It was like a scene from the North – South Korean border…
My daughter stood there with furrowed brow and eyes that were throwing daggers at her mother. She was sporting a furious pout and her hands were crossed. Her mother, the other side of the virtual 38th parallel was standing there with her hands on her hips and head slightly cocked.
I was staying well out of it. There are often civilian casualties when war breaks out and I was just cowardly enough to make sure I wasn’t going to be one of them.
“Go to your room and think about what you’ve done!” my wife demanded.
Meri, my five year old going on seventeen, stood there and stamped her foot. “Aaarrrrggghhhh!” she screamed and stormed past her mother into her room. For good measure, she slammed the door.
Clare, looked at me. “That’s a horrible noise. Where has she learnt that?”
I tried to look a little less sheepish and looked around me innocently, studiously avoiding the question.
Clare picked up on my non answer. She looked me in the eye and, adrenalin still pumping from her recent showdown with our daughter looked me in the eye. “What?” she challenged.
“It’s the noise you make when you’re frustrated. She’s learnt that from you.”
“I do not!” protested Clare. I shrugged my shoulders.
Two days later we were in the car driving to a local country park. Clare was in the passenger seat beside me fiddling with her work phone.
“The damn thing isn’t sending any e-mails.” Furious pressing the touchscreen. “I need to respond to this mail!”
More, even more frantic pressing. “Aaarrrrggghhhh!” she groaned. “Why does this stuff never work when you need it to!”
I looked at the kids in the back of the car. “Arun, Meri. What does mummy say when she’s angry?”
They both grinned, sensing the mischief I was making.
““Aaarrrrggghhhh!” they both chorused, grinning manically.
I looked at Clare. Now it was her turn to narrow her eyes and throw daggers at me.
“Sorry,” I said.
My children, however, weren’t sorry. They were having a ball. “Aaarrrrggghhhh!” they carried on although Arun’s noise now sounded more like a dinosaur, “Raaaaaahhhhhh!” That was in between the giggles that is.
Clare’s look became ever more frosty. The daggers were about to turn into hand grenades. I felt I was about to become a casualty of war.
The views expressed in this blog are solely those of the blogger and do not necessarily represent the views of Dad.info.
