The Octopus and the Box

22 April 2010
Haven’t updated this for ages (not that there’s all that many of you reading who don’t know why), but just in case there’s anyone out there who doesn’t actually know me, the reason is because I’ve been in the United States for an extended trip, which was further extended by one day due to the unpronounceable Icelandic volcano erupting. So I’ve had 11 days away from T and the children, which has been sad and a little lonely but also refreshing in a way. I’d thought when I left that I’d do lots of writing while I was out there, especially when it became clear there was no chance T would be able to join me in New York. But as it happened I managed to fill the days with meeting people, seeing movies and wandering around. In the downtime in Oregon I watched old episodes of Glee I’d downloaded. It was all strangely blissful.

According to my sources back home in England, the kids are alright. In fact, I could see for myself during the video calls I made through Skype while I was there. Whenever I got through to them, E appeared rather unimpressed with the whole event and more interested in playing with the blocks I’d left in my office where the Skype connection is set up. R, however, was delighted to see mummy and all through the call would keep clapping and waving and blowing me kisses to me. T reckons he missed me more but didn’t show it as much, whereas E was more obviously clingy and needy.

The big news is that in my absence the Naughty Box finally arrived. This is a cage-like structure that we had a builder colleague construct so that when R does something unacceptable, like hit E or bite anyone, we can put him inside to show him there’s a consequence to that sort of behaviour. I was initially upset by the idea of doing it because it was too uncomfortably like putting one’s child in a cage. However, FAE gave it her blessing, and T argued quite rationally that there was no real difference between the box and putting R in the room where the freezers are but which he sees as no real punishment because he just spends his time in there pushing at the catflap, getting things out of the fridge and pulling books off the shelves.

So the Box arrived last week. D explained to me that it was no time at all until R did something naughty requiring use of it. She plonked him inside and walked away, no doubt to return taking care of E. She left him five minutes or so and then went back to check on him, expecting R to be teary and cross with frustration.

Not at all. Much like a wily octopus at an aquarium who kept stealing fish from a neighbouring tank that an ichyologist friend once told me about, he’d managed to climb out of the Box, go and get a toy from the play room, and then climb BACK in the Box where he sat out the five minutes quite contentedly playing with the retrieved toy.

Back to the drawing board, I guess.