Why do I write about pee so much? *edit*

Search my diary contents for the word "pee."

See what comes up.

It’s just not normal.

And here is yet another story about pee.

Chewie and I were sitting downstairs playing Super Mario World on the Wii Friday night.

I heard Isaiah get out of bed and walk around upstairs. I assumed he was going to the bathroom.

Then I hear him come halfway down the stairs and stop on the landing.

He tells his dad he has "to do this" and points down at his underwear.

So Chewie says "then go to the bathroom and do it!" and gets up to go help him.

Normally Isaiah gets up and goes to the bathroom in the middle of the night without any problems.

But by the time Chewie got to the halfway point on the stairs where Isaiah was, Isaiah had started going to the bathroom right there.

On the carpet.

When Chewie tried to get him back upstairs so he could hopefully finish in the toilet, Isaiah walked into the storage closet instead of the bathroom.

It became apparent to Chewie that maybe Isaiah was sleep walking.

He tried to ask Isaiah a couple questions and Isaiah responded abnormally, further confirming Chewie’s belief that Isaiah was sleep walking and completely disoriented.

I know Chewie does a lot of weird stuff in his sleep. And since Isaiah is Chewie’s clone (I sware, none of his mom’s genes are anywhere in him), it wouldn’t surprise me if Isaiah had the same tendancies.

In fact, that night, when Chewie and I finally went to bed, Chewie fell asleep first (per usual) and woke up a little while later terrified of something that was coming out of the ceiling. He was so scared he pulled the blanket up over his head. And when I tried to calm him down, he started laughing histerically. For a long time.

He wouldn’t quit.

And it was creepy.

The next morning, or even 20 minutes later when I woke him up again, Chewie had absolutely NO recollection of what I was talking about.

When Chewie dropped Isaiah off last night at his mom’s, he asked her if Isaiah had done anything like this while at her house.

She said that just last weekend Isaiah woke up in the middle of the night, walked to the corner in the hallway, pulled his pants down, peed, pulled his pants back up and went back to bed.

Very. VERY. Disconcerting. And alarming.

And she thought nothing of it. Didn’t even bother to tell Chewie so he could watch out for other problems.

Isaiah spends 27 of the 31 nights in a month sleeping at his mom’s house. He is only sleeping at our house every other weekend. So I don’t think he was just confused about his surroundings. He has slept here without problems for going on 8 months now. And he still had the little light on in his room and the nightlight on in the bathroom – both which give off a good amount of light and make it pretty easy to see where someone is going.

I don’t really know what to do anymore.

There is something deeply, deeply wrong with this child. He is acting up in school, he is still having accidents – only they are becoming increasingly more disturbing….he is becoming more and more emotional.

I just don’t know what to do. I feel helpless. Partly because by association, I am. I am not his mom, nor am I even his step mom.

But also because I definitely disagree with the parenting techniques of Lyndsey and can do NOTHING about that. And sometimes I disagree with Chewie’s techniques. And when we try to talk about it, it results in a massive argument. It doesn’t matter how I say it…but if I ever make a suggestion to Chewie, he thinks I am saying he is a bad father. And of course that’s not the case.

I just happen to understand a lot more about child development and psychology than he does.

I guess the good news is that on the one hand, I get to see what kind of father Chewie is and I can decide whether I want to raise a child of my own with someone that has the same beliefs as him. The bad news is that that is tough to reconcile when I love someone in spite of some of his lack of parenting knowledge.

Because it’s not that he is a bad parent. He definitely is not. But he is an uninformed and stubborn parent – perhaps the most dangerous kind. He is the kind of person that doesn’t really understand just how important certain things can be to a child’s health and well being…and development (like peeing in the corner, for example). He doesn’t think that that is necessarily a warning sign or anything out of the ordinary.

And I suppose if it was a one time inncodent or if there were no other significant warning signs, he might be right.

But this kid is really struggling, and really hurting.

And while of course I can continue to try my hardest to have a positive impact on his life, in the end I can only do so much.

And I am worried that what little I can do at this point is not enough.

His mother is too fucked. And his dad is just to naive.

And I am too alone.

And I am not his mother.

But I am sick of arguing with Chewie when our points of view differ. And I am even more sick of watching this kid struggle.

I know that I will never find someone that I agree 100% with on parenting. I am not a moron.

But I also know that being a parent is important enough to me, and being able to help a kid is important enough to me that I don’t know how much more I can take.

Chewie doesn’t act or not act as a parent out of malicious intent. He doesn’t deliberately make decisions that will negatively impact Isaiah in the way Lyndsey does. Chewie truly and honestly believes that he is doing the very best he can for his son. And in a lot of cases, the best you can do is good enough.

I just have to decide if his best is good enough for me. And I have to decide how much more I can take of watching this kid struggle knowing his battle with life is only just beginning. It breaks my heart. And maybe it’s the coward thing to do to want to run away. But I am also not going to inflate my importance and believe that all the good I can send his way can out do all the bad he has to deal with. It can’t. And it never will. I can’t fight this alone. And if I find I am fighting it alone, I am not going to fight anymore.

**edit**

Thanks for the comments. Some…or probably all… are very helpful and insightful and I appreciate that. I just wanted to make a couple things clear: 

1. I know that in and of itself it’s not abnormal or alarming to have a 5 year old that sleep walks and/or has accidents. I get that. I am not overreacing. But I AM reacting to these inncodents that seemingly come out of nowhere and that are coupled by other inncodents that are disturbing (like throwing a crayon at his teacher, crying when he can’t get his zipper up, saying hurtful things to Chewie or myself, talking back…etc. I am consideri

ng this inncodent as one of a pattern of events that when put together, creates a picture that just isn’t very good. Honestly, I want to write about the things that happen with Isaiah a lot more frequently than I do but I don’t have the energy. So just know that I am not thinking that because a kid sleepwalks means he is going to have a troubled life.

2. (This one specifically addresses your comment, Nomad) You mentioned that you think there might be something *else* going on that would make me want to walk away. And I just have to defend myself and say that I disagree. I think that how you parent a child can be extremely crucial to how two people co-exist in a relationship. And even though I have not document the details here, there have been many a painful and sad argument Chewie and I have had regarding Isaiah and what to do with him or for him. And it hurts me. And I don’t like to be hurt. It scares me. And even though things would be different if it were *OUR* kid…that has it’s own problems. I won’t expect Chewie to suddenly agree with and/or understand things when he and I have children, and I speculate we would argue about many of the same sorts of things. Because I will tell you right now, if Isaiah was my kid, he would have already been checked out by a child psychologist and visited with behavior specialists to see if we could get an accurate read on the problem. Chewie doesn’t feel that’s necessary. Lyndsey doesn’t feel that’s necessary. And I can’t go behing their back and take the kid to a doctor. It’s just not my place. But if Isaiah were mine, Chewie STILL wouldn’t feel it was necessary. The only good news there is that as a parent and legal guardian, I could take him anyway, in spite of Chewie’s naieveate. It would definitely cause an argument though, if I deliberately went around him as a parent. So no. There is nothing more going on between Chewie and I. I think having strong differences of opinion in how to address the needs of a trouble child is big enough without there having to be "other" issues, too. In fact, outside of the kid drama, he and I have been doing quite decent lately. 

I like the ideas about involving the teacher or other *experts* so as the advice doesn’t appear to be coming from me. And Chewie and Lyndsey just met with Isaiah’s teacher last week to address behavioral issues. She of course suggested that the kid might have ADHD (which in my non-expert but work at a world renouned Mental Health center with 67 percent of the adolescents we serve being diagnosed with ADHD opinion) is probably accurate. And Chewie came home and announced that his kid didn’t have ADHD and he wasn’t going to take him to get assessed, nor was he going to put the kid on drugs. Now I know that ADHD is over diagnosed and medications are over precribed. We treat the kids that become addicts as a result in the very facility I am sitting in at this moment. But I also know that ADHD is nothing to be ashamed of. And if it truly is something Isaiah may be struggling with and his parents ignore it for fear of that horrible *stigma* then I think it is selfish and rediculous. And then Isaiah will learn to self medicate as he gets older anyway. Except who knows, maybe it will be heroin that helps him cope. And maybe he will get addicted. Of course this is worst case scenario. But also in my expert opinion, I also know that pre-existing mentalh health diagnosis – especially those that go untreated – also have a high propensity and causal relationship with addiction later in life. 92 percent of the kids I treat for addiction on an annual basis have an addiction diagnosis as defined by the Diagnostics and Statistics Manual (IV) produced by the American Medical Association ALSO have an existing mental health diagnosis for things such as ADHD, depression, and eating disorders. One begets the other. It’s a proven scientific fact. It is not a statistical CERTAINTY, though it does DRAMATICALLY increase the likelihood.

And sure there is a chance that I am either more aware, more sensative, or more in tune with these possibilities than the average person because of the nature of the work I do and the facility in which I work. But I am not suggesting we lock Isaiah up and throw away the key so as to "protect" him from all of the evils of the world. I am simply suggesting we take him in for an evaluation. That’s all. Maybe the evaluator will say there is nothing wrong. And then we can go back to the drawing board. And I will be okay with that. But ignoring Isiaih’s warning signs I believe is not only a disservice to Isaiah and his future, it’s a disservice to us. I refuse to ignore such potentially harmful circumstances.

If I am coming across as passionate and relentless, it’s because I am. I could write for hours and hours about Isaiah, his struggles, how he is raised, what my role in that process is, and how it affects the relationship I have with Chewie. But I won’t. Because I can’t. Because I don’t think words can do it justice.

But know this. I love Chewie. He is my best friend (and I am fortunate to have a few other best friends as well). We have been working on our relationship with some pretty good results. He makes me happy. And in moments when it doesn’t concern decisions around Isaiah, I have happy.

And I am realistic too. So don’t think I am giving up. I am just venting and trying to cope.