Beach Day

I promise I will finish giving every detail of our vacation soon. I know it is riveting, edge of your seat stuff and you can't wait to read it. Ahem, yeah. Just kidding, but still, I will write it. Later. For today, I'm at Deep South Moms talking about our fun day at the beach yesterday.

I'm a little sunburned and I made a major Mommy error and missed parts of Ben's face with the sunscreen. Not sure how I did it, but by the sunburn under his eyes and on his upper lip I'd say I missed that area entirely. Kind of makes me want to cry.

Operation Kids Sleep In

So, it's no secret my boys are early risers. Usually if they sleep until 6:30 I am in heaven, but it's generally more like 5:30 to six. We are trying with all our might to push this back a little for several reasons. Among them. It's SUMMER people and there's no reason whatsoever to be up before the sun. Also, next year we are a late starting school & the kids won't have to be there until 9:40. AND in a few short days we'll be vacationing in the Central Time Zone and I'd really rather not have them waking up in the middle of the night.

In an act of desperation we've pushed bedtime back. We've done this before but it's never stuck. Mostly because it.doesn't.work. They still get up early, just with less sleep and more fussiness. I'm trying really hard to keep this 8:30 bedtime though because eventually they have to start sleeping later. Right? It's been a week and boy have we been cranky around here. Yesterday afternoon 3 of them fell asleep and snoozed for 2 hours. I knew it was a mistake to allow that but I seriously needed the peace, and it allowed me to get some stuff done.

I figured with a long afternoon nap that bedtime would be a nightmare. Eric went right to sleep (because he is like his momma and values his sleep.) Zack and Ben kept getting up and Mark was up there playing parent trying to chase them back into the appropriate beds. We let it go on for quite a while and finally, at ten got everyone to sleep. Except for Zack, who finally dozed off at 11:30. I may have made a snarky comment about we used to have kids that woke up early, but they at least went to sleep at night. Now they didn't go to bed AND woke up too early. Anyone care to venture a guess who woke up first? Yep, Zack. It's going to be a long day.

The upside of all of this is that while Zack was up early for his late bedtime, it was the acceptable hour of 6:30, and everyone else rolled out of bed around 7:00. So I guess we're making progress. Now my goal for today is to keep them AWAKE through the afternoon so that maybe they'll go to sleep tonight.

What Was to Be a Random Post on Many Topics Turns Into a MAJOR Rant

Let me just start off by saying that it's funny how soon I forget. For example, shortly after writing how awesome my kids were being and how summer was surprisingly not impossibly hard, I remembered something. Could be that Sue's comment on my previous post triggered the memory. In any case, a mere 3 days (I think - they are all jumbling together lately) before my smug "Yay isn't summer fun" post Mark had a complete collapse on the floor meltdown over ice cream. Rather, over not wanting ice cream for a treat for doing well at swimming lessons. Nope, he wanted twizzlers. I reminded him repeatedly that if he chose twizzlers he could not then have ice cream in any form. He agreed, only to flip out when after eating 16 (okay, maybe I'm exaggerating a smidge) twizzlers. Then. His mouth was SPICY and he NEEDED something COLD to cool it off. I clenched my fists and buckled down and stay calm outwardly. Inwardly I was all eye rolls and wondering why my 6 year old was having a fit worthy of an overtired 2 yera old. Outwardly, though, I just let him throw his little bullheaded tantrum. And I never gave in. I can't quite declare victory though because it was exhausting and I feel quite the failure that he puts on these antics. What am I doing wrong? (And I know it's a personality thing that we have to go through and that he's "spirited" and "creative" and it's not really my fault but sometimes I can't help but wonder anyway.)

So, why I a few days later was all smug and confident is beyond me because it all fell apart again. I know this. I 've learned MANY times to not count my blessings outloud (even on the internet.) Because there's some little switch that tells the world that things are getting too easy over at Life With Boys and surely the heat must be turned up a little.

More of the same irrationality yesterday at the movies. I told them we could get snacks at the free movie or eat lunch at McDonalds afterward. Everyone was on board with movie snacks. Until walking out of the theater when (guess who!) asked if we could eat lunch out too. When I reminded him that they made the choice for snacks I had more of the same behavior from last week. Still, I did not relent.

Lest you think Mark is my only obnoxious child, let me assure you that Ben is the model of the two year old terror and I'm praying that Pre K will shape Zack's listening skills because Mommy is failing miserably in that regard. Even my oldest is kind of getting on my nerves because he keeps forgetting he is a KID and not the parent. I actually said today, "Leave the parenting to Mommy Eric. I've got it under control."

Maybe all of this is compounded by the fact that Kevin has been working from home for the last few days on conference calls that last until 8 PM and I didn't sleep well last night and we've been putting the kids to bed later yet they are still getting up earlier, and... well. Yeah.

At any rate, I'm trying to keep the summer fun and light and we are still going to the pool and the playground and this and that and the other thing and the kids are having FUN. I know all this is cyclical too, and I'm probably due a few good days soon. I hope. And I'll probably blog about them in spite of the consequences because I'm bound and determined to be grateful for the good days.