DIFFERENT WAVELENGTHS

I spent all of yesterday sorting through boxes of things that haven't seen the light of day for just over a year. I threw out or put in charity bags lamps, cushions, chairs, books and magazines in between dropping off and picking up the kids up from school. I returned a €15 bow and arrow set belonging to Lara to the local toy shop because The Husband snapped it in his eagerness to show her what a Hot Shot he used to be when he was young.

I was explaining to the Sales Assistant how the bow 'just snapped' the first time my eleven year old daughter used it and how it 'must have been weak' when Audrey pipes up beside me
"It was Daddy who broke it Mum, I saw him"
"No, honey, Daddy... tried ...to... fix.... it" I explained slowly but firmly and whipped the €15 refund the Sales Assistant was holding out to me before she changed her mind.

After that I drove to the Garage nearby where Audrey's little bike had been left in to be fixed. When we got back to the house she rode around on it for hours outside the house until she had perfected her 90 degree wheelies and back wheel skids. At bedtime, despite being called and called, she ignored me. She was having too much fun to ever consider getting off her bike and the more I called, the faster she seemed to ride and the more brave she got. Up paths, down paths, round and round in ever decreasing circles. She decided to call it a day after her first attempt to ride up the neighbours garden wall at breakneck speed with legs askew.
She cried over her skint knee and skint pride and I gave her a cuddle and explained how little girls should do what their parents ask them to do when their parents ask them to do it and that it probably would've been a good idea to get off her bike when I called her for bed rather than speed up. I asked her if she had learnt anything today.

"Yes" she blubbered through her snots and tears. "I learnt how to spell REX"