So You Had a Bad Day

Have you ever had a day where everything sucks, you kids are driving you insane, and you really just want to crawl into a closet and shut the door, possibly while chugging a bottle of wine straight from the bottle?

No, oh, well me neither.... not.

Yesterday was a tough day.

Everything started off like the normal Saturday.  The kids woke me up at the crack of dawn to feed them breakfast (I literally had to drag myself to the kitchen after the repeatedly poked me in the back stating they were starving), I started to do my weekly clean everything in the entire house routine (after several cups of coffee), and then the kids were sent outside to play while things in the house were taken care of.  It's funny how life gives you the sense of normalcy before it lays the smack down on you.

Not even 10 minutes after the kids had been sent outside it started.  In, out, in, out.  The kids just kept going in and out and in and out.

Ashton:  "Mom, Doodles (Sydney's nickname) hit me"

Me:  "Doodles, don't hit or your going to come inside"

Sydney:  "I didn't hit him."

5 minutes later

Ashton:  "Mom, Jaycob is being mean to me"

Me:  "How is he being mean to you"

Ashton:  "He threw the ball at me"

Me:  "Jaycob, did you throw the ball at him?"

Jaycob:  "Well yeah, we're playing football"

On and on this went until an hour or two until I just called it quits and told them to play in their rooms for awhile.  The normal sibling  bickering and fighting of course ensued.

Fast forward to about 2 o'clock.

I was just finally sitting down from cleaning up the house and the doorbell rings.  When I opened the door there was a woman selling a cleaning concentrate that supposedly cleans pretty much anything.  Normally, I am pretty good about just telling solicitors that I am just not interested, whether they are the Mormon witnesses, Door-to-door cleaner salesman, Schwann's, or the Jehovah Witnesses, I just tell them no, and just shut the door; but not today.

This young lady was dressed in skin tight white distressed skinny jeans, a loose purple shirt, with a huge backpack and a cleaning rag and bottle of cleaner in her hand.  She was pretty tough looking, and she talked with an accent.

She of course went on and on about her amazing cleaning product.  I'm not sure exactly what she said it does, but I caught her saying 'Gurl' a few times, she mentioned the streets of Seattle, and also mentioned her partner who apparently drives a white van without windows and is bald.  She even mentioned he looks like one of those guys who picks up little kids with candy.  Then, of course, she asked me if I would use something as amazing as whatever cleaner she was selling.  I said well sure, if it works (translation: If agreeing gets you to leave).

The young woman then said, "Well if you would use it why don't you buy it?"

In my head,  I heard, "Buy it, or I will cut you and have my partner pick up your children."

Needless to say, that $40 bottle of cleaner better work, because otherwise I paid the woman $40 just to get her to leave my front door.

After the cleaner lady incident, it was nice and calm for a good hour or two, sort of like the eye of the hurricane or the calm before the storm.

After Sydney woke up from her afternoon nap, I had to pick up some hamburger buns for dinner.  We were having sloppy joes, so of course I was missing the most important part of a sloppy joe, the buns.

Ashton decided he wanted  to come to the store with me and Sydney to pick up the buns.  On the way there, he mentioned that he was sad that I no longer have a gym membership, and subsequently how he doesn't get to go the the play area at the gym anymore.  He then said. "I guess now you're going to get fat."  He also was dragging his feet in the store and just in general was in a bad mood.  By the time we got to the parking lot to leave, I was pretty fed up with his attitude.

Sydney then proceeded to get in the car first.  Then as Ashton walked towards the car door so he could get in, Sydney pushed the door open more so the door handle hit him in the chest as he was walking towards it.  He then started crying (I'm sure it hurt, there was a pink mark on his chest) for a good 5 minutes before he calmed himself down enough to get into his car seat.  Sydney then started bawling because I told her it was her fault he was crying because she hurt him and she needed to apologize.

By time we got home, it was about 5:00pm and I had already made 2 out of 3 kids cry.  I certainly felt like I was winning parent of the year at this point (not).

While getting dinner started, the kids started to play with their toy guns.  At this point, Jaycob and Sydney were playing together while successfully excluding Ashton from the mix (this normally is Jaycob and Ashton excluding Sydney).  Ashton then asked me to help him write a letter to his brother.  His letter read, "Dear Jaycob, I have decided that Sean (Sean is his cousin) is now my best friend, not you, because you are so mean.  From Ashton"

After getting his letter all written out, he tried repeatedly to give it to Jaycob, but Jaycob kept waving him off.  Finally I told him Jaycob to just take to note and read it since his brother had taken the time to write it for him.

Jaycob proceeded to take the letter from his little brother, look at it like he was going to read it, and say "Blah, blah, blah, blah."

At this point, I had no patience for disrespect or just bullshit in general.  I immediately told Jaycob to go to his room and sit on his bed until I was ready to talk to him.

When I finally got to a point in the whole cooking dinner thing that I could go take a few minutes to speak with Jaycob, went in to his room and sat on his bed.

I asked him what his issue was.  I asked him how he would feel if his dad or I did to him what he had done to his brother, who is 5 years younger than him and looks up to him.  I explained that he has to take in to account that his brother is so much younger than him and so has a different maturity level and different ability to handle some situation than he does and that his actions have an effect on his brother and that he really hurt his brothers feelings.  By the time I was done and left the room, child number 3 was crying.

Needless to say, bedtimes were early yesterday.

The moral of the story?  If you are going to do something, (such as making your children cry) do it completely?  Or maybe if someone comes to your door trying to sell you something, be careful about telling them no, you never know when their partner may drive a windowless van?

Whatever the moral is, I sure hope a day like this doesn't repeat anytime soon.