working on a new stripe.

He is testing for the yellow stripe on his white belt today.

It's odd sometimes how tests come up without warning. Life does that though. Just when you think you haven't made any progress, you're suddenly at the point of moving to the next level.

Hopefully all will go well... he is determined enough for certain. The determination and perseverance he shows here are the best of his survival skills.

He has learned so much. I know that I am impatient. I want to treat him like a nine year old, because in body he is nine. I forget that despite his formal training in addition, subtraction - even multiplication - he has not had training in the kindergarten side of things. When his kindergarten classmates were learning sharing, respect for personal space, taking turns speaking, obedience to directions, he was jumping through multiple schools and trying to figure out if anyone was going to bother to feed him when he got home. That's when he showed up at school at all... most of that year he was truant because no one could be bothered to get him ready and out the door.

I expect him to know how to do those things, and he hasn't had the practice applying them in a safe place. He has heard the words, but he has not learned to apply them; being kind, quiet, and obedient did not get his needs met. He would likely be dead or more damaged if he had been those things. I know that, and yet when he looks me in my eyes and says no, it is so difficult for me to not see red.It takes every bit of energy I have to not react to him, and often not reacting feels like allowing him to get away with it.

... and that's the issue. I feel like less of a parent if I let him get away with it. I  should see him as a preschooler in that moment, throwing a tantrum, and react accordingly. I would not yell at a toddler or preschooler - it creates fear rather than respect.  He's had enough of that already. I see a nine year-old standing in front of me, though. I don't see a toddler... and I have to force myself past the you-defiant-little-twerp moment that rises up in an instant. The contradiction between IQ and EQ is maddening. He is learning and increasing the EQ little by little each day, but my wife has to remind me daily to be patient with him while he catches up.

If you're unfamiliar with the term EQ, you can check out the basics of Emotional Quotient here:
https://www.todaysparent.com/kids/kids-health/eq-vs-iq-why-emotional-intelligence-will-take-kids-farther-in-life/

He will keep trying, and so will I.

The absence of these skills is destroying our time together.

I just want to be able to enjoy my kid.

Soon, right?

I have to keep telling myself -  soon.