Child's Play

This morning, as every bloody morning, the Kids woke up early. Startlingly, the Girl is rather considerate in the dirty hours of the morning and does her best to be as quiet as possible. The Boy on the other hand is the definition of that quote from Not Your Average Dictionary;

Boy - n. A noise with dirt on it.

To fully understand the whole variety, pageant and volume of his noisiness you have to imagine the noise an elephant makes if you push a pineapple up its arse. And to understand what it's like waking up to this every morning, imagine you're the pineapple. 

Blundering out of bed with one eye just about open I heard the Boy making a weird, high pitched noise from the Girl's room. Grumpily I hissed "SHH!" at them as I struggled to find my glasses (hidden, once again, under the bed courtesy of the glasses goblin). There was a brief lull and then a loud slap followed by the Boy again making that weird high pitched noise. So, stepping up a gear, I burst into the Girl's room.

"Right! Will you... what the hell are you doing?"

The Boy was on all fours on the Girl's bed. The Girl was spanking him.

"He's a bad doggie!"

"I cannot deal with this at... where's my watch? FOR CHRISSAKES, ITS NOT A COLLAR!"

This sort of thing is not particularly unusual. Well the spanking is a bit weird, I'll grant you. But, they play dog and cats quite a lot. Yesterday they found a child harness and started using it as a lead, one walking the other around the house. To be honest, it's quite nice that the harness is getting some use. We bought it a couple of years ago to protect pedestrians when we took the Girl out. Unfortunately we didn't get a chance to use it much because getting her into the thing was like feeding a cat into a garden strimmer, and the situation came to a head when she made me cry so we gave up.

Mind you, since the Girl has started coming out of her three year psychotic episode she's become even more maternal than before. Naturally this has brought out the worst in the Boy. Tonight on his return from his football lesson the Boy strode into the living room and in a Homer-Simpson-esque moment, took of his trousers and threw them on the floor. The Girl picked them up, put them in the wash bin and brought him a blanket. Frankly, his wife is going to have a lot to deal with. Then, whilst sitting on the sofa watching cartoons he said (without deigning to bother with eye contact)

"What's for dinner?"

"I'm not your staff, Boy."

"What stuff?"

"Staff."

"I don't know what you mean and I'm trying to watch telly."

Not that the Girl has completely lost her edge. 

"Dad, I drew a picture of you!"

"Oh, wow. Thanks! I like how you've drawn my hair."

"That's not your hair, stupid. You're on fire."

"Of course I am."

The Boy came round in the end, as he always does (sometimes with a judicious application of behavioral modification technique I like to call "shouting incoherently"). He claimed the other day that he wanted to be more like me, which led to the Wife's eyebrows raising at such an alarming rate they nearly came clear off her head. Yesterday he started his "being like dad" lifestyle choice by telling me off.

"Come upstairs, it's bathtime!"
"A-HEM! What about the ice cream?"
"What about it?"
"You haven't put it away. Don't you think you should?"
"I'll do it later, Boy."
"No... you'll do it now."

I'll give him this, it worked. I stomped down the stairs like a stroppy teenager, put the ice cream back in the freezer and returned with the words;

"THERE! Happy now?"

By this evening - by virtue of having the attention span of a stobe-lit goldfish - I'd forgotten about his new plan. After our little argument about him treating me like a slave this afternoon he became more contrite, and when it got to bed time he asked me very politely.

"Could I have a poo before bed?"
"Of course, Boy. You don't have to ask."
"I'll do it as fast as I can. I just need to get it out of me."
"That's lovely. Go to the loo then."

He duly did so. I went to help the Girl clean her teeth because she'd "forgotten how to" again and as I did so I became aware of this noise coming from the toilet;

"Nnngggngnnngggg...."
"Why are you making that noise?"
"You always make this noise in here."
"Stop trying to be like me. I mean it."
*Plop*
"Ahhhh... that's better...."
"Boy, stop giving me a running commentary about your toilet antics."
"But..."
"STOP BEING LIKE ME OR I'LL FLUSH YOU DOWN THE TOILET!!"