Behavior

Yesterday stunk. It was just one of those days that nothing worked, nobody was happy and everybody decided to melt down on me at the same time for no particular reason. Whew. I survived it and put them all to bed at 6:30. Yep, I'm a mean momma, but I had HAD it and it was the best thing for all of us. I'm fairly certain that the meltdowns were due to exhaustion anyway, so what else was there to do?

How can one day be so completely different from the next when things are otherwise the same? For example, Wednesday Eric and Mark were BEST friends. I let them slide down the stairs in their sleeping bags (Mark has named this activity "nap sliding"). They had fun, and everyone was happy. For the whole day they played together and just acted nice. No one was called names, no one was whining. And I felt like for once maybe I was getting this parenting thing right. Since we haven't been able to do much for Spring Break due to sick kids I was trying to let them do some things that were fun and Mark had the idea to have a sleepover in his room with Eric. I let them even though I am normally a stickler for bedtime. Refer to my first sentences to see why I am usually a stickler for bedtime. My kids just need a lot of sleep. They were out like little lights by 8:30 and yet it made for a tough day on Thursday. They were no longer best friends, in fact they didn't like each other one bit. Maybe I jinxed it by saying how nice they were the day before. Maybe they were really just tired but at 5 PM I was so close to blowing a gasket it wasn't funny. I kept doing that deep breath and count to ten thing. I was also saying "two more hours and they go to bed, two more hours, two" in my head. They had eaten because Ben was crying and crying and I had tried everything else so I got him a little food and then everyone else was suddenly starving at 4:30. Dinner was in the crockpot so I said FINE you can eat. I thought it would calm the wild beasties, but to my dismay only one of my children ate anything resembling a reasonable dinner. This is interesting since moments before they were starving. Ben finished what he was going to eat (he had avocado, cheese and some bread on his tray) and started screaming. He had only eaten his cheese so I tried to get him to have some avocado, no. Tried to get him to eat his bread, more screaming. I even tried more cheese but clearly he was DONE so I cleaned him up and got him down. Then Zack started crying about something so I tried to figure out what was wrong, making the mistake of putting Ben down who then started screaming. Mark asked for more milk and I told him only if he ate his roast beef sandwich and he responded with the fit to beat all fits. I expect tantrums from my two year old. I don't like them but it's gonna happen. For my almost five year old to literally fall down on the floor screaming about a glass of milk just doesn't work for me. Right before I pulled all my hair out, Eric started whining about something which I don't even remember the details because at the late great hour of 5 PM I yelled "GO GET YOUR PAJAMAS ON." I'm not proud to say I yelled it but it was too much right that minute. In that moment I fully intended to put them all to bed right then. After a few deep breaths, and getting the little guys into jammies I calmed down enough to realize that if I put them to bed at 5 I would very likely be seeing sweet smiling faces at 4 o'clock in the morning. Not that that is actually morning. So I turned on Noggin and told them the next time someone fought, cried or screamed they were going to bed. Everyone calmed down and I did have them go to bed early, just not SO early that it would affect today in a negative way. And it worked. They went to sleep, I calmed down, had some quiet time while Kevin worked late on a conference call and then I scrubbed the kitchen floor happy to know that it would stay clean for at least 10 hours.

So far today is better. I haven't hit that magic hour where children tend to turn into crazy, screaming maniacs, so it remains to be seen how the evening will go, but we have managed to go to Sams and all got out alive. Bribery works wonders! The kids hear the word Sams and immediately say "Can we get icees?" To which I reply "if you are nice while mommy shops we will have lunch here." Eric and Mark "Can we have Icees?" Me "If you are GOOD." So I went in with the mentality that if all I got out of the trip was milk & diapers I'd be happy. Everything else was a bonus. They were pretty much as perfect as 4 kids in Sams Club can be. It was nice and I was able to stock up on some food for the next week or so. They got their pizza and Icees and I even got a nice comment while they ate. A man walked by and said "Good job mom. I was one of four boys too." It's always nice to hear something nice about my family in place of "WOW you have your hands full." Even if I obviously do have my hands full (and I surely do!) I don't need to hear about it from strangers.

So the plan for the rest of the day is to go to the playground after Ben wakes up and that should take us right up to time to make dinner. So far so good today. Everyone is pretty happy. Mark and Eric aren't best friends, but they are much more friendly than yesterday. Zack is his happy, bumbly, fever free self, and Ben is napping so that is a plus. Tomorrow when I have an extra set of hands and eyes around (Kevin), I think we will go to the zoo or something super fun like that.

I still sit here and wonder how I can do things the same every day and get completely different results. I guess kids are unpredictable and have bad days just like grownups do. Maybe at some point I'll figure out some rhyme or reason to their behavior. Maybe not.