Every Sunday, without fail, I loose my schmidt. I attribute it to the clean up crunch. All the laundry needs to be done so I don't have to listen to or play the "Where's my favorite (fill in the blank)" game. All the dishes have to be cleaned, I have learned that the males in the house have a severe aversion to the manual labor of loading and emptying the dishwasher, and Brenna quite often picks up the slack, but she fails to turn it on. Homework has to be signed off on, Friday folders unpacked. The list goes on.
This Sunday, however, was a little different. Gunnar and Mommy took an alone time $10 walk to 7-11 to talk and bond. He got to choose which way we went and came back, and he was happy, which in turn made me happy. We got to 7-11 had a minor disagreement over a Slurpee, mostly how I wasn't buying him one, he chose juices for himself and he siblings, and we got 2 packs of Gummy Bears. We came back through the patch in the overgrowth instead of Manassas Dr, and he was amazed how different it looked with out all the leaves on the trees.
And then we got home, it was not in the state that we had left it in...the 3 hours of coaxing Gunnar and Odin to pick up their toys earlier had been obliterated in the 20 mins that we were gone. Somehow, 32 dishes appeared in the sink. Seriously?! And they were fighting.
I took a new approach, I doled out the sugar and the juice, took a laundry basket upstairs, and left them to their father, who was playing his Beta game online. The 4 overtook him and they were sent outside to run off some energy. I came back downstairs and instead of yelling, I made my silence known. The kids came in after a public scolding, Justin went to work, and I started dinner.
I turned around and someone had introduced everyone to the finger paints on the dinner table....Yay (cowering in a corner, try not to twitch) that's so beautiful. Now I have no where to put your plates, and my arms hurt, so I am going to put them down anyway...don't touch anything. I didn't loose my schmidt. Instead I sent them upstairs to do their baths, and that gave the food just enough time to cool down to a temperature they could all agree to complain about. <Face Palm>
I am still resolved not loose my schmidt. Even as I sit hear listening to the yell and scream at each other "you can't tell me what to do," and "Seriously," and "I'm telling," and good lorad they are trying to agree on a Blu-ray to watch before dinner. I am screaming in my head for them to knock it off, and sending them to virtual corners, hoping that the stare will work, but they would have to look at me to see it and in order for them to look at me I'd have to say something, and if I say something the schmidt with overflow...so sullen silence is probably for the best right now.
And while I typed this out they settled on a movie to watch together. It's not too girly, boy-ie, stupid, long, short, or gross. There was only 1 punch thrown, and no blood shed. All in all I think I am liking this schmidt-less Sunday.
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