Beyond reason

Tonight Caroline had hockey training and so I was left with the task of putting the four kids to bed and keeping them there.

All went reasonably well except for that most unreasonable of species … the now 4 year old pink thing who seems to have an aversion to sleep except when its convenient for her.

Well tonight, after having stuck her back into one bed or another a number of times, I thought that I’d had a win. I painted a door without seeing her and so then started mucking about on the computer whilst I waited for Caroline to come home

To my utter horror, when Caroline did come home, she said, “What are you doing out of bed?” as she strode down the passage. It turned out that Emily had snuck down the passage and sat down to watch TV.

“There’s a mummy show on,” Emily happily informed Caroline as she was herded back to bed again. I took over and attempted to keep her there. But she was out again moments later because she, “Had to tell me something.”

As she lay back in bed, I allowed her to tell me what it was that she had to tell me.

“There was a show on TV and a man killed a girl …” she started. Trust me to leave the TV on when I wasn’t in the room. Trust the pink thing to sit down and start watching Law and Order!

As I turned to leave, she burst into tears, telling me that, “Giraffy was scared and needed to watch TV!”

My statement that, ”Girraffy is a stuffed toy and does bloody not,” possibly went over her head. But at least she seems to have stayed in bed now.”

ps ... I needed to ad this bit because I think it needs to be noted and I missed it when I wrote this last night. I was absolutely horrified to find that my 4 year old daughter had been sitting and watching that TV show unbeknownst to me. I felt like a totally useless father when I thought that she'd managed to slip past me and sit there for something like half an hour and watch that show. I don't like those shows as noted here previously because of their content and there's no way in hell that I want my 4 year old watching them.

I think the thing that scared me the most about it was the fact that she'd been able to tell me that it was about a man that had killed a little girl. I don't like that it was that comprehensible for her!