rp log - lila and roger Characters: Lila, Meredith and Roger Davies Setting: Sunday evening of June 14th, at the Davies' Summary: Merry is starting to show magic, but in the worst way possible. Dinner is memorable tonight. Rating: PG
Life was a whole lot easier now that Lila had been working at the school rather than at the hospital. Because if she was still there, it would have been impossible to enjoy the weekends with her family, especially when it was just her and her daughter, and she'd take her along on grocery-shopping trips, to the book store, and sometimes to Hyde Park.
Today had been a good day. Meredith surprisingly made little fuss over candy and she enjoyed chasing ducks in the park. Of course, Lila had no worries that the end of the day was going to go fine as well. If only she'd be able to eat her greens without trouble today.
There wasn't just greens today, though. She was in process of including chicken and pasta as well. As she stirred the pot on the stove, Merry walked into the kitchen with her Bitty Mate under her arm. After about two months, the thing still made noise but it had thankfully lowered enough that it didn't cause a headache unless it was a few inches away from her ear.
That or possibly her parents had successfully managed to blanket it with enough silence charms. Who knew?
"Mummy, I want swings." Lila didn't have to look over her shoulder to know that Merry was probably staring at the picture of her and Nora on her swing set at the Finnigans'.
"We'll see, honey." That was usually the response that she tended to give her daughter when she was 1, distracted and 2, not really liking the idea.
Roger had come home from work just a few minutes before. As was his routine, he came in and said hello to Lila and Meredith, giving them a kiss and a hug respectively, and then went up to change clothes. He'd managed that quickly tonight, going from his proper editor garb to a more casual pair of jeans and a t-shirt. His "lounging about the house" clothes still cost more than most people's three-piece suits, but that was a hazard of being really hot. Sometimes it was expensive.
"What're we talking about?" he asked as he walked into the kitchen.
Meredith was a smart girl, of course, she was likely to realize that "we'll see" didn't always meant a yes. "I want swings. Nora has swings at her house." When Roger walked in, she turned and walked over to him, raising one arm to be picked up.
"I know, Merry," Lila continued, most of her attention on dinner. "If you want the swings, you have to finish your dinner. And I mean all of it." It wasn't usually a big problem for Meredith. If she was promised something she wanted after finishing everything on her plate, she may pout a little but the prospect of reward was usually too great. Though most of the time, the reward was a new toy or dessert. "Roger, I forgot to pull out the glasses when I was setting up the table."
"Got it," Roger replied as he picked Meredith up. She sat easily on his hip with his arm balancing her, just as she always did. "Everything does include vegetables," he reminded her as he went toward the cabinet holding the glasses. "Swings are a big toy, after all."
A very good reason for why she was hesitant in saying yes, Lila thought. With the pasta done, she took up the pot of pasta from the handles (covered with cooling charms, despite the high temperature of the contents) to place on the counter as she turned to finish the chicken. "How was your day, love?" Better to just push aside this conversation and focus on a different topic.
But Meredith seemed a bit adamant. "I am big! The big green stuff is yucky."
"Do you want to grow up to be an unhealthy fat slug?" Roger asked pointedly. "If not, you'll just have to make your peace with the vegetables. They're actually very good when you get used to them."
Lila just had to keep herself from shaking her head at her husband. Meredith quieted down for a moment when she saw the pasta. She was a fan, yes, but she was likely not going to like it more after Lila added the sauce and broccoli pieces. And as an observant little girl, Meredith picked up on that right away.
That was when she started to wriggle around in Daddy's arm in protest. "I don't want green stuff! I want the swings now!"
"Meredith," Lila said, giving her a pointed look as she brought over the dinner to the table. "If you keep fussing, you're not going to get those swings." She glanced over at Roger as well, one that said "do something" loud and clear. If she didn't listen to her mother, perhaps Roger (the one with the higher tendency to spoil her) could manage.
While Roger was usually willing to give his daughter just about anything she asked for, he stood firm on being manipulated. He wasn't about to let wailing and complaining turn the tide in her favour. That was just asking for a lifetime of trouble, and Roger had not signed on for that with parenthood. He had firm ideas about teaching children to behave properly, just as his own parents had, and that meant not giving in to nonsense like this. As much as he hated to play the bad guy with his baby, here he'd have to.
"All right, miss," Roger said firmly, setting her down on the floor and kneeling in front of her. "Little girls who throw tantrums don't get any swings at all. So if you want a swingset in that back garden, you need to straighten up, start being good, and stop being rude to Mummy right now."
When she decided to put up her long-lasting pout, Lila was at least relieved that she obeyed. Meredith crawled onto her chair and crossed her arms as she glared at her empty plate, as if giving it a silent threat if it dared to be filled. Lila continued placing the rest of the food onto the table before she came around and reached up to give Roger a kiss on the cheek. "Thank you, love."
But when Lila reached for her plate, Meredith let out a loud "NO!" and accompanied that with shattering as all the plates suddenly flew into the opposite wall.
Roger, without even thinking the matter through, essentially tackled Lila to the ground in an effort to dodge the ceramic shrapnel and protect her at the same time. Had they gone any slower, they could easily have gotten rather severely injured. Luckily the combination of their own magic and Roger's dodge got them safely below the flying plate bits before any damage could be done.
"Meredith!" he shouted. "No you don't! That is very, very bad!"
Lila felt the plate she was holding move out of her hand before she was suddenly thrown to the floor courtesy of Roger. It took her about two seconds to register what happened. Damn, those were pricey too. She propped herself up on her elbows, though didn't get up right away in case she was to do more damage.
Meredith's pout trembled and shifted until she started crying. Lila heaved a large sigh and sat up. No, she was not going to give in. You didn't just break a bunch of plates, nearly injure your parents and then cry and expect it all to be better. "Apologize, Meredith Davies. If you do that, we eat dinner quietly and then you go to bed."
Her sobs, however, became louder. "I don't want to eat that!"
"She probably scared herself," Roger murmured to Lila. While he agreed that Meredith couldn't simply get away with this, especially as it was the second episode of seriously destructive magic in as many weeks, he also hated to see her so upset.
"Merry, you know the rules," he said, carefully getting to his feet so he'd be at eye level with her. "Everybody eats some of everything on the plate. You don't have to eat it all, but you have to try some. Throwing a tantrum is not going to get you anywhere, especially with all these broken plates."
Meredith continued to cry, covering her face and trying to move away from her father. But she could only move away so far without falling off the chair. Lila had stood up now and was standing behind Roger. "Meredith, I promise if you eat even a little bit of broccoli--" Her words were cut off, though, when Meredith shook her head. Which promptly caused the pasta to explode out of the pot and splatter all over the room. Including the occupants.
Thank Merlin it hadn't been too hot.
Roger gritted his teeth and took a deep breath. He counted to ten, once in English and then again in Welsh. He didn't know a great deal of Welsh, but he knew enough to count to ten, and right now that was very, very handy. It was keeping him from reaching out and strangling his darling daughter or yelling at her loud enough to scare her even more and cause heaven knew how much more damage.
Instead of screaming or killing, Roger very calmly drew his wand and cast a relaxation charm on Meredith. They always tried not to do such things, because of course nobody wanted to muck about with a small child's mind any more than necessary. However, there came a point at which one had to conduct a swift cost-benefit analysis and act accordingly.
"First," Roger announced, wiping a broccoli fragment off his face, "We wash off. Us and her. Then, she goes to bed and we'll do a proper breakfast in the morning."
Lila heaved a huge sigh of relief as the crying subsided and she moved her hands to her lap instead of her face. She was going to hate herself in the morning for being this relieved, especially considering the circumstances, but for the situation on hand, it seemed like the best thing to do -- otherwise, risk having the glasses shatter at them next. Or worse, at Meredith herself.
Still, she could just kiss Roger in relief right then. "Okay. I suppose I can clean up here quickly while you take her?"
"I'll rinse her off in the tub and pop her into bed," Roger agreed. "By the time I finish that and you finish this, we can meet up in the shower to clean off, have a bit of fun to blow off some stress, and then figure out what we're going to do about the fact that our little girl is developing a highly destructive temper. Good plan?"
Lila nodded, brushing off the pieces from her pants before reaching for her wand. "Alright. Give me a few minutes." It wouldn't take her long considering she knew she could use that stress-releasing fun. Lila rather liked having the house clean and organized. Things should not be exploding and breaking. If this didn't stop as soon as possible, they were going to have a huge problem.
They didn't actually discuss the problem until a little over an hour later, when their daughter, their kitchen, and their bodies were all cleaned up. While a nice romp in the shower was certainly good stress relief, it left something to be desired as an actual problem-solver. Thus, lying in bed afterward, Roger started talking.
"Obviously we can't keep letting her blow things up every time she gets scared or angry or frustrated," he said. "We'll have a demon on our hands in no time at all if we do. So what do we do?"
To not give in was important. "Figure out a way to keep her relaxed. We can't keep using the charms," Lila said, curled up next to him. She was already regretting having Merry sent to bed without any food. "I really hope this doesn't lead to a child psychologist as our resort."
"There are worse things than having to visit a psychologist," Roger pointed out. "I'd be all for it, if it would actually help. I do hope we can come up with a solution before it gets there, though. We just need to...to teach her to cope. She has to learn what behavior is an appropriate reaction to being upset and what isn't."
"Well, I hope we'll be able to keep her from throwing more things around the room." It was going to be a long project for them. And it would not be good if she acted up whenever they sat down to eat.
"Merlin. I cannot wait until she's old enough to reason and communicate properly," Roger sighed. He'd get back to the problem-solving in a moment, but first he wanted a little break to whine. "I know everyone thinks babies are adorable, and she is indeed utterly precious, but I am very much looking forward to the day that she isn't just pure Id."
Lila couldn't help cracking a small smile at that. "Don't forget when the teenage hormones kick in as well." She had to stifle a yawn to finish her sentence. Clearly, dealing with a kitchen-exploding children and then cleaning said kitchen (and then a bit of exercise in the shower) was enough to exhaust her.
"Ugh, don't remind me," Roger groaned. It was time to leave the melodrama behind before his wife fell asleep on him, though. He needed at least a little bit of a plan established, or he'd never be able to get to sleep himself. "All right, so let's start off tomorrow with having a talk at breakfast, since everyone will be calmer. We can talk again about how tantrums do not impress anyone, if you want something you have to ask politely, and vegetables are non-negotiable for little girls who want to eat dessert. Then we issue reminders regularly and practice our calm voices...and maybe that will at least minimize the problem."
"That should be able to work," Lila muttered, sleepily. She reached up to give Roger a kiss before settling onto her pillow. "Good luck to us."