A game of two halves


This morning, I got up, went out for a couple of coffees with one of my friends and had a pleasant hour discussing the ethics of charitable donations and the philosophy of mathematics, and topped that off with an hour of climbing and then some cheese. Then I relaxed at home until 2, when my wife and children returned from a trip to the science museum.

In her infinite wisdom, La Serpiente declined a nap, preferring to stay awake and watch Transformers cartoons on Netflix. Destroyer, who was long overdue her sleep, howled "no" at every suggestion I have her for twenty minutes, and it was only by ignoring her and reading a book that I coaxed her to her bed.

Of course, missing her nap was bad for La Serpiente. She got weepy and angry throughout the afternoon; she and her sister decided to wrestle on the tiled floor of the living room, so one banged her head and the other hurt her finger, and everyone wailed. Even taking them out for ice creams was an extravaganza of howling (something about shoes? not being allowed to bring a dozen stuffed toys with them? truly this is the love that surpasseth all understanding) until I got both girls down to the ground floor, wiped La Serpiente’s runny nose on the bottom of my shorts (isn’t it great when you forget to bring any tissues with you) and took them to eat ice cream.

Of course, half an hour after the ice cream, the sugar high wore off and they were back to arsing about. I have one cute picture of them playing together with a set of rubber stamps, before they started trying to fling the table at one another. Get puzzle, fight about puzzle, demand food, argue about food, and on and on and on. At least I don’t have to feel I’m only relating the perfect escapades of my children and not the annoying ones too.

About 7:30 I tried to get them to bed, and as some special punishment they’d reserved for me, they selected three dreadful books designed to teach children to read. Designed for children who won’t start pretending they think "a" is pronounced "t t t t t t t ", that is. I retaliated by falling asleep between both girls and waking up to find Destroyer still staring at me, bug-eyed. Oh what a night.

Still, I have a nice early start tomorrow (flight at 7:15) so that will be fun.


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