Fool Me Once, Strike One

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My kids have been totally crazy lately.  End of school year I guess?  Great, let’s take a look at the irony in that…  end of school  year makes  kids act crazy, which makes me dread the end of the school year when I will have 4 crazy, bored, unstimulated kids 24/7.  Nice irony, that.  But anyway, today it’s been one thing after another.  So much so, that I’ve decided to use my spare minute to blog it instead of doing one of the other many and more productive things that I had planned for today.

I guess it began when my son pooped and smeared it all over the bathtub.  He somehow managed this while his sister was watching him so I could run to the kitchen for a minute to stir lunch which was on the stove.  I had to turn down the stove and delay lunch while I cleaned up the mess.  Don’t worry, I washed my hands (many times), but lunch was late, giving my daughter less time than usual to eat it before school.  I took extra time today to make their favorite mac n’ cheese, but no one ate anything.  So that also cans my make-your-own pizza sandwiches I was planning for dinner.  Like I’m going to allow the extra mess and time it will take for the kids to make their pizza sandwiches when they wouldn’t even eat lunch.  Besides, I have my end-of-the-year MOPs meeting to get to, and I’m not taking 4 hungry kids into MOPs childcare if they don’t have time or refuse to eat.  Let’s take bets on whether or not I will actually make it into the shower before my meeting…  I could go now, but then I’d have the company of my 3-year-old, who’s been wanting to take showers with me lately.  It’s nice to have a buddy, but my showers used to be my downtime, especially needed on a day like today…  By the way, did anyone see the nice article about MOPs in the latest American Profile magazine?  I enjoyed the few paragraphs I’ve had time to read…

Back to today – I finally got my 3-year-old to eat her lunch (had to drop what I was doing to chugga-chugga-choo-choo into her mouth), so she was rewarded with Cheetos.  Next thing I know, she and her brother had stomped the entire bag into the floor.

While I was cleaning that up, they were playing in the bathroom sink and flooded the floor.  In the words of Michael Scott from my favorite tv show The Office – Fool me once, strike one. Fool me twice, strike three.”  So rather than leave them unattended, even for just long enough to clean up yet another mess, I put the little guy down for his nap before I cleaned up the latest mess.  Thought that little Office quote would make me smile, so at least I was right there 🙂

And if you think that my 3 and 1-year-old kids were actually helping with the cleanup, you must not have kids because they only succeeded in spreading the Cheeto crumbs around further.  But at least they thought they were helping, and they  had fun while doing so.  Plus, note my gorgeous Mother’s Day bouquet in the background of the one pic – It’s from the kids (yeah right).  I ♥ Hubby!

I’m just extra stressed since I’m trying to keep the house nice since we’re having a birthday party this weekend.  Don’t ask me why I’m trying to keep  a nice house while waiting for 22 five-and-six-year-olds to run wild around my house celebrating my daughter’s birthday…  that doesn’t make much sense, does it?  Maybe I have finally lost it…

10 thoughts on “Fool Me Once, Strike One”

  1. Ah parenting 101, I miss that… (NOT!!!). I see that you are blessed with inquisitive, intelligent and artistic children. This is not a mission for the faint of heart. Good luck. Keep saying to yourself “I love my children, I love my children…” 😉 You’ll do just fine and maybe you will be able to find yourself when the youngest moves out.

  2. Phyllis Beyer

    Oh My!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I would definitely have lost it. I would clean your house after the party. How about letting the dogs help clean it up?

  3. I think you ARE doing a great job. But 22 five and six year olds?! HOLY MOLEY! That is an idea… have the dogs clean up 😉

  4. Well, to be fair, 22 were invited, and only 3 have said they are coming for sure. But if you bring invitations to school, the entire class must be invited, which is understandable. And after last year, when only 1 kid showed up (thank goodness her parents called on the morning of the party – we had been fretting that NO ONE was going to come), we figured better have too many than not enough – but ask me if I still have that opinion on Sunday 😉
    And dogs cleaning up the mess is a fine idea. I just want to know who cleans up after the dogs when they get sick from all the cake and wrapping paper? 😉 Looking forward to the chaos!!

  5. Sounds like our 4th grade small group outings- two would have shown up the first time, one showed up the second time, and now we are approaching the rescheduled first event and so far no RSVPs…

    As for your main post, well the only real preschooler experience I have is when I subbed in some preschool classrooms. Suffice to say I wouldn’t have survived without the teaching assistants. 😮

  6. What a waste of perfectly yummy cheetohs….mmmm…cheetohs….

    I’m sorry about your day. I could NOT do what you do…not even for 5 minutes. Huge kudos to you!!!

  7. @mary911 – Sometimes I think I can’t do what I do either, and that’s why I blog it before I explode! Thanks for the kudos! And you know what? I could never do what YOU do! So kudos back at ‘cha!

  8. I’m with mary911 – that’s cheeto abuse!!! mmmmmm cheetohs

    I think its spring that actually causes the chaos, it just so happens that its the end of the school year – or maybe thats why they end it there? Good luck girl, and my dogs LOVE cheetohs mmmmmm

  9. Oh yeah, I forgot to add that the Cheeto abuse was part of what was so upsetting – a waste of perfectly good Cheetos, plus the money they cost… and it was a pickle – do I let the dogs in to clean it up when the puppy still isn’t potty trained and might not do a good enough job AND leave more mess? In the end, I just cleaned it myself 🙂

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