Tiring them out

I really wore the kids out today. Or at least, I wore out Destroyer. We had her swimming lesson this morning, an intensive 15 minutes, after which we went to get a coffee and she badgered me until I bought a packet of sweets, which she kept requesting I dole out to her for the rest of the day.
Then we walked up a big hill, got a bus, and then walked a couple more blocks to pick up our rental car, before driving her around town trying to find the pharmacy where we had La Serpiente’s prescription. I walked her to the nearby deli, gave her some milk, drank some disgusting tea.

We went home, she demanded more sweets, I wished I could fall asleep, and then we went to pick up La Serpiente from school.

They had some TV, I made them artichoke pasta, and put on a video for ten hours of a fireplace. I read them several books, then they got changed for bed and I read them a book about a fairy kitten delivering dewdrops to a forest.

This had them rapt. I didn’t think you could write a story about a tiny kitten with wings, with a cliffhanger at the end of every chapter, and a fairy mouse and a fairy owl that don’t end up with one eating the other. That would have had them in a dark place.

After that rush of emotional highs and lows, over 100 pages, I put them into bed and then woke at 730 this evening, amazed I hadn’t slept for longer, or that I’d got them down so fast. Tomorrow, we have a big hike up a big hill – onwards, ever onwards…