Happy Hearts at Home

This weekend Avocado spent at Tahoe with a friend from camp, for her first! ever! skiing experience. Sarcasm Girl has been out with her sweetie since Friday night (we got to meet him. He's adorable. They're adorable together. We didn't embarrass the kid too much, I think). The house has been astonishingly quiet, and the Spouse and I have been reveling in the quiet and astonishment. Now they are home. Which is great, right? Right. Except that since they got home Avocado (in her accustomed way after having had too much fun) is cranky and unpleasable, and Sarcasm Girl is standing on her right to have what she wants immediately, which has meant attempts on the part of both girls to get me scurrying around doing things in their service, and an almost equally exhausting effort on my behalf to smilingly say, "You can do it yourself, dear."

And, while we have two televisions in two separate rooms, the pressing need of one child or another to watch on something on the same TV on which her sister wishes to watch something else, requiring raised voices and much stomping about. I have retired to my bed. Not swooning, yet, but it may come to that.