So, Yesterday…

I was woken up far too early by children who got far too little sleep.  (6:45 a.m., in case you were wondering.)

My normal “get up and go” routine took far too long as I stumbled around in a brain fog until I looked up at 9:00 a.m. to realize I hadn’t fed Jed yet.  Oops.

Sad to say, but I still haven’t gotten my kitchen whipped back into shape from the cooking and packing insanity that preceded our trip to visit my Nana in the hospital two weeks ago, and as I looked around to make breakfast for my son, I realized it just wasn’t going to happen.

He got a bowl of puffed corn cereal with almond milk and I called it “good enough”.

But I decided the kitchen really did need to be cleaned, and pulled on my rubber gloves to get working.  Zac was deposited in the bouncy chair, not screaming about the indignity of it (for once), Jed was munching away on breakfast, and I was busily scrubbing dishes, feeling a growing sense of “the day started off slow, but I’m gettin’ my groove on now, baby!”

Then Jed made an executive decision.  I imagine his thoughts ran along the lines of “Do you know what’s more fun than eating cereal?  THROWING cereal!  Yeah, I should do that!  Mommy will be proud of how big a mess I can make!”

Yeah.  Mommy was NOT proud.  Mommy was…well, insert another word that starts with “p”.  Yeah.

Dishes were abandoned.  Zac was left to watch the drama unfold.  Jed was unpleasantly shocked at Mommy’s reaction to the vision of him standing on his chair at the dining room table, joyous glee on his face as he pointed to the floor, table, chair, and wall around him as he used his speech therapy lessons to shout “Mess! Milk! Wash!” at the top of his lungs.

Because Mommy insisted HE clean it up.  (Well, help to clean it up.)

Unlike Monday, I didn’t lose my cool.  I *did* yell a little – but that’s only because this is the second time in a week he’s done this.  (Throwing food is a totally new thing in our house – I’m not sure where it came from, but I’d like to send it back, thankyouverymuch!)

Mostly, though, I calmly, firmly informed him that making this kind of mess was unacceptable, and that he would now help me clean it up.

I instructed him to take his (almond milk and corn covered) sippy cup and spoon to the sink.

He refused.

I insisted.

This went on for a while.

I won.

But not before the almond milk had started to dry on the wood floors, and he had rolled around in the mess enough that his PJ’s were soaked through.

Sigh…

No sooner had we finished cleaning up the mess than he began screaming “Eat!”

Oh, no, kiddo.  Let me tell you how this works!

“Sweetie, when you throw your food on the floor, I take that as a sign that you’re done eating, your belly is full, and you no longer want any food. So you now have to wait until lunch before you can eat again.”

Surprisingly, he didn’t pitch too big a fit over that.

(I think he was still upset that I’d turned the TV off and told him he couldn’t have any more TV that day, as the trade-off for making the mess and only barely helping me clean it up.)

So I got Jed changed into clean clothes and safely ensconced in the living room, and looked up to realize that ‘oh Lordy, it’s an hour late for Zac’s morning nap!’

I tried to lay him down, and it was a no-go.  The kid refused to sleep.  Jed was pitching a fit in the living room, Zac was chewing my face, and I decided to cry “uncle”.  Back to the living room we all went.

The kitchen still wasn’t clean.  And I still hadn’t eaten breakfast.  So, I ate a bag of potato chips.  Breakfast of champions, right?

I set about actually cleaning the dining room (not just wiping up the mess, actually mopping and cleaning the table and chairs) and went to try naptime for Zac again when I was done.

It was 11:30 a.m., and I finally managed to get Zac to sleep!  Yippee!!

Unfortunately, I managed to fall asleep while achieving this goal.  No yippee.

In the hour and a half I was out for the count, Jed decided to entertain himself in our office.  He made about a quarter of the mess I would have guessed he would make in that time frame, so I suppose I should be happy.  Still, I had those stacks of papers stacked purposefully, and now it’s all one gigantic stack that has no rhyme or reason to it.

So now we’re going to file for an extension to do our income tax.  Thanks, Jed!

By the time I’d cleaned up the office a bit, nursed a now-awake Zac, I realized it was 2:00 p.m. and I hadn’t fed Jed lunch!  I had meant to punish him a bit for his breakfast throwing shenanigans by making him wait for lunch, but truly had meant to feed him at our normal 12-12:30 p.m. time frame.

Now I felt guilty.

And, oh, the kitchen still wasn’t cleaned.

I managed to find *a* clean frying pan and cooked up some bacon and pancakes for him.  I didn’t have anything else thawed; but, breakfast for lunch is okay, right?

He ate pretty well, and then decided to punctuate the fact that he was done eating by pouring his milk all over the table, chair, and floor.  AGAIN.

Sigh…really, Jed?

I’ll spare you the details of the second cleanup of the day, and then it was time for afternoon naps.

Late, of course.  It was now 3:00 p.m.  A full 1-2 hours later than he normally goes down. But, he went down for his nap pretty easily, thank goodness!

Zac, however, had no interest in taking a nap. Instead, he wanted to sit in my lap and scream at me.

For an hour.

For no reason.

And when he wasn’t screaming?  He was biting my face.

If he’s teething, I can’t feel anything in his mouth to prove it.  If he’s teething, I wish those teeth would DO something already!

He finally went down at 4:15 p.m.  Ah…sweet relief!  Both kiddos asleep at once!

I went straight into the office to try and write my post for today.  I got one about halfway written; I was waiting to finish it after I cooked dinner, because I was planning to take pictures for the post.

I was feeling pretty pleased with my progress; maybe, just maybe, I’d get to bed before 1 in the morning! I even managed to get out the checkbook to start working on bill paying for the month.  Only one problem: I was out of room in the register to record anything new.  Oh well, I thought.  Darrel can pick one up at the bank drive-thru on his way home.

5:00 p.m. came, and no word from Darrel.  I finally called him at 5:30 and he was just leaving work.  I asked him to pick up the checkbook register, and in our conversation it came out that he was going to a photography meeting that I’d completely forgotten about.

Well, nix my dinner idea!  I didn’t want to make a huge pot of spaghetti for just Jed, so I figured I’d just make it later.

I put the ground beef in the fridge, and decided Jed was just going to have to eat more bacon and pancakes for dinner.

Jed woke up when dinner was about halfway ready, and Zac woke up at the same time.  6:00 p.m.  Yup, bedtime is shot!

We actually had a nice evening; Jed ate his dinner, I ate a steak (and more potato chips), the boys took their probiotics, Jed actually helped me in the kitchen a bit…so, good night!

We got in the shower just as Darrel got home from his meeting (half an hour after they’re normally in bed) and we got the kids bathed, dried, dressed, and in bed.

But neither of them went to sleep until about 10:30 p.m.

That’s about when I realized my post for today was shot, since I hadn’t been able to take pictures of it from dinner.

Oh, and the kitchen still isn’t clean.

Do you ever just have one of those days?