The darkest hour is before dawn

O believe me - I have a MUCH better title for this post. But hey - can one post a title like: A S.... night? Mmmm I thought not. So - this title will have to do.

The Prof began taking the children with to the farm. He continued the pattern which Cream Puff had started – that of going to the farm on weekends. I was deeply troubled. Cream Puff’s mother was terminally ill, and bed ridden. They would stay in her mother’s house on those weekends, and my stress was surrounding the introduction of another person into the children’s lives, who had but a matter of months to live.

Strangely, that need never have been my concern. What should have been my concern, never even occurred to me, and did more damage that Cream Puff’s mother’s illness and subsequent death.

The thing which I should have been concerned about – was the Prof’s emotional well being and state of mind!

In those early days, there occurred such a traumatic night at the farm, that the Prof almost lost the right to see the children unsupervised. I don’t think he even realizes today, how close he came, and that the fact he still sees the children today, is thanks to a lot of fancy talking which I did to save him that right.

As best I can remember, here is the rendition of that night.
The Prof and Cream Puff had been drinking wine with their evening meal. This is a pattern reported on a lot by the children. There were several things which happened - which upset the Prof that night.

The first, was a conversation which Marinda had with him about changing Eric's nappy. She was trying to make the point that it is one thing to change your own child's diapers, but quite another if that child is not yours. The conversation upset the Prof somehow.
Then, she accidentally knocked over the Prof's wine glass and it broke. He has an absolute fit if anyone breaks a glass - this time was no exception.

All this caused Marinda to walk away and go read her book.

A bit later, the children discovered that the toilet had blocked up. They didn't use the other bathroom - because it was the bathroom used by Cream Puff's parents.

They told the Prof, who said he would look at it later. Time passed, and eventually they needed to use the bathroom so they again asked the Prof to help them. He completely lost it. "Now I have to stick my hand in the sh.t for YOU, and you can't even understand that I change Eric's nappy", he shouted at them.

The kids didn’t know what hit them as he ranted and raved at them for a while. Eventually, after the blocked toilet had been sorted out, and they were ready to bath, the Prof came back to apologize. Then, scarier than the first incident, he broke down in tears, telling them he missed them so much. He sat on the floor crying and they watched helplessly - not knowing what to do. He should have been comforting THEM, did they now need to comfort him? What was happening to the person who was meant to look after them and keep them safe? How were they meant to react? They clung together and kept quiet. That night, the girls crawled into one sleeping bag together, and promised each other to stick together.

They were too scared to go to sleep, too scared to say anything, and were just praying the time away until they could get home.