Tonight I ran home from work. When I do this, I leave my work clothes and computer behind, so I’m steadily accumulating a mound of dirty laundry and shoes at the office. I carry my iPhone and my access cards (as I need them to get out of the office as well as in) and nothing else. It’s a little complicated to get home right now as because of the impending Formula 1 race, safety fencing is up on many roadside areas, constraining where I can run.
Still, I got in four kilometres running around the bay and through the central business district, got back to our apartment block and dangled from the chin up bar before going inside. The kids were fed and once I finished sweating I gave them their baths. And then I tried to brush La Serpiente”s teeth and all hell broke loose.
She had prevaricated and lollygagged and delayed getting out of the bath until her mother had to go attend to her sister, and this then provoked a good half hour of screaming at me, after which I finally got to brush her teeth. Except in all the hullabaloo I got confused and tried to use the adult toothpaste rather than the milder-tasting kids stuff, causing another meltdown. That overcome, I had to explain to her that her mother couldn’t read her a story tonight because of all her dilly dallying and being obnoxious (refusing to let me dress her, standing around screaming, etc). Eventually this set something else off in her mind and she howled and went at me to fetch her mother so she could say sorry, which was pretty heartbreaking, in between the throwing herself around the room and the climbing the furniture that punctuated this remorse.
Thankfully by then Destroyer was asleep, so both parents could try to settle her down. She rejected big cuddles, demanding “little cuddles” tonight (indistinguishable from big cuddles) and then was asleep in ten minutes. The whole farrago had taken an hour and it was just 8:30. Usually that would be a normal time to get her down but after close to 45 minutes of being yelled at, I was a wreck. I had a phone call at 9:30 this evening so I couldn’t relax, and then at ten she woke up again and began crying. It’s been a tough evening for everyone. Except Destroyer, who is sound asleep.