Friday night. Long week at work. January is taking it's toll on us all. I speak collectively on behalf of my family and every other family who just about survived Christmas and are in the throes of readjusting to waking up again and having to function without cheese, crackers, wine, Guinness, Port, Cheese, Crackers, Quality street, Cheese, Turkey sandwiches, spicy Mexican cheese and Elf being on repeat for an entire month. No cheese. No wine. No Elf. No fun. January proper sucks. (Except for Flash Gordon - which takes the edge off of Saturday morning!)
I stare at our nice newish grey material sofa. It is now coloured in pink.
"Caitlin why did you do this?" I ask her. Trying to stay calm. Trying to reason. Apply logic.
"Grrrrrr....." she kind of growls at me and hides her head behind her hands.
"Caitlin. Our couch is pink! You coloured in the couch!" I am getting angrier the more I say it out loud.
She beings to cry. Huge chunky sobs, calculated to pull at the heartstrings and deflect her ambitious attempt to create a new look for our living room.
"Seriously Caitlin. I cannot believe you did this! Why Caitlin? Why?" I feel like the guy in platoon. Sinking to his knees, gun raised in bewilderment as his Nam buddies fly off in their chopper.
I realise that my Five Why's approach to the pink sofa incident is doing no good for my root cause analysis. Sod this Lean Six Sigma approach on the three year old. I am going to Defcon 1.
"Caitlin. No Tv. That's it!" The foot goes down. I am the dad in Inside Out. This dawns on me and I feel like a sad predictable pixar character of a dad.
She has now escalated her sobs to "hyperventilating until I pass out" levels. This is a cunning bluff. But I am falling for it. She peeps up from behind her hands and the buried head in the pink sofa. I relent and give her an Ipod. This allows me to technically remain faithful to my removal of all tv rights.
She looks at the Ipod like it's a lame dog that should be put down and points at the Ipad with the dead battery.
"I want the Ipad!" she sobs. And here come her demands. "Team Umizoommeeee!"
"The Ipad has run out of battery Caitlin. It's broken!" I say.
"Your phone?" she tells me.
"I don't have Team Umizoomee on it.." I plead. I am trying to negotiate with someone with many many years more expertise in this field than me.
"Download it! she orders me!
"I can't, I need to upgrade to IO9" I tell her. She stares back blankly. This is crazy jibber jabber. She has no need for the intricate details. She has needs only for the now. For Iphone.
She begins to cry uncontrollably. I pick her up and cuddle her. I sing her my faithful "I can sing a rainbow song" badly and eventually place her back down on the couch again.
Sarah comes in to inspect the damage. She is on her way out to pick up one of Declan's friends for a sleepover.
"At least she didn't draw on the carpet," she says. Trying to take some single element of positivity from the whole disaster.
"Oh Crap," I stare down at my feet and don't know why I didn't just cover the floor with my body, or a small child or a large bowl of cheesy Doritto's and dips.
The light coloured carpet is now pink. Streaks of pink. Everywhere.
Sarah marches over to Caitlin and like some horrific never-ending Groundhog day meets Twilight episode we begin the interrogation again.
"Why did you colour the carpet in pink Caitlin? Why?"
This morning I finally got my revenge. And it's definitely best served cold....
A faint dusting of snow overnight was just enough for my needs.
I got Caitlin covered up like the Michelin Man before releasing a barrage of sustained snowball attack on her and her brothers. Oh revenge is sweet. However, I think I lost out overall. Somehow Fintan and Declan managed to plant at least 3 litres of compact iceballs into my jeans pockets, where they slowly melted...and Caitlin took her first snowball inside and said to us:
"I love this daddy! I will keep this in bed with me forever," as she held it in her dainty cold hands.
It was a tough job breaking the news about what happens to ice when it gets hot. I thought she would have copped on from watching Olaf melt in Frozen for the millionth time but apparently not. And lo..the shock and hurt began once more...
If you're bored. Here's a visual summary of 2015. It was mega!
Christmas at Chester Zoo is jazzed up by a few plants Sigourney "the-ten-foot-blue-avatar" Weaver brought back from Planet Pandora
The family goes black and white
We take New Yawk for our ten year wedding anniversary
I am the lone Englishman in Edinburgh...a sad pathetic figure of a man...as Ireland win the 6 nations and Scotland and 50,000 Irish on tour go bananas in celebration!
Jez gets married in Cornwall! And we run aground...literally...
And I hit 40! Boooom!!!!!
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