Arsenic Hour

It's called The Arsenic Hour. Is it called that because the mental trauma is comparable to physically suffering from arsenic poisoning, or because sometimes we secretly wonder if taking some arsenic would make it all go away?

It's usually not an hour anyway. Sometimes it's two, sometimes it's four, and sometimes it's so bad that it seems like a week.

For me, Arsenic Hour begins with Horror Food Preparation. I usually love cooking, but the excitement and fun is sucked right out of the activity when you have a young child (e.g., Chubbity Bubbity) crawling around the kitchen and trying to climb up your legs, while her moaning turns to crying turns to screaming.The middle of Arsenic Hour is punctuated by Chubbity Bubbity spitting out any foods that don't please her majesty (with respect to taste/temperature/texture) and throwing them on the floor.
However my particular least-favourite characteristic of Mid-Arsenic Hour is the recently-instigated I-Don't-Want-Dinner-I-Don't-Even-Like-Dinner Tantrum. (Truth be told, he does like dinner and he does eat dinner soon after. He's just decided for reasons of Parental Control and Domination that the tantrum is essential prior to eating.)

It ends with Nightmare Child Showering. Sonny Ma-Jiminy loves showers. He always has. But now, as a grisly preface to his half-hour soak while gleefully playing with a thousand bath toys, he goes through an obligatory I-Don't-Want-A-Shower-I-Don't-Even-Like-Showers Tantrum.Some days, my dear little cherubs suck the very life out of me. I told this to Sonny Ma-Jiminy, who strenuously disagreed. I kissed him. So he dropped to the floor, screaming, "I didn't WANT a kiss!!" Some Days!