Timing and Context

Do you ever have those times where your kids come up to you at inopportune times? Here is what happened this morning:

Ethan: "Dad, can we watch number one Star Wars now?"
Angry Dad (angrily): "Geez Ethan. NO! No we CAN'T."
Ethan (running off in tears down the hallway): "I want a new dad. This dad is no good... Waaaahhhhhh"

This was pretty much my first interaction with Ethan for the day. I can't recall if he'd actually said anything else to me before this, so I hadn't said anything to set him off. However, things had happened to me to make me shirty.

About ten minutes prior to Ethan's outburst, I had been sitting at the kitchen table browsing the Who Weekly and reading about Britney's latest exploits with Callum sitting on my lap. Callum made a squelchy noise, and I didn't think anything of it at first. Then I decided to check. As I lifted him up I felt the cold rush of liquid on my chest. Anth glanced across and said "Looks like he's left a present on you." More than a present, a whole dumping. I must have squeezed it out of him. The nappy was full and leaking everywhere. My T-shirt had a lovely yellow stain from just under the arm down to my shorts, and on top of that, he'd still managed to leave a nice yellow puddle on the floor.

We took him to the bathroom, stripped him off and gave him a quick bath. I left Anth to that, and walked slowly down to the laundry, and stripped down to my jocks. I then spent 5 minutes washing the poo off my shirt and shorts with Napisan. I walked through the house to our bathroom, washed the remnants of poo of my body, got re-dressed, and went back to the kitchen.

Anth had cleaned out the fridge, but had left the week old chicken which had been in the fridge sitting, covered in glad wrap, on the bench. I made the mistake of unwrapping the glad wrap. Week old chicken sitting on a hot bench smells remarkably like shit. Of course, as I threw it out, the glad wrap managed to wrap around my hand. I again smelt like shit, and spent a minute running my hand under the sink tap to wash off the smell.

Around that time, Ethan came in to ask me about Star Wars. His timing was crap, poor kid. He'd asked me the previous day to watch the Phantom Menace, but I'd told him it would have to wait. I personally think it is the weakest of all the Star Wars movies as well. He had managed to wait a day. He had no idea his timing was so bad, and in the context of my day, asking at that exact point was bound to illicit a savage response. The savage response, of course sent him off to his room as detailed above.

I made it up to him by taking him to Movie World in the afternoon.

Ciao for Now, Poo Stained Angry Dad.