Not by the hair on my chinny-chin-chin

Money in the couch cushions.

Stage 1 McDuck's syndrome.

It's been a difficult weekend. Arya has been tired (in part due to the difficulties of the late sunsets) and scratchy, and after a week of night shifts Hanna has not been in the best state to deal with it. I've not been in the best state to deal with it all the time, but it feels frankly churlish to say so.

They arrived in time for dinner on Friday, but with Hanna already zoning out, and by the time I got Arya to sleep, we were pretty much down to a couple of episodes of The Muppets and then bed. Arya took forever to go down, fighting sleep so much that I had to threaten to leave at one point just to get her to lie down.

On Saturday morning we went to the library, returned our old books and got some new ones, and then headed home to take the car to Tumble Tots. I hurried her in because we were running late, but Arya flatly refused to settle in the room until Mummy had taken her in, then I had to take her back in after a toilet break. She seems to enjoy it when she's in there, but she's at the low end of the class still and some of the older kids are pretty boisterous. I suspect that she'll get more into it as they slip off to GymBobs.

We hit the shops and ended up getting something to eat there and then coming home for soup, since we'd got to pretty late in the day and Arya certainly needed something, and Hanna had missed breakfast. Hanna got a bit of a nap in and Arya and I chillaxed with some ponies, but after Hanna got up and I was working on dinner, things turned ugly. Upset that we wouldn't make her pizza on demand, Arya told Hanna that she wished she had a different family.

Teddy gets a piggy back.

Now, Arya was pretty distraught at how upset Hanna was by this, but seemed not to realise that it was her fault. I hope that this means that she didn't say it just to be mean, but because she'd heard it somewhere else. Eventually we persuaded her to apologise, but that's the second time she's said something like that in two weeks, so I am a little worried.

On Sunday morning Arya and I chilled out of the sofa and she counted the money in her piggy bank, which is a dinosaur. Then she decided we would play a game where she was a pig, hiding behind a cushion, and I was a wolf, so of course I huffed and puffed and blew the pillow away, then tried to eat her. She was not happy about this at all, and it turns out doesn't really know the story. I gave her a quick version to reassure her, then told her I wasn't a wolf anymore and asked if she wanted a cuddle, which she did, and then we watched some Ruff-Ruff, Tweet and Dave by way of my penance.

In the afternoon, we all went to the park, where we let Arya go most of the way on the zipline on her own and encouraged her to slide down the pole on the big climbing frame. She slipped and bashed her cheek; not badly, but fortunately she wasn't sharp enough to realise that she could have got me to do practically anything to make it up to her.

We came home and she made a blanket fort with Mummy, and we all spent some time inside it, before she started trying to put things on the blanket fort and it began its inevitable collapse.

Whose house?

The rest of the evening was... trying. Tiredness built up and bathtime was a real challenge. She asked for Mummy, and so I got to duck a bullet, since whoever tried to wash her hair last night was going to catch it. She didn't stop crying until the Elsa hair was in place (it didn't help that the detangler spray broke.) I was very glad that when I went to get her pajamas she wanted to stay with Mummy, always a good sign that she's not holding a grudge.

She perked up a bit as we put her in the car, and said a chipper enough goodnight and a wave before they headed off. I also got my father's day cards before they left, but forgot to photograph them.