I don't know if it's something in the air or a phase of the moon or something else, but this weekend was an emotional rollercoaster.
Nedge and Oli share a room. It is directly across the hall from our bedroom. We typically put up a babygate in the middle of the hallway at night so they don't go in the kitchen and leave out the back door/get into the fridge while we sleep/turn on the TV and watch Dora all night/etc. Lately, the older boys have been carefully taking down the gate, going into the kitchen, and finding whatever messy food they can and bringing it into their room to eat/use as a weapon of intense cleanliness destruction.
First time: A full box of Captain Crunch cereal was opened and strewn all over their beds and floor. A new box of chocolate chip pancake mix had been poured out on the floor, rug, beds, and half their toys. At some point they'd gotten thirsty and a half bottle of water was poured on the floor (not on beds or rug at least). Also Negi pooped.
Second time: When you walk out into the living room and an entire bag of cheerios has been poured onto the floor and spread out, then soaked in 4+ bottles of water, add two blankets carefully arranged in the larger water puddles, with a handful of toys for flavor.
Third time: entire box of rice and poured it on their floor/beds, and a new box of instant brown sugar oatmeal and carefully poured it all over everything in their room. Also Negi can open pop bottles so there was half a small bottle of Dr. Pepper on the floor. The second box of pancake mix you'd got to replace the first one is also everywhere.
They also climbed the cupboards to get the just-opened box of Cheerios down yesterday morning and dumped that on the living room floor (Izzy was ecstatic).
It's really, really demoralizing to spend all day cleaning and organizing the same 4 rooms multiple times in that day. Not gonna lie, absolutely had a nervous crying breakdown the other night when they just kept destroying things and fighting and roughhousing at 10:30 PM when bedtime was 7 PM and they don't nap. Eric's been working 50+ hours as well, so we are both incredibly stressed.
Yesterday was rough until about 3 PM. Then we both took a deep breath, and decided to start the day over. That's something my mom would do once in a while if the day had been just no good-- we'd all go back to our rooms, then start the day over and emerge happy and ready to have a good day.
I swept up the house one more time. Eric put Izzy down for a nap and hopped on WoW. I made a creative dinner-- breaded sausage patty burgers with broccoli mac and cheese. Everybody ate all the food and it was delicious. The mail came and I got my free Bummis AIO diaper. Getting Negi to actually sleep was very hard, but we did it. Eric stayed up late playing WoW and I got Izzy down by 10. It wasn't absolutely horrible.
I mean, at least it was 60F outside and sunny yesterday? Michigan weather made me want to go out and DO something, but the way the kids behaved didn't exactly encourage going out. Even trying to go in the back yard's playground involved infighting. :| Not quite what I wanted for my last weekend home before returning to work on Tuesday, but the sun helped a little.
Eric and I made plans to go on a date up to GR next Saturday. We've both found some shops we want to check out and some deals to make (oh lordy guys I might actually finally write up that big post on why I love cloth diapering). Either my sister or my parents are going to take the boys and just give us a chance to breathe. We have a goal in mind-- something to look forward to. I think that's important: make plans you can look forward to, to help you get through the tough times and be a light at the end of the tunnel.
Here's hoping this week is better. <3