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i slapped a little boy in the face today in front of his mother. granted, he was one of history's greatest monsters, and was throwing a violent temper tantrum, punching and kicking me, but still. it's not something i thought i'd ever do, always considered myself a pacifist, despite passive aggressive tendencies.

the morning started out normal, or as normal as can be. i woke up at 7am because thomas woke up at 7am and intermittently kept coming into the living room to check to see if i was awake yet. the moment he saw that i was up, he ran to the couch and parked himself there with his ipad. still groggy from only sleeping 4 hours, i watched him watching his stories (old chinese-dubbed doraemon cartoons).

i made them breakfast around 8am: toast with jam, scrambled eggs, kielbasa sausage, passion flower juice. thomas - a picky eater - complained at the dining table. "i don't like eggs!" he yelled, causing me to wince since my roommate was still asleep. "this sausage is too salty!" he cried, yet finished the sausages. "i don't eat that kind of bread!" he exclaimed. everyone's a critic apparently. i was able to migrate everyone to the living room by the time GC woke up to get ready for work.

i told GC i was taking wangyang and her son to star market to get some groceries.

that's when it happened. thomas started throwing a temper tantrum, said he wanted to go play at the playground, said we never do anything he wants, said we're always doing things we want to do, said he didn't want to go to the supermarket, said he hated ice cream. all of this was bullshit of course. everything we did yesterday was catering to him, including visiting the playground 3 times. wangyang tried to take his hand but he sat down. i grabbed his other wrist. i don't exactly remember what happened next, but he started punching and kicking me, and almost by instinct, i slap him across the face. there was a split second where he kind of froze, shocked at what just happened. time seemed to stand still. then suddenly he started crying while his mother tried to comfort him.

actually, all of yesterday and this morning, thomas would very passive aggressively come by me and either gently slap me or purposefully run into me. i thought nothing of it at first, thought he was just clumsy, but it began to get annoying once i started to notice what he was doing. it was almost like he was marking his territory, demonstrating his dominance over the fact that he could casually get away with tapping me and i wouldn't do anything about it. apparently he tapped the wrong person today.

we finally did manage to get him to star market, but he was still throwing his tantrums, and still bumping into me. at one point i grabbed his wrist violently and told him to stop, and he began crying again. i told wangyang what was happening, almost surprised she hasn't noticed what's been going on. i was seething at that point and started thinking about how i could politely ask them to leave my house.

we ended up buying just a bag of cherries. back at home, wangyang apologized, and said she was going to take thomas to the playground, which i expected. i was tempted to apologize as well, but figured the less i said the better, it was an awkward situation for everyone.

the moment they left, i called my parents and told them to cancel 4th of july barbecue on wednesday because there was zero chance i'd bring them over to belmont, not after what happened. i told them thomas was the living embodiment of a spoiled brat, and i wasn't going to make any efforts to bring them anywhere. as far as i was concerned, these next 2 weeks couldn't go by fast enough. they can do their own thing we we go to new york city, i'm going to flushing to eat. i don't make any comments on how other people raise their kids, but it didn't reflect well on wangyang that she managed to produce such a terrible person.

wangyang and her son came back half an hour later. he was all smiles, as if nothing happened. we watched world cup soccer in the living room with the air conditioner on while thomas played with his ipad. at one point he came around and tapped me again, but i grabbed him and asked, "tell me what you're doing?" he was smiling sheepishly, said he was just thinking about going around the coffee table (which is bullshit), didn't realize he couldn't pass. he did stop hitting me after that though. that was wise of him because i was loading up for another slap. apparently i am a violent person and have no qualms about striking a 6-year old child. maybe the lack of sleep and the oppressive heat had something to do with it as well.

we went out around noontime. the plan was to get some lobster for lunch in chinatown then some shopping at primark in downtown crossing. of course wangyang had to spent several minutes convincing her son to go. even when were in the foyer, he decided suddenly that he didn't to leave, and i was able to distract him with my doorbell, and quickly locked the door while we were all outside.

i decided we should leave from porter square: not only because it was closer, but we could avoid crossing the playground on oxford street, a place i'm trying to avoid at all cost. instead of taking the most direct route to porter however, i took them on small side roads to avoid the blistering midday sun. that ended up taking longer on the account it was just a longer route but also wangyang and thomas walk slower to begin with.

thomas was surprisingly well behaved on the subway, no tantrums, just sat their quietly. maybe it's because yesterday wangyang told me he loves all things transportation, and said one day he might want to be either a plane captain or a subway conductor.

we got off at downtown crossing and walked to chinatown.