I am perky. Oh so perky.

With wife B. in Washington D.C. all day today, I should have expected a bit of difficulty this evening. And admittededly it was nothing along the lines of the great Catalina dressing battle staged by my niece and nephew not too long ago while their father was away in the Netherlands on business. And I would like to mention that I handled with great aplomb the incident this evening involving the open cup of milk run through the salad spinner. But I will admit that I expressed a bit of frustration with daughter L. when during our protracted wrangling over the bedtime routine she ran from the bathroom after her bath. Naked. And backwards. I mean, naked except for the pair of pants she had pulled over her head and down to her neck.

So she's running backward out of the bathroom fresh from her bath, naked save for a pair of pants pulled over her head and unable to see, when she knocks a glass of water to the floor. There's a brief instant of paternal fuming, immediately sublimated into plans for a second beer tonight and I say only, "Grrr... Whoops! Right. Diaper time," and we march off to swaddle her buttocks and otherwise discuss what color towel we are each going to use to help clean up the spill.

"OK, then," says the father in his best High School Prom Refreshments Committee chairperson voice. "I think I'm going to use a yellow towel! How about you?"

"Hooowwwwwwwwwwwl," counters daughter L.

"So you want a white or red towel?"

"Mommmmmmmy's waterrrrr!" she laments.

"You want white AND red? One for each hand?"

{Broken sobs}

"Will you at least sit on my lap as I clean up the water?"

In the end we reached an amicable agreement that involved a concession from Daddy: I read a Berenstain Bears Christmas book as part of our bedtime book trifecta and she cheered up considerably.

B. gets home sometime tonight. Which will cheer me up considerably.

Comments

[Wife B.]

and B. will be a lot better about not leaving her water glass out where it's likely to be knocked about. See, we all learned lessons from this...