There's work to do.

Sometimes, when you foster, you'll feel like you want to rip your hair right out.

We are out of the honeymoon and full into the constant testing, prove-you-are-what-you-say-you-are stage.

Prove to me you'll still want me when I act like a total jerk.

Prove to me you'll still love me when I argue about anything and everything just for the sake of arguing.

Prove to me that you won't physically abuse me when I push you to the absolute brink of your patience and to the end of your sanity.

Prove to me that you're not like the others.

Prove to me that this really is my house, and that you won't ever get so pissed off that you make me leave it.

I dropped him off at daycare, biting it all back, refusing to engage or argue... pulled out of the parking lot and sobbed for the entire 45 minute commute to work.

I'm reading The Four Agreements, and one of the agreements is to not take things personally - that the thoughts, words, and actions of a person are a reflection of the physical and emotional place that the person is in. I have mastered this concept at work, and 97% of the time I do not react personally to my students when they act up. At home, with him... I'm not yet there. I struggle with the fact that he makes me late for work and has no regard for the position it puts me in. I struggle with the fact that I spend money I can't afford to waste on food that he asks for and then abjectly refuses to eat. I struggle with the way he responds only if I am a complete hardass with immovable boundaries. It becomes, "Be downstairs dressed and with your teeth brushed in three minutes if you want to keep your screen time." I hate it.

In the moment, it's difficult to see the core reality of what's happening - that he is trying to follow old familiar patterns and push me into familiar roles. More difficult is his lack of conscious awareness that he is following that path. In his head, there is nothing but, "I'm tired and it's cold and I'm not getting out of this bed." The fact that it is not a conscious thing makes it even more difficult to actually confront the problem and pull it out at the root.

I don't yet have a resolution on this. It will no doubt be a process, and it will take work on both his part and on my own to make the change. I just do not want to put only the warm fuzzy moments here. They exist, but they are highlights. Sometimes the best I can claim is that he went back upstairs to take care of dirty clothes without getting mouthy or that he apologized when I ask him to take care of something that he forgot. I even got an unsolicited "yes, ma'am" yesterday.

On days like today, the best I can claim is that I did not allow him to push me into becoming what he fears I already am... because he as never known an adult to be anything different.

There's work to do.