Last week we visited my brother in Berlin. I flew over with the two of them by myself and we stayed in a hotel for 4 days.
For some unknown reason, the entire time we were there they behaved as if they were wild monkeys that had been kept in captivity for 3 years and they were just released in the jungle, but giving them MDMA before opening the gates.
On the 3rd day I was pretty tired. It had been a particularly hectic day too, with lots of tantrums, fights and non stop whining. Bedtime couldn't come fast enough.
I couldn't face an hour in a restaurant while they did everything in their power to set it on fire and make everyone there thinking that I raised my kids like wild bobcats, so I just ordered takeaway to eat in the hotel room.
Not only I didn't even try to get them to eat anything other than plain rice (which is normally a safe bet), but I had already prepared myself mentally for them looking at 2 grains of that plain rice and say “my belly is full”. Whatever way we managed to get to the end of the day, I was going to accept it.
I said to myself I'd just sit down, eat my own dinner and let them do whatever they wanted with theirs. No more arguments.
I put the stuff on the table and I swear this is how dinner went...
They sit down and as soon as her bum touches the chair she says she needs to go to the toilet. So she sprints to the bathroom and comes back. During this time he knocks my fork that lands on the floor and under the bed, and I just about save my own plate from being knocked down, too.
She comes back.
They try the smallest piece of a poppadom and start acting like it's made of fire ants so they both run to get some water to put it out. They come back and as they're climbing back up on the window seat, he makes the bold, cheeky move of sitting on her spot which prompts her to express full rage in the form of a scream that was undoubtedly heard from reception.
They start hitting each other so I break up the fight and they sit again. As he goes to grab his water he spills all of it on the table, the floor, and some of it makes it to my plate, too. Keep in mind, and this is no exaggeration, we sat down at 19.03 and it's not even 19.05 yet.
Both of their bowls are still untouched.
They take the first spoonful of rice. He loses about 75% of its content before it reaches his mouth, she gets it all in but laughs at something that he must have said telepathically because I didn't hear anything funny, so spits out most of it, which happens to land on my plate. It's not 19.06 yet.
By 19.09 there's more rice on the floor, the table, the seat and my own plate that in their bellies, yet somehow the 2 bowls look fuller than when we started. I feel I've aged about 10 years so we call it a day and get into bed.
Sometimes you need to do this, zone out and let them be wild (while safe), so that the "break" from trying to keep them under control can serve the same purpose as a slow charger - those chargers that give you only 5% more to keep you going until you get your good charger (in this case, it was bedtime).
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