Mondays suck. Mondays that are cloudy and rainy so you can't escape outdoors suck even more. Mondays where its cloudy and rainy and you're stuck indoors with cranky children with colds sucks the most! No, wait, I take that back. Mondays that are cloudy and rainy with 2 cranky kids with colds and the knowledge that in just 72 short hours you will be faced with having all 3 kids at home for the next 6 weeks and no school sucks the most. I cant think of anything worse than that. Not that I don't love having my kids together, but 6 weeks straight on with a husband who works from home and has to take conference calls often, trying to keep all 3 kids from wailing to be picked up or screeching in indignation then whacking their brother for taking a toy then the other whining about how his brother hit him because he ripped a toy out of his brothers hand..... yeah. Not so much fun. Now lets add one more ingredient for disaster. No naps. If I survive to the new year it will be by the grace of alcohol and locks on doors. I kid. Kind of. I promise to wait to consume alcohol until the kids are in bed. After that I make no promises.
With year round school my oldest Xavier tends to have a schedule of 9 weeks in school, 3 weeks out, with the exception of summer vacation and winter vacation. Because of the track he is on he gets the lucky draw of having extra time off those two times of the year. Because of the way the schedule works out this year, he gets out of school the day before Thanksgiving and doesn't return until January 4th. His last track out was in September and we spent the time traveling to Massachusetts to visit family and friends we have not seen since we moved down. Since that time my family has endured one illness after another with literally no breaks in between. We're still on the illness stretch, with Ashe and Soren dealing with yet another cold. It's not too bad, except for the fact that Soren was so congested he had to sleep in our room in his car seat the other night just in order to breathe and of course, now that he can get air past his nostrils (and thus back in his crib) he is adamant about wanting to sleep in our room again and refuses to go down easily. In fact he has declared an all out war on his crib (and thus me as I put him to bed) and he is determined to win this time. Fortunately I am made of stubborn stuff and I refuse to let him win. Which of course puts us in a headlock of epic proportions. Good times.
Yesterday Ashe was so cranky and tired he had a melt down because he wanted baby wipes (his new fetish) every time he cried (which was every 5 minutes give or take 30 seconds) and was aghast when I would not enter Sorens room to get some because Soren had finally passed out in his crib. While Ashes melt down SUCKED and lasted roughly 90 minutes of chasing me from one room to another (I had this video stuck in my head while it happened which allowed me to have some belief that I am not the only one who deals with this) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZI0ae4MHutE it did allow for him to finally pass out for about 2 hours on the floor of his bedroom. Which was the one shining star of my day. I had 2 kids down for the count at the same time. Of course Soren woke up 20 minutes after Ashe passed out so I only had 20 minutes of frantically trying to cram everything I needed to get done without kids dragging on my legs or clinging to my neck. But it was appreciated!
By the time Xavier came home I realized with dread when he informed me he had no homework this week that he would no longer have school (or homework) to occupy him for most of the days after Wednesday. Coming up with a brilliant plan of action, I grabbed the Master Calendar from the kitchen, sat down with him and we made a list of things to do during track out and put them on the calendar. We still have 15 days of no plans, but some of those are actual holidays and the rest I'm hoping to fill in with playgrounds and shopping.
Then realizing with another kid at home full time my house would look like a tornado whipped through it 24/7 without some sort of agenda, we sat down to negotiate extra chores and allowance. We even made a contract (which he gleefully signed in cursive and oddly enough his signature looks like mine... I wonder where he got that from?) and put it on the fridge where both of us can see it and point agitated fingers at when the contract is not followed through. Which will happen. He wanted to cook with me and help with laundry. I wanted him to help pick up trash whenever I asked him to, and do dishes alongside me. We both got what we want. But we'll see how long it lasts.
The only other shining moment was that family dinner was actually quiet and relaxing. But after we had finished it went to pot as Ashe flipped out again over a toy he couldn't find, Xavier flipped out over having to clean the living room (one of his static chores) both wanted baths and created Tsunamis that flooded our bathroom and upstairs hallway, and Soren and I began our battle of the bed, which lasted for 4 hours off and on. By the time I dragged myself to bed it was midnight. And of course, as soon as I started to doze, Soren woke up for his first night time feeding. At 12:27.
Here's looking forward to the rest of the week!
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