In our household, Tyler starts demanding dinner bang on 5:29pm. If I've had a good daytime run earlier, that's no worry - it's in the fridge/saucepan/slowcooker (or on not so good days - tin!) and ready to go. At 5:31pm you realise you've accidently over-zapped his dinner by an extra minute in the microwave as he's merrily pushing buttons calling out "BEEP! BEEP!" on the microwave whilst you were tending to the huge spew the baby just threw across the room... At 5:32, Tyler's on the edge of tears because 1) he's tired - a whole day is a big day when you're not even 2 years old yet, and 2) because he's seen dinner and still doesn't understand the concept of "you'll have to wait for it to cool down now". Meanwhile the baby has proceeded to join in the howling because she's now starving after purging her earlier milk-feed. In unison, the two overly tired kids wail and whine til you shove something in their mouth. And then they're both happy.
Bathtime consists of us all having a bath (self included) - me to hold the baby, and toddler because seriously, if me and the baby are bathing he might as well be in there too, else God only knows what he'd get up to if we left him unsupervised with us submerged in water and unable to go running to a different area of the house should something fall down / smash / set on fire. So it's an all in bathroom affair. We then proceed to all walk towelled but naked through to the lounge room (reason 1 as to why it's best to let me know before "dropping in" at this time of evening - else you might think we're one of those weird families who just all hang out naked together all the time...!) and infront of the heater I dress Maya, then Tyler, then myself.
Then the little blue minion (thou shalt be named "Iggle Piggle") emerges from his hell-hole to indicate to the toddler that it's almost bed time. He starts winding down, whilst baby is just gearing up. She has a big active play with me whilst Tyler lounges on the sofa (the entire sofa that is - paying particular attention to whichever end of it I myself might want to sit on, and very indiscretely shoving me away should I try and share it). So baby and I end up on the floor until the "good night" song plays and Tyler toddles off to bed, Maya then starts to get grizzly, has a bottle, and goes to bed too - on a good night all before the end of the "Spicks & Specks" opening theme song (I don't watch much television, but this is the one show that, if possible, I will watch every night)... (*edit: though apparently not tonight - for some reason we're not receiving ABC TV signal tonight! :S )
So therefore, should you, or a telemarketer, or a charity seller, appointment setter, door to door sales person, census surveyor or whomever, call or approach the house between these hours, I do not apologise at all for what you may bear witness to... My son may be shoving chicken up his nose. Or my nose even... My daughter may resemble a purely milk-fed exorcist... I may be naked. They may be naked. There may even be naked running after each other involved. I may be a bit more edgy / bit less friendly - but not because I don't like you. Just because you have poor timing. It's called Cactus Hour because it's the kind of time you'd rather spend crawling through a field full of cacti naked than to have to deal with. The kids give you the shits during cactus hour, no matter how lovely and affectionate and gorgeous they are, cactus hour is just all round prickly and nasty for everyone involved. So "please - leave a message after the tone" *beeeeeeeeeep*
My mother calls it "The Witching Hour". Honestly isn't much of a problem for me much these days. Tonight he's still telling me "I'm not hungry", even though it's an hour past tea-time. Food is normally served bang on 6. But, lately he's more forgiving and will let me serve it anything up to half an hour late. We did have some "unpleasant-ness" when he was younger though. Dealing with two children would NOT be fun. The 3s are lovely :-) For example, right now is playing on the floor by himself with his Duplo.
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