Day 65

My wife has left again. A brief respite over the weekend. Gone in the blink of an eye. With it goes my last hope at sanity. Once again, the bathroom becomes a public space. Once again, the never-ending barrage of questions come to me. Once again, the guilt of telling my daughter “no” is mine alone to bear. Once again, good cop and bad cop are but a single person. Once again, everything that I do seems to undermines everything else that I’ve done.

And yet, the day begins perfectly with Stormy waking not long after I return from the gym. She calmly accepts that the “no TV” punishment is still in effect and joins me at the dining table to eat breakfast instead. Before long she’s dressed and ready to go to school.

I return a little early today to take Stormy to get a long overdue haircut. My fears of a general protest or refusal are unwarranted. She’s even excited about the prospect. Upon arriving at the hairdresser I understand why. The hairdresser sets up My Little Pony to keep her occupied while she gets her haircut. Little miss has obviously thought this through as a means of deviously circumventing her punishment. I can respect this strategy. I think I’ll be buying her “My First Sun Tzu” for her next birthday. Or maybe not…

Dinner time arrives and she refuses to eat. I explain that she hasn’t earned desert. She responds by stealing two yoghurt’s from the fridge. Her TV ban has now been extended by another two days. One per yoghurt. This achieves nothing. Similarly, bedtime arrives and passes with no noticeable movement on Stormy’s part. At this rate there will be no TV and no Movie Night for a few months. Fast forward a few hours, and at this very moment, Stormy is currently standing behind me and playing a melodic drum beat on my head. Somehow this has actually become relaxing. I suspect I may have gone mad.

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