I live. With kids.

Tag Archives: reading

Growing up I always thought those Calgon commercials were corny. Partly because I’m not a bath guy (an oxymoron if there ever was one) and partly because I try not to let things stress me out too much because, in the end, it will pass.

We all grew up with those commercials, where a mom is freaking out over traffic, the baby, the dog and anything else. Eventually a gigantic bubble bath is all that can calm her down. She obviously has never heard of a big glass (or 3) or Merlot.

But now my feelings have changed, maybe. Not on the bath part, mind you, but the other part of it. The good news is that I can usually see it coming, from a bunch of different angles.

As any parent will tell you, nothing creates a door-slamming, kid-screaming, baby-crying, dad-drinking evening like a couple of tired kids, piled on top of a couple of tired adults at the end of their rope.

We had one of those nights on Tuesday. It was not pretty.

Grrrrrr

It actually started the night before when both kids were up too late. Brant probably didn’t get to bed until closer to 7:45, maybe an hour later for Maren. But she has this habit of sitting in her room quietly and reading for another hour or so. In reality, it’s often anybody’s best guess when she finally sleeps.

So the table was set for a disastrous Tuesday night, which is bath night in our house, and typically when things go south quickly, as most parents know. By the time everybody went upstairs for bath, Maren had already lost reading privileges for the evening. When dealing a tired kid, taking anything away is usually the last straw and it was in this instance.

She wanted no part of bath time, especially with her brother. He was so distraught he was running around the upstairs no clothes on, yelling for his sister, who was still downstairs in full meltdown mode. When Brant gets upset, his best defense is ‘dead fish’ where he flops on the floor face first and cries. This time he was so upset, he tried it in the tub and dunked his head under water.

Eventually I got the girl in the bathroom, where she was screaming ‘you are the worst mommy ever!” for taking away reading privileges. After I got her in there, she started yelling at me because “you’re the only person in the house that doesn’t love me!”

Fun. Real fun.

Best thing about tired kids? They go to sleep and wake up refreshed and ready to tackle the world. Plus they have an attention span of about 12 seconds, so they have forgotten about the outbursts (on both sides) from the night before.