My job, since this morning has been both to comfort and to prevent a break out.
Our youngest is doing an overnight stay at an elementary school with a random group of people and She Who Must Be Obeyed is trying to think of 1) the various ways our youngest can and will hurt herself and 2) ways she can escape my surveillance and security system to go check on our youngest.
The overnight stay is an annual community center event for young kids where they get a chance to leave the nest a bit and the parents get to practice having the young kids leave the nest. Part of the event involves a uniquely Japanese haunted house scavenger hunt. This amounts to the kids having to got get stamps in darkened rooms from various people in scary costumes. When I’ve seen this done before the students were given flashlights and then handed cards that told them where to go. When they got all the stamps they got some sort of prize.
She Who Must Be Obeyed has, since dropping our youngest off, tried to think of excuses to get near the school. She’s been trying to think of things our youngest forgot that must be delivered immediately. At one point SWMBO wanted to go help make and/or eat the curry and rice the students were eating for supper.
My job has been to express a modicum of sympathy whilst slapping down all the excuses.
SWMBO: What if she gets sick?
Me: They will call us.
SWMBO: What if she gets injured?
Me: They will call us and take her to a hospital.
SWMBO: What if there’s an earthquake?
Me: We’ll learn about it at the same time she does.
SWMBO: What if the school burns down?
Me: We’ll hear about it on the news.
SWMBO: What if a meteor crashes into the school?
Me: That would be kind of cool so I’ll go take pictures of it.
I realize that none of these are, perhaps, the most comforting but as the dad in this situation my job is not to comfort or to be sympathetic but rather to express sympathy whilst hiding the car keys and She Who Must Be Obeyed’s shoes.
I’ve not yet tried restraints to keep SWMBO in the house, but we’ll see, especially because it’s bed time and I have to work tomorrow.