Tough Nut

Today the kids have been a...nightmare total mess challenge. We have experienced whinging, whining, fighting, suffocating nearness whilst whinging and whining, in-fighting (with each other) out-fighting (them versus us), defiance, eye rolling, sarcasm, denials of tiredness- no, make that "vehement denials of tiredness"- no make that , "strenuous AND vehement denials".

And it was not at all entirely all on the still-adjusting, can't-speak-a-single-freaking-word two-year-old.

At one point when a certain 2-year-old had enough, he began to tell his sister off. I mean he was really laying in to her. For his trouble, he was ousted from "the most wonderful room in all the land" and thus lay heart-broken and weeping in the hall. His relative nearness still rankled Her Highness, so she opened her door and yelled a string of commands that even a robotic servant would have trouble following. Liam's confusion and inability to follow her commands to the letter further irritated her. She was so irritated in fact, that she got out a marker and imperiously "labeled that monkey". Upon  the back of his fat little hand she wrote the letters "B L"- this stands for Bad Listener.
At the time he didn't care a fig.

Then, at dinner? He noticed the letters again.
And got mad. He really got his feathers in a ruffle.
In his way, he began to lay into her-for the umpteenth time today. He was fussing and making the sign for "no" and "sister" over and over while grumbling and complaining and when he wasn't signing, he was pointing a fat little finger at her. She sat, serenely eating her spaghetti.
When he had it all out of his system, he looked at me and gave me a briefing that ended with a furrowed brow and thumbs up.

I guess he told her.

All was well for about 2 minutes. Then Ev started in on her defensive.

I hope to All That Is Holy they wake up on the right sides of their respective beds in the morning.

 Because I am so not above contacting the UN.

In other, not unrelated news, Papa goes back to work tomorrow.