Over the last few months, maybe even over a year, my young son and I have not been seeing eye to eye. He has gotten stubborn, argumentative, and difficult. He has even learned to pit Mom against Dad by playing the “But Mom said?” game. It’s really been getting on my nerves.

It feels like he and I have been at it for so long that the next argument is just a continuation of the last. It does not take me more than just a second to whip myself into a fury at the slightest hint of his mouthiness. I don’t give him a chance to try to weasel his way out of chores. The warden is on duty 24-7.

My wife, God bless her, has tried to be his advocate, and it does nothing but cause friction for everyone in the house. Frankly I feel slighted when she tries to calm me down.  Lately, however, I’ve seen that her patience with him has run thin as well. It definitely isn’t fun. Although I feel for her, I’m glad that he no longer has her apron to hide behind. Maybe he’ll understand that I’m not being overly grumpy, but that his actions are causing the friction.

A few weeks ago my wife went to attend a family wedding. Finances kept us from all being able to go, and my son and I were left to our own devices. I was dreading this time alone with him, and I could see the trepidation on my wife’s face as she boarded the plane. She had that “I just threw a lit match in a pool of gasoline” look.

After we left the airport my son and I drove home in silence. As he teared up at the thought of missing his Mom, I started a mental calendar that I could check off the hours counting down her return. Eight days to go.

The first day was tough. Not because we we were strangling each other, but because I could see the pain he was going through. He had never been away from his Mom, but I had been away on business many times before. I invited him to sleep on Mom’s side of the bed so I could keep him company, and he accepted.

Day two and all’s well. My son came home from school, did his homework, took his evening bath, went to bed at the right time, all without having to be told to do so, or having only been asked once. My eyebrows arched. Who was this kid, and what did “they” do to my real son? This behavior went on for the rest of the week. Pleases, thank you’s, I’s dotted, T’s crossed, dirty dishes in the dishwasher after every meal. A beleaguered father could get used to this.

Day five. Laundry day. My wife left me a “Honeydew (Honey do!)” list, and she also left instructions on how not to turn the laundry into shop rags. It was not until mid-weekend that I remembered that the laundry needed to be done. At the time I was up to my elbows in brake fluid and motor oil. I walked into the house, washed my hands and called my son over. I told him that now would be a good time for him to learn how to do laundry, and that we would do this together. I showed him how much soap to use, and what colors to wash first. We set the dirty clothes piles on the floor in the order they were to be washed, and I left explicit instructions for him to come out to the garage and call me when the washing machine buzzer finally went off because I had more instructions for him.

I came back into the house when he called me back, and I instructed him to move the wet load into the dryer, put in a dryer sheet, set the timer, and pop in the next wash load, add soap and set the time on the machine too. I then told him that we would have to pull the dry clothes out of the dryer and spread them out on the couch to keep the heat from setting creases and wrinkles in the nice clean clothes. I left instructions to call me again when the buzzers sounded.

I went back out to the garage and went back to working on one of the vehicles, secure in the thought that he would call me when the time came.

Hours passed. I lost track of time. I completed my task in the garage and was getting ready to start dinner when I realized I had never been summoned for the important step of spreading out the warm laundry. My temper started to simmer. Here we go again.

I stormed in the house getting ready to “rip somebody a new one”. I rounded the corner of the hallway and just froze.

My son was sitting in the exact position I had left him in, playing a video game on the computer, the floor was devoid of laundry piles, the washer and dryer were empty, and all the piles of laundry were freshly washed, and were neatly stacked by color on the couch.

While I tried to hide the excruciating pain caused by the cramp in my left eyebrow muscle I asked him why he had not called me when the buzzer went off, he matter-of-factly told me that he knew what to do, and that he didn’t feel the need to bother me.

I’m sure I looked around the room trying to find a hidden camera or some whiff of a reality show crew hiding in a closet with boom mikes and spot lights, but nothing. No punch line reality show ambush. Just me …. and the sound of crickets.

I sat down for a minute and tried to process all this new stimuli. You’ll have to understand this was a first. I had never experienced this from him before. If only his Mom was here to see this. (A-HA! There it is! NO APRON!)

After cooking dinner I spent the rest of the meal looking at my son suspiciously, making sure his breathing and blinking were not on a mechanical cycle, or that all his moles and birthmarks were still where I remembered them to be. I was not completely convinced that this “person” eating dinner with me was my son.

The 8 days went by without a hitch. There were only 1 or 2 very minor incidents over the course of the week, versus what almost seems like 1 to 2 flare ups every half hour that seems so familiar. Eventually my wife returned and the normalcy that is our life has started to slowly creep back into or daily routine. As much as I missed my family being together for those 8 days, I also miss the attitude my son displayed for that short period of time.

Don’t get me wrong. He’s a great kid and I love him to death. Straight A student, over achiever, smart as a whip. I get nothing but high praise for him from teachers, family, and parents of his friends. We (he and I) just need to find a middle ground where we can co-exist. I want to wean him away from his current behavior and steer him towards a much more appropriate, productive one. I know that I also need to apply the patience that I exude for all others to our own relationship.