Oooookayyy...back to the Happy Place...haaaaappyyyy....

So. Had the kids on Sunday, all day. Good time. Really, really good time.

*exhales sharply* Okay, can we talk a moment here?

For starters, Nik has been coughing since Thanksgiving or so. Not a constant smoker's hack or anything, but when it kicked in, it rasped in that yucky tone that sends parents high-tailing it to the doctor's office. So, we high-tailed it to the doctor's office, Abbey, Nik, and me. rafaela stayed at home, because, well, a trip to the walk-in clinic with two under-nines in tow is not a pleasure cruise I'd wish upon anyone whose opinion I respect. I just wish I respected my own opinion better.

Because, see, sitting around in the waiting room at a walk-in clinic with two kids hopped up on Frankenberry, attention-span-julienning cartoons and insufficient sleep is like being on the front lines of a war without the benefit of the Geneva Convention. And when the wait is prolonged by the fact that the Red Tape Brigade has decreed that they need Kristi's express permission to treat them (because she's now the custodial parent, never mind that she has been the custodial parent for months), and her cell phone is not within earshot, the whole affair turns into a veritable cornucopia of good old-fashioned Pain-in-the-Ass.

At one point, while trying to sort things out with the admitting nurse, I peeked back in the waiting room to see Abbey flat on her stomach in the geometric center of the floor, with Nik on her back like Willie Shoemaker. I ordered them both, using my level-5 Dad Voice, to sit in the chairs, to not run around like crack-addled ferrets, and to keep quiet until I got back. I timed it: it was literally about four seconds before they had resumed their Wrestlemania XIII stances, and that vein in my neck (you know, that one) began throbbing in earnest.

We finally got things sorted out (it turned out the the pediatrician on duty was the kids' old doctor, a really sweet guy), and gathered up rafaela for lunch at Friendly's, which is more often than not another exercise in crisis management. This time, it was Abbey who was the problem du jour: when Anna gave her the present she had specially picked out at the New York State Museum a month earlier, and Abbey started to open it, she said, out loud, "I hope it's not a cat's-cradle book." Which, of course, is what it was. She then looked at it unwrapped, shrugged, and set it aside with a brief, "Oh, I already have it." She tried a save, saying, "But I lost the strings, so...." Since she hadn't even bothered with a thank-you, though, the save wasn't exactly what we needed to hear.

Okay, so, poor graces, bad manners at play, stuff that has happened before (stuff that I'm sure I did at that age at some point or another). The part that seriously bugged me, though, came a little bit into the conversation, when Anna mentioned that her grandmother was in the hospital for a heart attack. Abbey's response? To the effect of, "Why should I care? It's not my family." Oh dear gods, things I do not want to hear coming from my children's lips. I thought I'd raised her better than that. We had a long discussion about the meaning of sympathy, and about good manners, and about listening and giving kind words. I don't know if it sunk in. I hope it did. I just don't understand how there could be such a gap in what I've taught her.

I'll be seeing them again at Christmas. I hope it goes well....