One of Thoooooooooose days

Today was one of those days. One of thooooooose days. Nothing tragic happened, nothing calamitous. No one was sick or abducted or injured in any sort of tragic spear-fishing accident or anything. Just one of those days where if I’m being honest, I admit that for me, being a stay-at-home mom during the summer is WAY more work than during the school year. Because the kids are actually …. You know ….. HERE all day. WITH ME. Demanding all sorts of insufferable demands like bread and water and attention. Greedy little bastards.

All day, with the not-so-noticeable-as-to-be-blatant-but-just-under-my-skin-enough-to-drive-me-crazy whining and arguing and QUESTIONING everything. Every. Single. Thing. Not listening to what I say, not doing what I ask, going in a million different directions with the “Mom, this” and “Mom, that” and “Mom, she (fill in the blank)” and “Mom it’s not fair he (fill in yet another freaking blank)”. My decisions are always questioned in the hopes they can get me to change my mind. I can never please all three of them, so no matter what decision I make –about ANYTHING – where to eat lunch or where to go swimming or what to watch on tv …. SOMEONE accuses me of letting the OTHER ONES always get their way. “Because I said so” doesn’t hold as much weight in this house as I think it should, let me put it that way. And you know what? It’s exhausting.

They are tired from having company here all week, plus Kellen had soccer practice four nights this week, and Kendrie had her first soccer practice as well. Temperatures have been well over a hundred this week, so if you think running in that kind of heat isn’t tiring, think again. Plus she had a sleepover last night at a friend’s house and told me they stayed up until 1am. Brayden, well, I’m not sure what her excuse is except its apparently her job to fill in the gaps if her brother and sister aren’t doing a good enough job driving me nuts on their own.

My melt-down came in Target today, which is sad, because it’s one of my favorite stores in the whole world. I hate to think there is a sign near the cash registers now of my face with a big circle and a slash through it. We were buying school supplies, a simple-enough task. I was reading from the school list and instructing each kid on what they needed to take off the shelf and put in the cart. Simple enough, right? Take it OFF the shelf, and put it IN the cart. How hard can it be? But after the delimma of the pencils, and the drama of the glue sticks, and the saga of the erasers --- for goodness' sake, they're stupid pink erasers just pick some who cares what they look like?!?!?!?! None of them could decide exactly which notebooks they wanted and then Kellen got mad when Kendrie picked the same one he had. Brayden needs a new bike so I told her we would look, but the one she picked out was two hundred dollars and when I said “no way, Josie” she got mad because “she never gets anything she wants!” Kendrie kept asking to go to the pet aisle, and Kellen was frustrated with me because they didn’t have the shoes he wanted in his size. I’m not quite sure how that was my fault exactly … I guess because I didn’t pull a size 6 OUT OF MY ASS.

When we finally walked up to the register I saw another mom I know and stopped to say hello. We were chatting for a moment and the kids were being a little rude, interrupting and asking for candy off the register, and telling me to please hurry up so we could go to Petsmart and buy stuff for Barley’s arrival tomorrow. I had turned my back to chat and without me noticing, they emptied my entire cart onto the belt, making trip after trip after trip from my cart to the register. *Maybe* they thought they were being helpful??? But I thought it was rude, like they were rushing me, and I was embarrassed when the cashier had to holler at me to point out an entire line of people were waiting on me to finish my conversation and pay.

I was seriously. Not happy. And didn't quite make it outside the store before telling the kids just what I thought of their behavior.

Earlier in the day we had gone to the library and the kids checked out several books about golden retrievers. One of them had a dvd in it about early dog training and dog care. And the kids were watching the video with Blaine, and arguing about who would get to hold Barley on the way home tomorrow, and who would get to walk her first, and who would help dad brush her each evening and clean her teeth every day. And mean words were tossed about as they tried in vain to establish a pecking order with regard to the dog.

And I stood in the kitchen, preparing dinner, and all I could think was, “What have we done? What unbelievable error in judgment have we made??? We can’t manage the three HUMAN pets we have now …. And we’re getting another one? A real one? ONE THAT EATS ITS OWN POOP?!?!?!?!”

I fear we have made a tragic mistake.

Or perhaps I'm just not drinking enough.