She’s a naughty little girl. She’s my daughter. And I have no idea how to punish her for this behaviour…
There are roadworks on the road I take home from my office at 5 o’clock. I keep forgetting that there is roadwork on the road that I take home from my office at 5 o’clock. Once you are on the road that has roadworks, getting off it will only delay you more. I mention this because, during the winter, my kids go to bed at 7:30pm. That means, if my commute takes an extra 25 minutes on the way home, because I forgot that there are roadworks on the road I get home from work at 5 o’clock, then I have about 45 minutes with my kids before it is time to start their bedtime routine.
Yesterday, as I sat with the other poor saps who forgot about the roadworks, I decided to call Stevie and have her put our daughter on the phone. At least then I could have a little more time, even if it was as a disembodied voice on the other side of her Angry Birds machine. When Stevie picked up the phone I heard this:
“She’s in trouble. You’re going to have to take away her clock.”
I'll explain the clock. My daughter has a bedtime routine with a sticker board. Every night for the past few months, when she is good and doesn't wake up our infant son, she gets to put a sticker on her board. When she fills a section of the board with stickers, she gets to pick out a toy at the store. Well, she didn't want a toy. She wanted a clock. It quickly became her prized possession. We'd be playing in the living room, and she'd stop me and say, "Daddy, can I go look at my clock?" Then she'd run to her room and run back out to tell us all what time it was.