Attention monster
At times my youngest is the picture-perfect child, loving, funny, and kind, but turn the picture over and there is an attention monster, a psychic vampire, never wanting 2 minutes of your time when an hour will do. This hunger for parental interaction, like so much of my youngest’s personality, is something that I recognise from my childhood. It is a hunger that leaves an empty feeling when the attention isn’t available, and so I try to give him what he needs. However, some days it feels like he has sucked me dry and then asked for more. At these times he will, like a vampire from a gothic story, try to keep me ensnared by announcing, “I love you, Daddy,” which only makes me feel more guilty when I snap and flee from his needs. I know it will not be forever, that someday I will miss his attention deeply, but right now I am hanging garlic from our bedroom door frame and wondering if you can buy holy water on Amazon.