They must be feeling better

Emer woke with a hacking cough and Linnea looked wan and miserable, but ways in which today is not the same as yesterday include the following:

Both children ate breakfast.
Both children ate something at lunchtime (though not as much as I'd need to call it "lunch.")
Both children submitted to pyjama removal and warm day-clothes being put on.

There are still rivers of snot and acres of laundry to deal with, but they are apparently feeling a bit better.

Still subdued enough to be mainly in front of the TV though. Still, progress is progress.

It is hard to be the mean parent

But it's harder, truly, to be the lax one. Poor ole Rob ended up winding Linnea up so much she cried for over an hour, eventually working herself up into such hysterics that we had to get her out of the room so that Emer could sleep.

He has now set himself alarms so that he doesn't miss her bedtime any more. She can read the clock now.

This stuff is dead easy for me. I say (for example) "I know it's not eight o'clock, it's after eight o'clock, quick, now, this minute, go," and I close my ears and harden my heart and so we go.

But Rob feels mean, doing that, and Negotiations Ensue.

Well, perhaps they are more like Peace Talks. No-one actually alters their stated position, and no-one moved forward, and the less powerful parties escalate the levels of passion and violence... Very like peace talks, I think.