I Understand Completely

What a day. No, what a month for that matter. I understand how a person can beat their child, I really do. Not that it's okay, but I truly do get that anger driven impulse to snap a neck every now and then. I breathe, I chant to myself, I clench my fists, and I lock myself in another room. My children don't listen to me at all. They never ever do. Sometimes I think they hold secret meetings and plot ways to terrorize Mom. The way they are so in sync with each other; it's as if every naughty thing they do is pre-meditated. Their acts of terror are too well played to be coincidence.

I have been working in the yard a lot lately and this morning the kids were begging to play in the van. I HATE it when they play in the van. They flip lights on and the battery has been emptied many times as a result. not to mention the messes they make. So of course I told them NO!! I threatened them with everything I could think of that if they got in the car they would pay.

Several minutes go by and a couple of neighbors had stopped by to visit as I worked. The kids knew it was the perfect time to act. Suddenly I realized they were gone. I heard the van horn HONK!!! I saw Lauren's little head pop up from within the tinted windows. My blood began to boil. I went to rip open the sliding door, only to find that I couldn't open it. It wasn't locked, but rather the mechanism that controls the power on it was jammed. Money to fix that is going to be fun to come up with. So I went around to the other side and found that they had gotten into a box of unfrozen Otter Pops and were biting little holes in them with their teeth. Otter Pop juice now covered every surface of the car. Lauren was holding a DVD in her mouth. Why in the mouth?! After my rant I was surely expecting the cops to drive up because a neighbor would have called them. I was hysterical.

Fast forward to this afternoon. After picking Ethan up from school we headed to the Nursery where I've been dropping loads of money lately. I needed to get more compost and soil. The kids wandered through the place as I shopped, and for the most part they were good enough.

They love to touch everything, as all kids do. Every other word out of my mouth was "Put that down" or "Don't touch that". I got in a very long line and finally made it up to the front. The kids were standing about 50 feet away, touching and messing with everything. Very expensive lawn and garden decor was right at their eye level. I kept hollering at them to put things down! Of course, they looked at me and went right on disobeying. Ethan took several expensive pieces and was lining them up in the pavement.

After telling him several times to put them back (I didn't want to lose my place in line) I knew something was about to happen. Lauren looked at me, looked at the figurine, and then looked back at me. She deliberately knocked it over with a thrust of her hand. To make a long story short, I ended up paying almost $45 for this hideous thing that ended up in the garbage. I couldn't just sweep it away and pretend like my kids didn't break it. About 7 people saw it happen. So I kept my "cool" as much as I could, paid for it, loaded up my bags of dirt, and got in the car. Crazy mom emerged and I think the kids got scared into submission. It's only 5:00. There are still plenty of hours left for me to lose my mind with them before bedtime.