Chez PLJ

Ug. Over the past three of four weeks, Jon has descended into another series of tantrums, no doubt as hormones start coursing through his body, and his brain can express some of his physical frustration. These are always related to frustrating activities (reading or video games), but 1) they come out of nowhere and 2) since he is apparently part pit-bull, Jon refuses to give up what is causing the problem. Even if it’s homework.

This is not really new, it’s just that we haven’t seen any tantrums in the past few months, so we got complacent. But they’re back with an added twist.

As a kid, Jon used to get the occasional bout of nosebleeds. I say “bout” because, as with most kids, the cause and recurring of nosebleeds at that age, may be due to, well, mining opportunities in the area, shall we say.

But this new batch doesn’t fall under that umbrella. While neither I nor Laura had bad nosebleeds growing up, it turns out that some of our siblings and parents (on both sides) did. And apparently Jon hit the genetic jackpot—but that ain’t coins pouring out.

The worst thing is, these two storms have hit at the same time. Heck, maybe they’re related. In any case, it’s quite something to be sitting there happily with Jon and suddenly, with no external intervention, suddenly he starts howling at the top of his lungs and seconds later, blood starts pouring out of his nose, straight out of a Hollywood horror flick. When it happened this weekend, I came forward to help staunch the bloodflow and he lunged forward and bit me!

Never a dull moment.

Incidentally, this is special for us. No one else ever sees this side of him. Which is, of course, the lot of the parent.