Are they out to get me?

This summer was a no plan summer for us. I have no realized that was the stupidest decision I could have made. With moving (into a brand new house where I can't kick them outside) and running my business having the kids home with me all summer long has made me nuts... even if I had wanted to putting the two of them in camp all summer long wasn't in the cards so I just had to make the best of it.

I have tried so hard. Realizing that they are probably acting out because they are bored or want attention. So I would stop to take a break for a day and take them to the park or do something that they want to do. That didn't help at all.

I pulled out my trusty Ain't Misbehavin' book by Alyson Schafer and tried the techniques.

They spent a lot of time at my moms who lives up north and of course the entire time they were there they were angels.

But when they are here with me they are out to get me! Really, I am not being all mellow dramatic about this.  Still don't believe me? Here are some examples:

1. They decided to play hair salon and Kal tried to give Miss E a makeover. Well she ended up with a half mullet. I had the pleasure of noticing this while standing in line at the post office waiting to ship orders out. I think he was lucky about that because I couldn't freak out. I told him the moment we got home he was going to his room and he could stay there until Dad got home.  He did this before 2 years ago to her... so they were told that if I ever find them use scissors on anything but paper without my permission they will never use scissors again in my house, I don't care if they are 25 and still living at home.

2. Then there was the water fight yesterday. I was lucky to discover this when my girlfriend stopped by with her daughters for a visit. For some reason my kids decided that it would be fun to pour buckets full of water all over Miss E's bed and floor. Didn't say anything about it so it sat for 4-5 hours before I walked into her room while showing my girlfriend around. The floor was so wet that in seconds large bath towels were soaked to the point that they weighed 10lbs each. Her floor is still damp.

3. Today they took a Costco sized of ginger cookies and jumbo bag of pretzels and poured them all over the living room floor, and then they filled glasses of juice with cookies so they became a sloppy mess. Ground some of this mess into the carpet of our brand new home.

I feel like I could go on for hours about all of the stuff that they have done.

I took them to the store, bought back to school supplies, we went out for lunch and they got a treat and 30 minutes after we return home they do this because I am on the phone with my mom for a few minutes.  This is the same person that they just spent 5 days at and were great kids.

So why do they only do this to me?

They don't do this to their Dad, sure they still give him a hard time but nothing like me... I can punish them, I can yell and scream, I can try talking calmly to them - nothing works.

Are they conspiring to make me crazy? If so they are succeeding! I am wishing I could have a huge glass of wine at 10am just to calm down and get through the day. Good thing I am not a big drinker or I probably would be having one.

I wanted to really enjoy the last couple of weeks of the summer with them but now I just want them to go back to school.  How horrible does that sound? I admit it, I am counting down the days and hours until they are back in school and gone all day from 8:45am to 4pm.

Makes me sad as the only summer memories we have is them driving their mom into the nut house.

Next year they will be in camp for at least 3/4 of the summer, I don't care if I have to get a 3rd job to be able to make it happen. They can drive someone else crazy!

Feel so sorry for their Montessori teachers in 2 weeks when they return to school as crazy people. Although they will probably act like angels for them, cause that is what they do. Perfect angels all day at school and start fighting with each other the second we get into the car when I pick them up at the end of the day.

Why do the kids drive only me crazy?

Kids were giving issues with going to bed so I sat down with them and asked "why they love to do this to me and never to Daddy. I took them to the park today for hours and now I need to work" so they go upstairs and start acting up again, I go up there and Ella gets all upset and says I don't like her!
Not very often, but even his brother confirmed on Friday that they are always fine with him and go to bed so easily. I think they know I need to be busy and try to take advantage. I think when they go back to school I am going to need to take a big break from night time working and train them both. They stay up way to late and it isn't good for them or me. I need my time.
I should try the ignore thing for a week, see if that helps any. They seem to fight me wanting them to go to bed, so they are up there acting out more. Maybe if I ignore them they will stop.

I was very on top of things with the kids, they had routine and listened to me. What happened?

Mine are good kids, I have to remind myself of that during those times that I am ready to sell them!

They make me stronger.

"Mom" Friends

Recently I have been thinking about mom friends. You know the ones who you can get together with, your kids play together and you chat about life.

I recently moved and have been spending a lot of time at our new park, there is a great splash pad and park with a covered area with benches and tables.  As I sit there I notice the ladies chatting, their kids are all playing and the moms are talking and enjoying themselves.  I sit there by myself with my iPhone, Facebook and Twitter.  While all of those are great I miss the actual company of a physical human beside me.

I don't notice it all that often but it seems to really be in my face at the park. Could be because I work at home all day by myself.

Yes I just moved into a new neighbourhood and I still need to meet people, but even in my old neighbourhood I went to the park by myself. People were a lot friendlier there.  While we live in this great new neighbourhood there are no kids around us.  Makes me sad as we had that in our old house, up until the last month when a great family moved in with 3 boys the ages of my kids.

So tonight at dinner I started thinking to myself about how sad it makes me that I don't have any mom friends who I can call and ask them to meet me, or ones that call me.

Sure I have friends, not like I am all pity me because I am a friendless loser.

But when my kids were little I had "Mom" friends that I regularly saw, our kids played and we chatted about life. I met a great group when my 1st was born, we still continued our regular play dates as we all started having 2nd kids but then something happened...

I started Grace Announcements when my son was 1 and by the time my daughter was born I was busy. I didn't have as much time, I needed to use nap time for working not forgoing it for human contact. And now that I am at a point in my life where I want it, it isn't there.

Shows the importance of nurturing friends along with family. With making it a priority to stay in contact with friends.  While I know that I will have friends in my life that will always be there, no matter how much time goes by it doesn't matter.  We can pickup right where we left off. I am very lucky to have a lifelong friend like that, unfortunately she lives in Ottawa so we don't get to just see each other whenever we want.

Do you make it a priority to keep all your friends close? Or do you have friends which whom you have grown apart from?

But then you have friends who you put a lot of effort into, you try to contact, you try to setup "dates" but it never works out.

Do you forget about them?

Does it also get to a point in life where you have friends who are moms but you don't ever get together with kids?