DeMonday

Demonic + Monday = DeMonday.

Today was a DAY: long, exhausting, and full of Amb-obstacles. Operating on a lesser night sleep, I felt near my breaking point from about 8am onward. As I was listing all of today's exhausting events, I realized that none of them were worth breaking over. I probably shouldn't have worn my hair in such a tight bun. But I know this list/saga will amuse me some day, so here it is.

Things that Actually Happened Today:

* While I was running laps around the driveway before taking the kids to school this morning, Amber got into a scuffle with Jay wherein her toe started bleeding. Jay came outside to explain the situation to me in his usual long-winded manner. I had to stop running and remove my earbuds, missing a small section of my current audiobook (Wuthering Heights--an exceedingly amusing way to pass the time during 32 driveway laps--it is deliciously gruesomely Gothic in every way). I told Jay to be kind and deal with it, then put my earbuds back in and kept running, feeling slightly guilty but not enough to enter the kids' fray.

* When I was helping put Amber's shoes on, I noticed she had a bandaid on her toe. I asked if Jay got her a bandaid, and Amber said "Rosie". Sweet Rose, climbed up high to where I stash the bandaids and put one onto her little sister's tiny toe while her absentee mother was out exhausting herself running gerbil laps around the driveway.

* Getting into the car on the way to school: Amber removed her coat before I got her buckled. Before I could get into the car, Amber had turned on the hazard lights and rear windshield wiper, and opened the gas cap. And locked the doors. In the car on the way to school, Amber removed her shoes (which I had just put on he wiggly toes).

* We went to Safeway right after dropping Jay and Rose off at school. Amber walked around the store with me instead of riding in the cart. The carts were in such a tangled jam that even with full muscle power I could not extract one from the mess and I had to resort to one of the mini shopping carts that didn't have a child seat in it. The entire 30 minutes in the grocery store I developed a twitch, back and forth between the shelf and Amber's frolicking form flitting around the corner. It was exhausting. She ran her hand down a row of wine bottles and I nearly had to purchase an entire selection of white wines. Thankfully I grabbed her before she could push them hard enough to fall off the shelf.

* At Safeway, I had to remove a butternut squash and an onion from our cart. Amber thought I needed some help in the produce section, and kept adding items of her choosing while my back was turned.

* Every time I picked something off a shelf, Amber picked something else off another shelf. Pick up, put back, pick up, put back, threaten time out, pick up, put back, pick up, put back...etc.

* Walking out to the car in the Safeway parking lot, I had one hand gripping Amber's arm and the other pushing the heavy little cart. I could not steer the cart one handed, and Amber likes to run away if I let go of her. So we walked in a crooked path not quite towards our car, then I gave Amber the car keys so she could push the unlock button. That usually keeps her from running off, and it worked today--THANKFULLY. I quickly used both hands to steer the cart over to our car and then grabbed Amber again and buckled her into her car seat before loading the groceries into the trunk.

* Buckling Amber into her car seat was a nightmare. She did hip thrusts, kicked out with her feet, and slapped me with her hands. It felt like I was attempting to squeeze an octopus into the car seat harness. If I had watched this display eight years ago as a new mom, I would have been utterly horrified and totally would have assumed that the mother was a substandard parent. Alas, here I am. I think I am generally a kind, calm, firm, steady, even fun at times sort of mother. But none of those attributes seem to affect my feral AmBear.

* I picked Jay and Rose up earlier than usual this afternoon. Normally I pick them up an hour early on Mondays for piano lessons, but today I picked them up two hours early at 1:30pm so we could take Amber to her ENT appointment in Prosser, then zip over to piano lessons right after. (Piano and the ENT are both in Prosser, a 22 minute drive away).

* In the car on the way to Prosser, Amber finished her sandwich that she had saved in a baggie from lunch. When I went to unbuckle her in the parking lot, she was a sight to behold: she was wearing the same ponytail, bow, and dress she had worn all day on Sunday (she insisted on the dress, and I know from experience that unbuttoning an unwilling Amber is nigh impossible so I let her wear it). She had big stripes of peanut butter across both cheeks, layered on top of a faint purple smoothie mustache stain from earlier in the day. That purple smoothie had dribbled down her dress in several splotches that I didn't notice until they had dried in a deep looking stain. I also noted some other unidentified crusties and stains on her cute little blue and white daisy dress. She was a mess! I quickly mopped her face and hands with a wet wipe and in we went. Jay and Rose were also looking very ragamuffin end-of-the-day-ish, with Rose's ponytail all ratty, a mysterious hole in the thigh of her pants, and Jay's baggy shirt stained. I might add that my bun was askew. We were quite the crew descending upon the quiet tidy medical office.

* The ENT appointment was so quick, we were in and out of there in 20 minutes flat. Dr. Combs quickly checked Amber's ears, nose, and throat, and his reaction when he looked in her throat was exactly like every other medical professional: "wow, she really DOES have huge tonsils!" He said "these are the types of tonsils we take to the fair because they are the biggest in town." Haha. So Amber will be getting her tonsils taken out.

* While we were in the exam room, the three kids were absolutely fidgety and roaming around, exploring and teasing each other and pushing buttons. It was noisy and stressful in that tiny room, and there was only one chair aside from the exam chair and the doctor's roll-y stool. Unnecessarily and weeks in advance, the nurse went through the list of information about what to do before and after a tonsillectomy amidst a sea of three children scuffling and messing around noisily in the small area. She kept speaking louder over their noise, but I could barely concentrate through the combination of the noise and my indignation at my children's raucous behavior! Amber and Rose kept pushing the buttons on the exam chair to raise and lower it. I felt so scattered! Finally we were out of there. Amber broke free of my grip on the way out to the car and ran way down to the other end of the parking lot, then tripped and fell and started crying. I was glad she fell because it stopped her from running all the way downtown in the street! How does this stuff happen? I could NOT get a hold of that girl!

* Since Amber's appointment ended so early, we had 40 minutes to burn before piano lessons. So we drove to the park around the corner from the doctor's office, and the kids played until piano time. I noticed signs that Rose needed to pee, but she denied it indignantly when I pulled her aside and asked, so I let it go. They played hide and seek tag and climbed and went wild to their heart's content for almost 40 minutes before we headed over to piano lessons.

* During piano lessons this afternoon, I had planned on taking Amber to the Prosser park so she could play while we waited out the long hour of piano lessons. But we had already played at that park for nearly 40 minutes before piano lessons, and I didn't feel like going back. So we stayed in the driveway waiting at the piano teacher's house. Problem: I didn't bring an iPad. Amber was all over the place, in and out of the van, throwing baseball sized rocks across the driveway, trying to pick the beautiful flowerbeds full of daffodils. Finally I got her back in the van and turned off the automatic door opener, effectively trapping her in the van. Confining a hurricane to a smaller area does not decrease its fury. In fact, I think it increased her destructive power. She poked me with her finger over and over. She kissed me right in the middle of the lens of my glasses. She threw old napkins around. She yanked the arm that was holding the phone to my ear away from my head (I called my mom to chat). It was a LONG hour. Amber knows all of my buttons, and she delights in pressing each one over and over, right down to the lip print in the middle of my glasses. Amber loves buttons!

* Rose joined us after her lesson was done, half an hour into our hellish van-nado. She and Amber climbed halfway out of the back windows of the van, squealing, screaming, and screeching joyfully at each other across the roof of the van. I nearly had a breakdown from all of the noise and chaos. Overstimulated is much too bland a word for how I was feeling at that point. Finally I exited the vehicle and paced the driveway ten feet away from my blaring loud daughters and received a measure of peace as I finished up my phone call with my mom. Jay joined us and we drove on to Eastside Park in Grandview, the post-piano outing we had previously agreed upon. I nearly bagged the second park outing, but the thought of returning to our small house with these three wild hooligans motivated me to stick to the double park deal.

* At the park, Rose became desperate to pee (I had read the signs correctly 90 minutes earlier at the Prosser Park). A quick check revealed that BOTH park bathroom doors were locked. I thought Rose might explode, so I had her lean against a tree, drop her drawers, and pee out in the open. It all came flooding out with such power that she ended up soaking her pants and undies anyways. She screamed and sobbed when I made her pull up her wet pants to walk back to the car. She waddled in a very awkward/hilarious/obvious way, whimpering and crying about the wetness. I opened our barf kit that we keep in the car at all times, found a flat cloth diaper, and spread it on the seat for Rose to sit on. Then I told her to remove her wet clothes, sit on the cloth, and cover her lap with her coat. Thankfully she managed all of this with minimal protesting and we were ready to be on our way.

* Amber refused to leave the park, even when the rest of us were sitting in the car waiting for her. She climbed to the top of the play structure and refused to come down. She clearly wanted a game of chase, and after dealing with Rose's pee problems and being clawed half to death by Amber during piano lessons, the last thing I wanted to do was chase Amber across the park, or climb up and carry her flailing body down the playground. So I closed the car doors, opened a window, and told her it was time to go. Then I put it in drive and slowly inched forward along the street by the park (we were parallel parked along the curb and the car in front of us had left, so there was space ahead). Amber almost called my bluff, and I could see the wheels turning in her head while she stood there defiantly at the top of the play structure, but I kept going, calling to her that it was time to go. I didn't say "we're leaving, bye!" to motivate her to come because I've always thought that's a cruel way to get kids to come--talk about abandonment issues! (apparently I do still have at least one or two parenting pedestals that have not been debunked by Amber. For now.) I just kept calling out to her that it was time to leave while I inched the car forwards. Finally, she made her decision. She dashed to the slide, zipped down, and ran towards the car, calling "I coming! I coming!" Whereupon I stopped the car, got out, and went to meet her. I let her walk all the way to the car and climb into her seat. She sat there calmly while I buckled her in--no flailing or kicking. Amazing what the right motivation does on a strong willed child. Yanking them around before they've decided to come is a nightmare for everyone involved!

* We arrived home just after 5pm and as the kids scampered off to play Nintendo Legend of Zelda (a direct result of my survival mom mode), I quickly realized that I possessed nary a single cooking vibe. Spaghetti (without meat) won the night: jar of sauce, box of noodles. Boil noodles. Drain. Dump sauce on top. Stir. Toss a clump of Romaine lettuce on the table. Boom. Dinner is served. The only reason we didn't use paper plates is because I didn't feel like going down to the basement to retrieve them. Jeff got home right around 6pm, and I timed the spaghetti to be ready right around when he arrived.

* Rose inhaled her spaghetti and then broke off a few Romaine leaves and poured on some salad dressing. Before we could stop her, she LICKED the drip of salad dressing on the side of the bottle, all the way up to the top. With her tongue. Jeff and I both cried out in dismay. Meanwhile next door, Amber was getting spaghetti noodles all over her bare chest. In an attempt to save her cute daisy dress from at least one type of stain, we removed it before dinner.

* After dinner, 30 minutes stood between me and the kids' bedtime. I looked at Jeff with a gleam of desperation in my eye. Somehow we had a very short inattentive family home evening where Jeff taught us the first two lines of the Popcorn Popping song in French. Then family prayer, brush teeth, and BED. The kids were all "put away" by 6:52pm. I'm pretty sure Amber was asleep by 7. (Jay and Rose both get reading time before they have to go to sleep, but it is independent and parent-time is over at 7pm).

* Jeff and I sat on the couch with ice cream and talked for 10 minutes, then at my request he left me to retreat to my quiet laptop to siphon off this DAY in all its gory details. There is such heavenly peace in a darkening room with a glowy slowly sinking sunset out the window. I feel a few of my scattered pieces coming back together.

Me too, Amb. Me too.

 Racing up the slides.

 It was a gorgeous, 60 degree sunny day with no wind, and I truly enjoyed watching my kids play. Life is so interesting, with intense moments mixed right along in the middle of the mellow moments.

The queen, gazing down imperiously from on high.

The house is now quiet. Everyone but me is asleep. My eyelids are heavy, but I am loathe to relinquish this peaceful silent solitude. One last dilemma for DeMonday.