My wife was in bed all day today, suffering the after effects from the vaccination. I had to entertain the girls, so first I took them on a bike ride to the cliffs looking out over the sea. We got back from that and they watched me play two games of Blood Bowl against the (hysterically bad) AI, and then I figured I should take them out for a walk.
However, there was no way to persuade them to do this apart from tell them they could go to the toy shop to spend the money they’ve amassed from the tooth fairy. So we had an afternoon of driving to Ballard (to get ice cream) and then hanging around in Snapdoodle trying to decide between different unicorns.
We got home, I fell asleep on the sofa for a bit, then made them their dinner and had the genius move of telling the girls they couldn’t play their beloved Animal Jam game on their tablets until they got dressed for bed. That saved fifteen minutes of yelling.
Finally, I read them some more of The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, which has really iffy gender roles. Lucy and Susan get to make dinner, or hang out with the Dryads and Naiads while Aslan has an important conversation with Peter, who’s the most important because he’s the eldest boy. I suppose it’s a product of its time but I wonder if there’s a more satisfactory story for my girls than this. Maybe I’ll retell the Hobbit to them and swap everyone’s genders.