Guru

Any guesses as to what Lyla's upset about? Think about it, and I'll give you the answer at the end of the post.

Julie is the official bedtime guru, so when I try to take over for a night, Lyla calls foul on my shenanigans. For one thing, when Lyla is falling-apart tired and needs a diaper change, I have recently become incompetent. Within seconds, Lyla is either crying her guts out or standing bare-assed on the changing table.

The other issue is pajamas. I've always complained about the 789 snaps that are impossible to align, but it's worse since Lyla has become stronger than me. She's also faster and smarter. So she'll be crawling away, and I'm crawling after her and trying to snap those stupid things at the same time.

Then Julie comes up to mercifully take over, and the first thing she says is, "Where's the fingernail clipper?"

"Oh, you're going to clip her fingernails?" I say, panting and sweating. "A quick clip before bed, hmm? Just a quiet mother-daughter clip clip?"

Julie puts Lyla on her lap, and they sit together in maddening serenity as Julie clips Lyla's miniscule fingernails. Lyla is now literally a millimeter away from a painful, bloody disaster, and she yawns and rests her head on her mother's shoulder.

I walk over and Lyla allows me to kiss her goodnight. "I'm going to clean the kitchen," I say.

Julie murmurs, "Make some tea."

Clip clip. Lyla closes her eyes.


Back to our riddle. If you guessed that Lyla's sobbing meltdown happened because she was kneeling on her book and was therefore unable to turn the page, then ta da! You're the big winner!