• Accidentally stumble over the edge of the carpeted stair?  Screaming as if leg being severed from body with a rusty steak knife without any anesthesia.
• Homework?  Whining as if having been sentenced to 10 years busting rock in southern Texas with a chain gang.
• Not having the favorite thing at a meal?  Complaining as if being served cold, congealed gruel with mold growing on top.

I think you get the idea.

It finally got to the point where my calm explanations which led to terse directives which led to hollering, "go to your room!" just weren't working.  So I came up with this list as a sort of reality check for him:

Horrible things that could happen to you...

You could:

1. have to write a book report.
2. stub your toe.
3. not get to have your favorite thing for dinner (or lunch or breakfast).
4. not get dessert.
5. have to go to swimming lessons.
6. have to go to school.
7. have no home and need to sleep in your car (if you have one).
8. have no food and need to eat from a garbage can (if there is one) or eat dirt and grass.
9. have to work in a factory or begging on the streets because your family needs you to help provide (or because you have no family and are on your own).
10. live where there is a war and be severely injured just because you were in the wrong place.

I wrote this list down and gave him a copy.  Whenever he even sort of starts going near his personal  theater, we go over the list.  The show usually stops before it starts.  And we get our drama fix elsewhere.