Another torturous journey back home from picking Jack up. A lot of, “No, don’t do that!” & “Stop that!” He refuses to listen to instruction at the moment & the last straw was his messing about with the rock-salt/grit in the salt bin at the top of the stairs from Harley to Ryod Street. I grabbed him by the back collar & frog marched him home. He was forced to sit inside for 10 minutes. Eve pottered along behind us like there was nothing unusual about me forcing a crying older brother home.
He gets over things very quickly. Oh, & we had another run in later on. He drew on Eve’s hand with a felt tip pen & then denied it. It was plainly obvious that he had. He looked me in the eye & said that he had not, but he was lying, he smirked & leant forward as he looked me in the eye. I took the pen off him for lying, not for drawing on Eve’s hand… He burst into tears. Louise was a bit mad at me for that as she says she would have let that slip, as she thinks he knows that we know he is lying. I do not like lying at all (probably because I’ve never been any good at it). I am not completely convinced this level of complicity exists, but it is the first time he has lied to me like that, & I wanted to ensure that I make it clear that I do not accept such things. I guess I’m much more absolute than Louise. He got the pen back quite quickly as he said that he would be good. He managed to write a nice list of names of name of people to invite to his birthday party.
The kids went off to sleep at a proper time. It’s funny how when they do that you feel so much more enthusiastic about the evening. I managed to get a bit of painting done in the attic & some important clearing up. Small but useful progress.