dear monday morning...i think we got off on the wrong foot.

oh, the joys of parenting. they are alive and well today, let me tell you! (that was sarcasm. did you hear it?) the moment i got up this morning, my older two had my blood pressure through the roof. it has just been one of those days where you have to learn to laugh or you'll cry. or punch something. or have a nervous breakdown. or all three. so i thought i'd blog about it. i'm not quite ready to laugh yet, but i thought maybe if a few others did, then it would help lighten my mood.

so eme has been teething. the poor baby has two coming in that i can tell, and she's not handling it well. so she was up last night quite a bit (on top of the two or three times she still wakes up on a normal night...*sigh*). in addition, or perhaps because of the teething, she has a cold, so her little nose is stuffy. this makes pacifiers rather useless unless that pacifier is...well...me. *sigh* so this morning, i took her into my own bed hoping to nurse her to sleep and get some more sleep myself. well, part of that happened. after much fussing and fighting, she finally gave up and hit the pillow for some much needed shut eye. but before i could reap any benefits from my hard fought victory, the other two are up. because eme is finally asleep, i don't want to wake her up by moving her, and i can't leave her alone on the bed because she can fall off (at what age do they learn this kind of fear?). so when noe and mali come into my room asking for food, i tell them to get an apple. "be sure to wash them" i tell them, feeling very responsible for remembering to remind them of this important detail. well, that was the mistake that started it all.

the girls can only wash their own apples in the upstairs bathroom because they can reach the faucet and it's one that is a simple turn rather than pull. this, of course, leads them to the bright idea of filling the sink so their apples can take a bath. but this is taking too long, so they leave it to fill while they go back to their room to look for toys. while in their toy box, they look out the window. oooo, snow! you know what would be fun? a snowball fight! so they skate down the stairs to the back deck and start playing in the snow. without shoes or coats or anything other than their pj's. realizing after a moment that this is rather cold, they head back upstairs for a couple of towels to bring the snow in on (an indoor snowball fight is the best of both worlds, right? what could possibly be wrong with that?!). getting their towels, they remember the sink, which has now, of course, overflowed to an astonishing degree. they sacrifice one towel to try and sop of the water on the floor in front of the sink, turn off the water, and head back downstairs to get their snow. the towels catch some paper on the counter and it comes floating down to catch their attention. it's pink. of course! this is the slip of paper that mommy said was very important and not to play with. but she didn't say we couldn't tear it up, right? it would look so pretty as confetti. she couldn't possibly be angry about confetti! well, now that we have confetti, we should get that snow and make our winter wonderland. in the kitchen. on a monday morning. after mom has been up too much over night with the teething baby. yes. that's a great idea.

so here is what i find when i get up. first, i go to the bathroom to get eme a tissue for her runny nose (lovely). the sink has drained (nice of them), but the towel is completely soaked and there is still a large puddle of water that runs from the sink to the bath tub, behind the toilet and, oh yes, in the drawers and cabinet below the sink. the worse part: the portable heater that we use during their bath time so they aren't so cold when they get out...plugged in and sitting in the puddle. (believe we had a rather lengthy discussion about the dangers of electrocution). i have to put a crying eme (crying possibly because she got scared as i yelled at the other two girls) in their bedroom with them while i took care of the mess, which required throwing out quite a bit of the stuff stored in the drawers and cabinet, crawling on my hands and knees to get behind the toilet (unflushed, btw), and taking the whole sopping mess of towels to the laundry. then i go back to get eme and tell the girls to come downstairs so we can eat. this is where i find the pink confetti. the temple slip for a relative my grandma had asked me to take to the temple with me. the pounding in my head is demanding that i beat them. but i don't. i do, again, give another lengthy lecture and explain that it will make granny very sad and that that makes me very angry, etc. so i clean it up. in the process, i notice two towels by the back door...and several small footprints in the snow on the deck. there is a big rule in our house about how they are not allowed to go outside without me saying they can. and here, obviously, they have done just that. i am out of lengthy discussions at this point and send them to their room for the rest of the day before i give in to the desire to beat them. i call them back down for lunch later, then send them back up. the rest of my day consisted of cleaning, laundry, caring for the crying baby, and yelling at my girls to stop whatever it is they're doing to make so much noise (including by not limited to noe sitting on the toy box lid...which she has placed on mali's head).

oh, WHY don't they think things through before they do them? they know the rules, can recite them to me along with their reasons and consequences. and yet...they do it anyway! then they get so upset when those consequences are placed upon them. i am happy to report that no children were hurt in the making of this blog post. however, all privileges were taken away and i'm sure they are sick of hearing me lecture (there were about 4 today before i lost my voice for a while). that was a punishment on us all.