This Week In Parenting 3 Boys

Weston is still getting out of his bed at night. Both him and the middle brother do not actually fall asleep until well after I do. I think the sanity is slowly draining from our house. Our trim and woodwork in the house changes with the seasons. In cold weather it shrinks causing the doors to fit looser in the jams. They know just enough force to pull a locked door open. We had to start tying one door handle to the other just to keep them in their room (I realize this is a huge fire hazard. Dale undoes it before he actually goes to bed). If we don’t do this we will find them prancing about the house as if they are skipping through a stinkin parade.

The other night Dale was getting their clothes ready for the next day so he unleashed the hounds after I had already gotten them in bed. I was cleaning the kitchen while I kept hearing laughter and pounding. I went to investigate to find them spraying air freshener all over the tile floor in my bathroom and running and sliding in it. GENIUSES! You’d think that they’d stop dead in their tracks when they saw that they were busted. Instead they gave me a glance, didn’t dim the light in their smiles one bit, and took off for another run for it.

“WHAT PART OF THIS SEEMS LIKE IT WOULD BE OK TO YOU”

“YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO BE IN BED AND ASLEEP AN HOUR AGO”

“WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH YOU TWO”

I got the usual 4 and 2 year old answer, “Nuffing” and “I don’t know”

Off to bed one more time. It’s about to drive me all out batty. This causes me to lose my cool more than I would care to admit lately. Just when we were on a roll with keeping calm and taking it easy on the whole yelling thing.

Since I do my workouts after work now and Dale was going to be really late last night I had to run on the treadmill. I thought this would be perfect as they could ride their bikes down there, play basketball, and I really didn’t need to worry about holes in the cement walls. Perfectly caged enough for me to spend 30 minutes on the treadmill uninterrupted while everyone was happily playing along. So I thought…

The skate board was rolled down the stairs 3 times. I had no idea if someone was on it or not so it scared the crap out of me and I about lost it trying to see what the heck was going on. The 3rd time it was launched I hopped off and tried running up the stairs to pull the 4 year old down to really give him a good “talking” to. Note: not a good idea to try to run up stationary steps after running at a good pace on the treadmill. He’s lucky that factor came into play.

The scrap wood pile was used as a toy box. They would go find a nice piece of scrap lumber and then use it to beat the hell out of everything in sight.

The drain pipe was torn from the furnace by the ridiculous strength of a 2 year old.

They went upstairs and found my stash of gum and helped themselves. I’m now missing two packs of gum. I asked the 2 year old were it was and he shrugs and says, “I donn know!” in a gasping whisper.

The treadmill was great entertainment for them to throw the basketball, the baseball, and the football onto and watch it fly off. I was sure I was the next one to fly off. It’s really hard to yell and run at the same time.

Wyatt was harassing Waylon and Waylon was screaming bloody murder every other second just for Wyatt chasing him.

Note: It should count as a much more intense workout when you have to jump on and off a moving treadmill and try to turn and yell every half mile.

Finally as the 3 mile mark showed on that screen I punched stop and the football was then pulled underneath the treadmill and I yelled “EVERYONE LINE UP ON THIS LINE RIGHT NOW.” With huge gum wads in their mouths and tears swelling in their eyes they stood there unsure of what was going to happen next. They received their “punishment” and we headed upstairs as the middle one consoles the youngest one like they were just dumped at an orphanage.

“Everyone on the couch” do they really understand WHAT I expect from them when I am working out? How can they not know to not act like rabid animals? How can they not know it is NOT ok to destroy everything in sight?” I calmed myself down and tried to keep a straight face as the 2 year old repeated everything I was saying and acting like he was my partner in the whole deal.

“I have 30 minutes to work out when I get home from work. In those 30 minutes I expect you guys to find something to play with that is not going to destroy the house and that is not going to hurt each other. What kinds of things could you choose to play that are acceptable?”

They rattled off great answers which assured me that they knew what was acceptable and not acceptable to do. Um hello, then WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG WITH THEM?!

Holy crap, I was searching the sky for a full moon.

Monday night they got peaches out of the fridge, ate them about half way while out playing in the garage then opened the garage door, placed the peaches perfectly under the door and closed the garage door down on the peach then lifted it back up while they collapsed to the ground in hysterics. Not so funny. And if they ruin that garage door opener I got for Christmas after 6 YEARS of me parking in the cold they just might be dumped at that orphanage!

CAN’T I JUST FIX DINNER????

If they are in the house I can’t keep them from climbing the shelves of the pantry or finding the markers and “drawing” me a picture on some other picture of their great grandpa, or unrolling the whole roll of toilet paper, or scattering their dad’s tools all over the house, using the hammer as wall demolition in the living room, or crushing my Clinque eye shadow up and pouring it in my sink.

Wyatt had an awesome week at home last week. He was patient. No fighting over homework. He was smiling and happy to see me. Then I get a note from the teacher saying he had another bad week. That made me throw my hands up in the air. These last few days I have really felt like throwing in the towel after such a good week of being calm and appreciative of all the little things. It almost seemed easy how they changed when my attitude changed and I was questioning why it seemed so hard before. And then this week comes along. AND IT’S ONLY WEDNESDAY! Maybe it’s because the return of crappy weather. Come ON Spring. Get here already and get these boys out of my house!!! Except Weston because I’m sure he will venture out into the road or get stuck in the mud somewhere where he will just stand there screaming until someone comes and rescues him.

It’s been a rough week so far in the parenting department. Can someone PLEASE spill another drink on my floor? Crap, I just remembered that I forgot to wipe up the applesause from under the table where Weston flung his plate across the room last night. I cry UNCLE!!!!