The woman he married

Tired and bleary and pulling on my robe, I step from my bedroom to the top of the stairs.

I smell coffee.

Someone who lets you stay in bed a few extra minutes while he starts the coffee and deals with the first morning angers from your daughters?

Marry that person.  Seriously.

There is a thundering up the stairs as I tie my robe and prepare to head down.

Kallan.

Kallan all hopeful and polite and lovely, waving a package of flavored hot chocolate in the air and in my face.

“Daddy said I could have hot chocolate with breakfast!”

“So weird that you are up here talking to me about it instead of just drinking your hot chocolate, then.”

“OK, fine.  He said I could have hot chocolate if you said it was OK.”

Sigh.

At least he made the coffee.

I answer Kallan, “Yeah, that sounds about right.  And the answer is no.”

“What?  Daddy said I could!”

“No, Daddy said you should ask me.”

“But he meant that I could!”

I put my arm around her and we walk into the kitchen together, “No, what Daddy meant?  Was that he doesn’t want to be yelled at, and so he has pushed your soon-to-be anger off on me.”

Mark snorts with laughter, “If Mom says no?  The answer is no.”

And then Kallan is in a rage, screaming and stomping through the kitchen, “Daddy would have let me have hot chocolate!  Why do you have to ruin everything?  Daddy, why do you let her decide everything?”

I take a cup of coffee from Mark, and suggest, “We have orange juice, babe.”

She turns hateful eyes on me, “I don’t want orange juice.  And?  I wasn’t even talking to you.  You are not in this discussion.”

“OK, well now?  I am so in this discussion you are not going to even believe it.  Go sit on the couch in the other room and I will come talk to you in a few minutes.”

She crosses her arms in defiance, “I don’t want to.”

“Oooooh . . . that would be the perfect answer if I had asked you if you wanted to go sit on the couch.  But I did not.  Go sit on the couch.”

Stomp, stomp, stomp . . . flop.

I go to talk to her, push her legs out of the way so that I can sit next to her.

She screams in anguish, “DADDY!  Mommy hit me!  She hit me!  The woman you married just hit me!”

The woman he married?

Snort!

So I let her sit for a while.

And then I may have walked through the room once and pantomimed throwing a huge unreasonable fit.

There is a lot of mocking at our house.

Kallan sneers, “Hello? I can see you, you know.”

I am all startled, “Are you kidding?  I forgot to wear my cloak of invisibility?”

She giggles.

I sit down, “Babe, you just cannot get up in the morning and bring the house down with screaming demands for hot chocolate.”

“Hmmmph.  If this was a hotel?  I would be able to have hot chocolate.”

“What?  I’m not sure where you are going with this argument, Kallan.  This?  Is not a hotel.”

“Don’t I know it.”

“Anyway . . . you may get up off of the couch and do the rest of your day when you are confident that you are going to be pleasant.”

“FINE,” and she stands up to leave.

“Where are you going?  You’re still all angry and rude.”

She rolls her eyes, “You didn’t say I had to be pleasant now, Mom.  You just said I had to be certain that I would be pleasant.  In the future.  And in the future?  I am sure I will have pleasant moments.”

Sometimes?  Kallan sounds so much like me?  It is spooky.

So we sit for a few minutes, together.

She eventually tires of being all angry, and she slumps and snuggles into my side.  She lifts enormous doe eyes to mine and speaks sweetly, “Is this pleasant enough?”

And she flutters her eyelashes.  Sticks out her bottom lip.

Just a bit.

Her future boyfriends?

Are all kinds of screwed.

I hug her and then release her, “Go.  Go have breakfast.”

I can hear her discussing my cruelty with Mark as she pours herself a glass of orange juice, “Why is Mommy so bossy and mean about everything?”

And Mark answers, “The bossy and mean one this morning?  That was you.  You know . . . you may want to consider a different approach next time.  Something nicer.”

Kallan is all indignant, “Hello, Daddy?  Do you not even know me?  Have we not met?”

I hear the refrigerator close, and then she completes her thought . . .

“I am Kallan.”

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GUEST POST ALERT!!!!

I am guest posting over at Kelsey’s this morning!  Check out her blog at Polished Portrayal. And check out my post, which is called The Swarm.

And leave a comment.

Because you love me.

You know you do.