Spaghettini with Spinach, Garlic, and Lemon: When tempers flare

Son has really been pushing every single one of my buttons these past few months.  He has become one of the most persnickety, picky, anal, difficult people I can imagine and I am NOT good at dealing with his massive swings of hyper spaz-isms.  In recent weeks, he gets completely, unreasonably, outrageously worked up about his....clothes.

Now, if you know me, and those who know me well know this - I do NOT get worked up about clothes.  I do everything I can to not have to think about what I'm wearing, which means I wear my "uniform" and I keep things very very very simple.  I don't want to fuss over my outfit, thinking about what looks hip or even bother with keeping in fashion.  Mostly I just want clothes to make me feel comfortable, cover all the vital parts, and allow me to move in anyway I need to move.  BUT Son is cut of entirely different cloth. (I'll interject right here that he's his father's Son and not mine, and you can draw your own conclusions.)  He has only CERTAIN things he wants to wear, and even with a drawer full of different tshirts and shorts (many many hand-me-down items) he'll search for the one thing that he wore the day before that is currently rotting in the laundry basket.  When he can't find it, he'll throw all of his other clothes from the drawer onto the floor in his quest to find it and it drives me bonkers.

This morning he asked me to help him dress for church and I got pretty excited thinking that he'd wear something I chose for him.  As I casually chatted with him about the schedule for the day, he noticed what I had put on him and he flipped out.  The whines led to cries, which lead to screams and yelling and I just walked out of the room.  I said, "Dress yourself.  I'm not helping a boy who doesn't want my help."  For about 10 minutes he sat and yelped and yelled for MOMMY and I didn't budge.  I had had it  and I was done.  Finally, somehow he managed to dress himself after I started the engine of the car to go to church and he got his act together.

This afternoon was another series of tantrums over his clothes after his swim lesson (which he cried and had a fit at as well - so you can tell I was not in a good mood.)  I brought him home, told him that I didn't want to see him for a while and shut the door of my bedroom and lay down on the bed.  Daughters figured out that Mommy was not in a good place so THEY went into their own room and shut the door and worked on their own project.  (Lovely daughters - their project was cleaning up and organizing their bookshelves which is something I've been asking them to do repeatedly.)  Son meanwhile decided to lie on the floor in front of my bedroom door and cry and wail projecting the sound of his cries into my room.  I could hear every single sniffle, every single wail, every single whine from my spot on the bed, but I just let him go...for a long long while.  Finally he grew quiet and I heard drawers of his room opening and closing.  He quietly knocked on my door and showed up with a smile on his face and the EXACT outfit I had put him in the morning which he had rejected.  I literally had to bite my fist in order to stop screaming in frustration.  

"Hi Mommy. I'm happy now."

"All the crying made you happy?"  I asked.

"I like to cry.  I'm happy now.  See?  I like these clothes.  I'm happy now."  He started giggling and laughing.

I smiled at him and said, "Someone needs to say sorry to Mommy."  

"I'm sorry mommy.  I'm happy."

It sure was a lot of noise to get him to his happy place.  I'm not sure I did it the right way, but it was the best that I could manage given the day I was having.

When I am hit with these hard hard days I don't even feel like cooking.  I feel like leaving the house altogether and seeing what happens.  As I have no wish for CPS to be called on me, I force myself to refocus and try and do something for dinner.  This dish is my simple simple dinner that really doesn't require much and I came up with based on what was left in my fridge.  It was delicious, and the kids gobbled it down, including picky son who managed to smear it all over his favorite tshirt.  He didn't have a fit though because he was too happy eating his noodles.

Spaghettini with Spinach, Garlic and Lemon
Serves 4 to 6

Ingredients
1 lb spaghettini, angel hair or spaghetti pasta

6 tablespoons olive oil
8 garlic cloves, crushed or minced
zest of one lemon
juice of one lemon
10 oz bag of baby spinach
salt and pepper to taste

Method
In a skillet heat, 6 tablespoons olive oil over medium low heat. Add garlic and cook for 10 to 12 minutes to gently cook the garlic.  Add lemon zest and lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper.

Bring a large pot of well salted water to a boil. Add pasta and cook according to package directions. Drain pasta well and transfer to a large bowl. Immediately add spinach and garlic lemon oil and toss everything together. Mound the pasta on a large platter and serve.

Printable recipe

Serve with rotisserie chicken.  Ahhh...mommy's happy now too.