Babs takes martial arts classes. She loves them. My husband takes martial arts classes. He loves them (and they are oh so good for him). Kiddo attends activity day events (in the evening). She loves it. And Tuesdays (luckily only twice a month) these all collide.
It's a complicated schedule. Dinner is precisely at 5, so Babs can eat and be settled and ready to go by 6. She and Daddy then leave. Around 6:15 I take Kiddo to a friend's house who will then take her to their activity a little later. Babs gets home just before 7, and we hang out until Daddy leaves for his class. Then we hang out a little more until just before 8 when we head off to pick up Kiddo, and her friend (and her brother), from their activity so everyone can come home.
It sounds benign, but here is the secret. The boy cannot stay up late. He gets tired, then oh so wired and hyper, and uncooperative. It is fairly miserable. But we all take turns sacrificing for each other in a family. So every other Tuesday, he sacrifices his bedtime.
Two activities ago, it was a week or two before Halloween, and as we drove home the older kids decided to entertain themselves by telling (not very) spooky stories. (But plenty spooky for them.) Ever observant, the boy felt the need to participate. And so he kept trying to tell a story after the other two kids were dropped off, and he could finally get a word in edgewise.
Babs decided it was too spooky, and kept asking him to stop telling it. He wouldn't stop. She asked, begged, pleaded, cried, and he kept doggedly starting again. Finally I snapped at him, "Stop scaring [Babs]! Don't tell the story!"
"I not scaring Babs!" he replied, "I scaring Kiddo!"
(Here is his story, or at least all that we heard, "This is a spooky story!")
