Pre-teen tantrums – especially the I-have-been-at-camp-and-had-practically-no-sleep-for-three-nights kind – are the pits.

Tonight’s cause was – ostensibly – that she was bitten by mosquitos while at camp and it was so excruciatingly painful that she  could not sleep.

Yes, mossie bites are annoying. They are not, however, cause for hysteria for over an hour in the middle of the night.  I had to move Otto into our bed because her sister’s sobbing and flailing around was too distressing and noisy for her.

I really don’t know what to do in these situations.  The causes are always so completely ridiculous and manufactured, there’s no way to “resolve” the problem. She won’t deal with Fraser at all when she’s upset, so it falls to me to manage the situation – even though the two of them played a new game together while I prepared dinner and – to all appearances – had a blast doing it.

Sadly, being over-tired from school (and from her sister’s tantrums keeping her awake) is making Otto ratty too. I used  to have two delightful, happy children – in fact, that was something people commented on. We’d always wonder why anyone would not expect them to be happy. Sadly, at the moment, that is not the case.

Now I have the failure-as-a-parent emotions to deal with.  Which are always pretty devastating.

Chances of Biggie coming to Europe with me in October plummeted to about 5% today. I don’t think I can take the risk.