Domestic Bliss

We’ve had several slightly-too-late nights in our house lately and the kids have been tired, so I was determined to get them in bed at a reasonable hour last night, particularly because Daylight Savings Time kicked in last night and the morning would be coming an hour earlier today. So I asked Ian to come up with me to get them ready for bed, just to speed things along. I was getting Lukie suited up for bed when Ian started bellowing at Eloïse, saying something like “when did you do that?????” I went over to where they were to discover Eloïse’s name written on the wall. At least it was quite neat, and the S was the right way around for a change.

If you know Ian at all, you might be aware that he is extremely anal about our house and possessions. He notices all nicks, dings and scrapes extremely promptly and works like a forensic examiner to determine exactly what and who must have caused them. Eloïse has learned this trait from him and regularly goes running to Papa to provide damage reports when she discovers a problem. Because of this, I never in a million years would have thought that she’d write on the wall.  But last night she grabbed Ian by the hand to show him something and brought him to her neatly-written name and said “Papa, look, the wall is saying welcome Eloïse!”

Ian really didn’t take it well and yelled at her, telling her that all her markers, pencils and paints would be taken away with immediate effect. For our little colorer this was about the worst possible punishment and she reacted as one might expect.  I told him that he’d better put a time limit on it because right now it was sounding like she’d never draw again. He didn’t and the situation escalated with them both yelling at each other. (“I WILL get them back in my whole life!!!”) Lukie and I stood back a bit and, I must confess, I enjoyed being the calm one for once. She had finally found the naughty act that would cause her Papa, who is usually wrapped tightly around her finger and is the first one to come to her defense, to explode!

Eloïse had a beaded bracelet in her hand and Ian grabbed it away, causing part to break and a few beads to fall on the floor. Lukie picked a couple up and then came over to be picked up, finding the whole altercation to be a bit stressful. I was brushing my teeth and allowing them to yell at each other when Lukie suddenly started crying. I was about to tell them to cool it because they were upsetting him when I realized that he was saying nose and pointing to his face and it dawned on me that he had stuck one of the beads up his nose.

Visions of my mother’s stories of how I stuck a BB up my nose when I was around his age and had to be taken to the doctor to have it removed with some long instrument flashed in front of my eyes, and our already deteriorating reasonable bedtime was looking like it really was going up in smoke.

However, I was lucky enough to be the recipient of a handy Japanese baby snot sucker for Christmas from my friend Mina. What a fabulous device. It didn’t work immediately, but I think it loosened the bead a bit and once he cried enough it popped out once, only to be immediately sucked back in. But I was faster the second time and caught it.

We finally managed to get into bed at 7:41. Eloïse and her Papa called a truce and this morning he told her that he wouldn’t take her stuff away because she does seem to honestly have thought that it would wipe off and thought she was just being funny-naughty, not truly naughty.  I predict that when we go to repaint the bathroom in the future, Ian will get sentimental and will cry a little tear about covering it up.