Warning: Severe Behavioral Advisory in Effect

Today the news warns of severe weather conditions throughout Washington State. Flood warnings are in effect for most counties.

Our family is enduring severe conditions of its own: we’ve been lambasted by a behavioral storm that threatens to unearth the foundation of our previously peaceful home, shatter its windows, and send it crashing down in the middle of a Kansas wheat field.

In the past 24 hours our family has seen more fights than the World Heavyweight Championship. I’m not able to recount the causes of these battles, because I was never privy to them. But just so you can live vicariously through me (get a life, why don’t ya?), I will share the lasting impressions:

Sylvia in her room after a time-out, with wipes scattered on her floor like little patches of snow—yellow snow, that is—as she attempts to clean up the “accident” she had on her chair;

Eleanor’s best pal crying and covering his bloody ear as he runs down the stairs to escape his 5-year-old assailant during their two hour play-date that only lasts twenty minutes;

Eleanor’s lengthy, tedious, and ultimately unresolved cross-examination of Tobin and I regarding why she didn’t receive a birthday present from us (Being too young to fully understand consumerism’s impact on global warming, she isn’t keen on our new practice of giving experiences instead of stuff. Has the thrill of the Dead Stuffed Animals exhibit worn off already? I mean, come on!);

Eli, at 11 months of age, issuing the Emancipation Proclamation for Babies Everywhere, which holds this truth to be self evident (I know I’m mixing my metaphors here, but cut me some slack): babies want and need to feed themselves; they do not want any help; and they will cry and scream if you try to feed them, even if they are simultaneously crying and screaming because of severe hunger.

Last night, with a pinch of desperation and a dash of retribution, I hastily gathered up all of the Halloween candy and threw it in the trash (there wasn’t really that much left since we’d been stealthily culling it each night after the girls went to bed). “Do it! Do it quickly, before you change your mind,” Tobin encouraged. Viewing the candy as the source of the behavioral funk, I attempted to rid ourselves of its evil influence, like the Brady Bunch boys returning the Tiki idol to the ancient burial ground after it had ruined their Hawaiian family vacation. So far, I cannot report any corresponding change in behavior.

I just checked http://www.weather.com/ for a 10-day forecast. Until Tuesday, November 14—when the weather will return to “mostly cloudy”—the forecast can be summarized as a large, dark cloud leaking chubby blue raindrops.

I sure hope the storm in my home passes before then.