I Think We Might Be Losing It...

Have you ever asked your kids to do something and they respond with the same speed and intention as an inanimate object? Yeah, me too. This behavior is most dominant at bed time. There is something about the day winding down and the idea that they are going to spend time by themselves, in the dark that brings out the most stellar qualities in young children including, but not limited to: whining, complaining, manipulating, crying, yelling, demanding, etc. That's exactly how a night about a week and a half ago went. It was preceded by an event that I believe I could have predicted, but just didn't take the time to do something about... until it was too late.

I was upstairs, working on the computer and the kids were playing in the guest room. This really was my fault. I had given Braden a "secret" hiding place in the guest room for his lego bionicle pieces, to keep them safe from Caed. The secret lasted for about three days before Braden showed his siblings where all of his "treasure" was hidden. Now, I had put some other items in that room that I thought would be safe because prior to the lego storage, the kids never spent any time in this room. Of course the kids were all building up there once the "cat was out of the bag" and that's when I heard an enormous crash. That's never good...and I knew exactly what it was...the chest of drawers, the hermit crab aquarium, and Braden's large Lego set. I went tearing down the back stairs and up the front ones where I was greeted in the hallway by three terrified children all covering their hinies and Caed announcing, "Don't 'pank me!" over and over. The sight was ridiculous- thousands of legos scattered, eight drawers dumped out, a glass aquarium over-turned, hermit crabs scurrying, and blue, yes CAROLINA BLUE sand all over my carpet. The kids helped clean up, what they could. I ended up steam cleaning the carpet.

We took a break for dinner, and luckily my tutoring student canceled. I got back to cleaning the carpets and finished up after putting the kids to bed (and yelling at them to stay there about 100 times) at about 9:00pm. After dumping the vacuum and steam cleaners downstairs, I plopped down to read my email in the TV room. 10 seconds later I heard the kids messin' on the stairs. So I start in with yelling at them- again, "Get in BED!" But, this continued on for several minutes. Out of frustration and exhaustion, I stormed down the stairs, and sure enough, Ashlyn is just standing there in the dark. "What do you WANT?!? I nearly screamed in her face. (no response) "You know, I have kissed you, hugged you, sung to you and now I'm gonna BUST YOUR BUTT if you don't get in bed right NOW!" (no response, and I'm getting angrier...) "Alright missy..." I growled, as I reached for the kitchen light..."that's IT!" I flipped the light on to grab my daughter and haul her back to her room, only to find myself screaming at... the VACUUM CLEANER that I had lazily dumped at the bottom of the stairs. Oh well, there goes the mother of the year award...again.

Now if that isn't story enough in itself, it actually gets better! I slowly trudged back up to the bonus room shaking my head, half laughing and half almost crying. Chad got a good laugh out of the whole situation (as I am sure anyone reading this has.) I sat down again, to finish reading my email when I start hearing the kids playing on the stair rails. I'm thinking to myself, "You have GOT to be kidding me." So I start my yelling threats again from one side of the house to the other..."GET YOUR HINIES IN BED NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" But, they just keep it up. Finally, I just asked Chad to go take care of the kids. Now, Chad was really irritated. It was almost 10pm by now. He had come home to a huge mess, a stack of drawers in the kitchen and a really pissed off momma...and we still hadn't even gotten a chance just to talk. So Daddy came stormin' down the stairs. "WE SAID GET-IN-BED!!!!" he roared like thunder. And then it was silent... I called down to Chad, asking what was going on...and then finally I heard him laughing. He came back upstairs and replied, "Yeah, Sara, that wasn't the kids making all of that noise...it was the hermit crabs! (Remember they had been relocated to the kitchen and had no bedding, because it was all inside the vacuum cleaner... so their shells were clanking on the glass, which sounded like the kids running their toys across the stair rails.) Oh, for pete's sake... here we were yelling at the vacuum and the hermit crabs, and all that time our kids were sound asleep! Do you see why I think we might be loosing it?