So I’d like to say every day is peachy. Only have happy & bubbly things to blog about. While in my eyes my husband & our lil monsters are as close to perfect as they could possibly be. Our life maintains a certain level of chaos with a house full of seven people and a twelve year old pup. Not every day is as “perfect” as we’d like. Some days someone just wakes up on the wrong side of the bed. Sometimes several of us do. As humans aren’t we entitled to have an off day? All too easily we forget that about our children. They are human too. Yes, respect is a necessity. But they aren’t always going to maintain a level of pep that we’d all like to think our lil monsters should day in and day out. Some days are going to be “off” for them too.
Today was one of those days for us in our house of chaos! These little monsters seemed to bicker about the most nit picking things possible. ALL DAY LONG! There was some definite hair pulling, when someone took the toy our two year old Bitty wanted. Mad, our five year old, through more than one tantrum, even over the fact that her peas & carrots were touching at dinner. Aub was a somewhat overly emotional nine year old today full of attitude and held back nothing when her brother who came home from a not so fun busy day at work, and then the cycle was complete. Four grumpy monsters all afternoon to the point I had to check the calendar and be sure it wasn’t really a manic Monday! Daddy & I decided to take them out after dinner for some bike riding and skateboarding to expel some of that pent up frustration. Had plans to take them out for an ice cream afterwards. Oddly enough even that didn’t do the trick. The bickering continued. This one looked at that one the wrong way. The other wasn’t happy that water got spilled. So and so did blah, blah, blah. OH MY WORD! It was just a train wreck! So after a hour of play we loaded the monsters, bikes, and skateboards back into the mini and instead of the ice cream shop we swung by the corner store for a box of ice cream (because at that point not everyone had attitude and we weren’t going to punish everyone) and headed home feeling a bit defeated. After their ice cream which they some how managed not choking a sibling through, the bedtime routines started…a bit earlier than usual.
Make no mistake daddy & I would have loved to find that start over button, especially me since I’m the stay at home mama that got to witness it first hand all day no matter how many times I tried to redirect a kiddo or two at a time. But at the end of the day all I can do is sigh. Take a nice Lush bath. Breathe. And remind myself that they are just kiddos that had an off day and tomorrow will surely be better than this! It just has to be. Otherwise it looks like they will unknowingly be getting back to a normal “school days” bedtime routine, ha ha!
It’s been a bit of an insane day. Not the picture perfect day that most of us are guilty of painting especially in the world of social media. Today was anything but picture perfect. Tears were shed by three little girls. Our eighteen year old son likely realized work was easier than the sibling rivalry he joined when he got home. I found myself on the verge of tears more than once myself today and all I could do was warn my husband about the evening he was coming home to. But as the chaotic day comes to an end I can look at the bigger picture. We are blessed. We have four healthy, feisty, energetic monsters with four huge personalities. They are as head strong as head strong gets. The are the four lil monsters God blessed us with. My husband and I have a fabulous marriage that is thankfully not full of anger and bickering. We are a team. One that takes on the chaotic “off” day together instead of letting it cause us to start fighting as well. And luckily for my mom that lives with us, she has a bedroom door that locks when she is ready for a break from these lil monsters’ “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day” (to quote an amazing children’s book). This big fam of ours holds a whole lot of love for each other and even on our worst not so social media pretty day we always know we can count on each other. And thankfully all of that gives me the ability to smile at the end of this not so pleasant day!
“It has been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. My mom says some days are like that” -Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
