Golden

A scene from my kitchen, yesterday

Have you heard of the Golden Hour? In medicine it’s the time period following a trauma when there is the highest likelihood that urgent medical treatment will prevent death.

In our house, we have our own version of Golden Hour. It’s the time period in the run-up to tea, when there is the highest likelihood that I will murder my children.

Between around 4pm and 5pm, my kids go a little stir-crazy, my blood pressure rises to the point of there being a whistling in my ears as the steam escapes, and I lose the plot.

My daughter, who has had a long day at school, is tired and as hungry as only a person with Prader-Willi Syndrome can be. My son, who has had a long day acting like the crazed offspring of Zebedee and Tigger, is also tired (but - obviously - not quite so hungry).

So what we get is a two-year-old winding up a 13-year-old, usually involving toys used as missiles. My stubborn teenager refuses to budge from her seat on the sofa, her high pain threshold helping her withstand the physical onslaught.

It ends in shouting, bruises, sometimes a bent pair of specs, and usually a retaliatory shove toppling the Toddlinator from the sofa, at which point he runs sobbing into the kitchen protesting wildly about how his sister has pushed him. Quite how he has the chutzpah to be so upset and affronted by an action taken only after enormous provocation, I don’t know.

It’s at this point that I sit down and explain calmly and reasonably to my rapt, attentive offspring how they need to be more gentle and caring with eachother, as they nod solemnly at me and we all have a group hug.

Nah, not really. It’s more like: “WILL YOU TWO SHUT UP BEFORE I POUR THIS BOLOGNAISE OVER YOUR HEADS!” 

Cue more crying, the infuriatingly amusing retort from my boy of: “Don’t shout, Mummy. Be nice”, and the stricken look on my daughter’s face as she wails: “But if you do that, WHAT WILL I HAVE FOR TEA?”

Video is Grant Lee Buffalo - The Shining Hour