Four Days

For Valentine's Day, The Daughters gave Brian several coupons. There's a coupon for a foot rub. There's a coupon for cleaning the bathroom without complaint. There's a coupon for a free bag of popcorn. I, on the other hand, got jack from the girls which I brought forth from my loins, but that's not the point of this post.

The point of this post is that Brian got all these cool coupons, and he cashed the first one in on Saturday. The previous week had been crazy to say the least. Daughter 1 and 2 auditioned for the Missoula Children's Theater's production of The Secret Garden. Daughter 2 was cast and Daughter 1 was not. If nothing else happened the rest of the week, that alone was enough to set us all on the fast track for a hostile week.

So, while Daughter 2 had play practice every single night this week, with a performance on Friday, Daughter 1 had horseback riding lessons, Battle of the Books practice and a book report project due.  The week was nothing but hectic.

As a pre-emptive strike, Brian cashed in his "48-hours of no fighting with my sister" coupon. Yesterday morning, he stood in front of our semi-comotose Daughters and handed them the certificate.

"We know that you are both very tired. We know that you are both exhausted. We know that you are both cranky. So, I'd like to cash in my 'No Fighting' coupon so that we'll all get the next 48 hours of peace in order to recuperate."

The Daughters nodded their little heads; Daughter 2 yawned big without covering her mouth. Daughter 1 looked at her and growled, "Cover your mouth."

Brian held his hand up and reminded them that they owed us 48 hours of peace.

"I don't know if I can do it," Daughter 1 grumbled.

"Yeah," Daughter 2 confirmed, "Four days is a long time." Her sister nodded in agreement.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. 48 hours is just two days, but we're gonna take what we can get.