Mind games

I brought Mabel to bed tonight at 6.30, since she wasn't fit for human consumption. Or else she was all too fit for human consumption, and bed was the only way to avoid her ending up in neat joints in the freezer. B had taken Monkey to soccer, so there was nothing else going on, and she was pretty happy to just alternate nursing with chatting to me for 40 minutes or so. Every now and then I'd come down and make some vague gesture towards cleaning up the toys or boiling water for pasta, but mostly we just hung out.

By the time the boys were home, she was feeling better enough to be allowed back into general circulation, and I actually got to eat my dinner in relative peace, reading a book, molested only slightly by the complicated game of Superman versus Lex Luthor with a butterfly in there somewhere going on around me. (Monkey got a late birthday present today of a Superman costume, and there were a pair of butterfly wings for Mabel. Monkey was quite interested in the wings too, since they're a flying mechanism - the pink and sparkles and fluffy stuff didn't seem to put him off at all.)

But really. This here above-pictured be-yoo-ti-ful butterfly. Yesterday she was tired after a congested night, and she took it out on her friends - and distant acquaintances - at music class by bopping them on the head at will. They didn't even have to be looking at her funny - she'd seek them out just to do it. This evening she hit Monkey hard with a glockenspiel beater, for no good reason, as he always tells me (but this time it was true) - those things are hard, and boingy - and then scratched him for good measure. Then she dumped the water out and tried to dump the towels in - the two things guaranteed to enrage me at bathtime.

It occurred to me that if she had a new sibling about now, as so many 2.5-year-olds do, and her brother did before her, we'd be worrying that we'd ruined our erstwhile darling girl by bringing an alien being into the family. But no! Take comfort, parents of newly embiggened brothers and sisters: your darling children were going to go to the dogs anyway. At least for a while.

Monkey let slip earlier today that when he coaxes Mabel to hit him, it's because he wants me to be cross with her. I'm surprised (perhaps impressed) by how calculating this is. I'm definitely impressed by the self-awareness he shows in recognising that this is what he's doing. On the other hand, considering he told me without the least guile, he's not exactly going to get an A in parental manipulation just yet. I'm also glad I decided not to make too big a deal of it when she hurts him if he's literally asking for it, if this is his motivation.

And ... back to the grindstone. She'll be asleep in no time, I'm sure.

<...Crickets...>