The Ticking Clock

Our children both got in trouble at bedtime tonight.   I won't go into details because it's just another night.   What I will say was they were playing beautifully together, making a fort in the basement, just before bedtime.   Once they got up to bed and were tired though things went downhill.

We left them with the light turned out and not two minutes later they were downstairs in an uproar.   It apparently was over the clock in their room which ticks.   It's been ticking for six years in their room but it apparently scares my daughter, who says it's been scaring her for eight years.  I had had enough so I jumped up, batted the clock and it came crashing down, grabbed the pieces and was heading out of the room when my son started wailing.

He loved the clock.   Apparently.   He was, I suspect, taking up a contrary position to his sister, but his grief seemed real at the time.   I turned on the lights, picked up the pieces and put the five-dollar clock back together (I remember being surprised at the low price when I got it at Target some years ago) and told him that yes, it still worked.

He wanted to hug the clock before I took it away.   I told him I'd keep it for him for tomorrow as he was asking could it please be put on his desk.   I'm not sure why the clock scares his sister, but a lot is scary to her right now.   I like the ticking sound of the clock in our bathroom downstairs—when I notice it, which isn't often.

The Big Boy Update:  My son came out to the car this morning and said to his father, who was getting something in the garage, "what excuse are you going to have today for why you're not here when I get home?"   I had a talk with my son about asking questions in a positive way on the ride to school.   He's been disappointed the past several days that his father was away doing work or other things when he got home.   It was very sweet as a thought, but lost all the kindness with his phrasing.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  When I was going through my daughter's clothes yesterday, removing things that no longer fit her and adding the new clothes I'd purchased.  When I got to her skirts I looked at a skirt she and I had nicknamed, "the jingle jangle skirt" because of some metal loops on the front pockets that made a sound when she moved around.  I looked at it and decided it still would fit her for another season.   And then I thought about it.  That skirt had been in her drawer for a long time.  Typically children grow fairly fast and most clothes barely last a single season.   Sometimes though, because of elastic bands or oversizing, something will last longer.   That skirt had been in her drawer a long time though.   I looked at the size and almost didn't believe it when I read T2 on the tag.   It had been in her drawer for five years.