Not a Great Day

I have to be honest. Monday was not a great day at our house. The boys were up early, waking me up long before I wanted to be awake. I was a little cranky and they were a lot cranky. Griffin has three or so molars coming in simultaneously which pushed his crankiness levels through the roof.

I spent the morning repeating myself to the boys - because they refused to listen to a word I said. We had multiple time outs, incessant whining and repeated fighting, right up until we left for swimming.

We survived swim lessons and swim team. I admit I was counting the minutes until a respite at nap time. But no one napped. Instead, the boys took apart the playroom by building a fort composed entirely of toys stacked one on top of each other. Not one toy was spared from their stacking. It looked like one giant mess to me, a headache of a clean up that would take me hours to repair, but to them it was a fort from which to conduct battles. The type of battles that usually resulted in loud screaming from someone being hit or taunted.

After I couldn’t look at the mess for one more minute or listen to the screaming for one more second, I decided to take them out for hair cuts. Not only did they need hair cuts because they were a tad bit shaggy around the edges, but the hair cuts were a necessity brought on by my hair cutting experiment conducted on Brennan. The experiment had gone completely and totally awry. (The poor boy’s bangs were long on top and shaven completely in half underneath. I apparently could not have survived beauty school.)

Hair cuts were, surprisingly, fine. In hopes of a better afternoon, I decided to treat us all to ice cream. Ice cream makes everything seem happier. Not Griffin apparently. He opted to melt down in screaming rage after he dropped part of his ice cream on the floor. I was calmly dealing with his tantrum, knowing it was the result of unbearable tooth pain and his Motrin slowly wearing off, when I noticed the old biddies sitting next to us, shaking their heads and giving me dirty looks.

In a flash, I realized I was that mother. The mother who gets the quiet looks of disdain and whispered contempt because she can not control her child while in public. They glared at me as Griffin's cries turned into hiccups. They continued to stare and whisper as we walked out the door and I threw my uneaten ice cream in the garbage. I could still feel their eyes on me and my hands shook when I loaded the boys in the car.

Later that evening, bedtime was a battle. Brennan and I face off every night over sleep. In an effort to end the battle, I took his webkinz as hostage for his refusal to stay in bed after my fourth or fifth journey up the stairs to his room. He screamed for almost an hour. My nerves and emotions were definitely on edge.

When the house was finally quiet, I was so tired and frustrated I wanted to cry. I was even looking forward to work today.

Fast forward to today. This morning, after an hour at work, I missed my boys so much my heart ached. I forgot the crankiness, the yelling, the time outs and the exhaustion, I just missed them. I couldn't wait to be back home, with all three of them - the fighting, the crying, the screaming and all.