I haven't been posting stories about all the cute and wonderful things the kids have been doing lately because, quite frankly, they have not been cute and wonderful.  They have been little demon children!  Over the last 10 days I have watched them morph into THOSE KIDS.  The ones who run around screaming and terrorizing things.  They bite each other and rip books and are just bonkers.  Someone is always crying.  It's pretty awful, to say the least.  Thankfully, last night we finally figured out what was wrong.  Preschool is out for summer.

It's crazy to think that school ending could have such a detrimental effect on the kids, but it's more than just preschool.  It's all the things preschool represents.  Preschool means a schedule and a routine and a chance for Ree to play with other kids her own age.  It means getting the kids out of the house, even if it's just for a car ride. 

My parents were in town the week after school ended, so the kids were super busy and the lack of preschool didn't even register.  They then spent the next week recovering from my parents' visit.  They all had nasty colds and mostly slept and watched TV, so again, thoughts were not of preschool.  But then we had a really crazy weekend. 

I had to take a work certification exam in Raleigh on Saturday morning.  Raleigh is about two hours from here, so that ate up most of the day.  Knowing that was coming, we attempted to use Friday to get stuff done.  Jeff took off on Friday morning to take care of some errands.  While he was gone, I wanted to cut the big kids' hair.  They are all horrible and panic when I take them to get their haircut, and their hair ends up getting butchered.  Rather than paying lots of money for them to get bad haircuts, I choose to cut it myself and give them bad haircuts for free.  I have learned that it is easiest to plop them in front of the TV while I cut it, so there is a chance that they watch TV rather than try to see the scissors.  (And they all spend so much time twisting around trying to see the stupid scissors!)  I thought it would be a special treat to get to watch random Friday morning shows on PBS Kids.  I was wrong.  They were not the shows we watch during Mom Time (which is usually Sunday morning), and they were not interested.  Still, we managed to get through it without drawing blood.  Their hair was even trimmed.  Good enough.

Natalia mercifully slept through that debacle, but by the time it was over, she was up and ready to eat.  A show had come on that the kids did usually watch, so I told them they could watch it while I fed Natalia, then we would do "something fun" after it was over.  (I have learned to never actually say what we might do, because there is always a significant risk that it will never happen.)  This seemed like a good plan, but again, they were super, monkey wild children, and rather than me feeding Natalia and them watching the show, I spent the next 20 minutes running around taking care of one crisis after another with them.  We finally gave up and went outside.

I can't remember what happened outside.  Sometimes, especially early in the weekend, when we go outside, the kids just sit on the patio and stare at me.  It's kinda creepy.  Not to mention really weird, since what kid doesn't want to run and play?  Although the memories are sketchy at this point, I'm pretty sure they did try to play a bit.  I gave them a big bucket of water to play with in the shade while I finally fed Natalia.  Outside time did not last long though.  It was really hot, like it's been every day for the past month, and within 20 minutes they were done.  We may have lasted outside for a full half hour, but that was it.

We came in and got everyone cleaned up and dressed. (I let the play outside in their pajamas since they always get wet and dirty.  We then get dressed when we come inside.)  By this time, I needed to make lunch, and I thought the kids would finally play by themselves since we had done something fun, but nope.  Things quickly turned to chaos, so I got out the Magic Wonder markers, and they colored while I quickly threw together some lunch.  (We probably had something like cheese and crackers with baby carrots, and yes, they needed an activity for the five or ten minutes it took me to assemble that.)  They ate.  And while they ate, I got the next Super Fun Activity ready.  I decided we would make cookies after lunch since we hadn't done a baking project in awhile.

They were very excited about cookie baking.  And they even somewhat took turns while adding the ingredients.  They were also incredibly hyper and on three instances I had to catch someone as they were falling off their chairs (that they had been told to sit or kneel on, not stand and jump!).  We somehow managed to get the dough made without any critical injuries or me taking a single shot of Jack Daniels.

So I sent them off to play while I baked the cookies (we actually made bar cookies to minimize the hands-on time) and cleaned up the kitchen.  I thought SURELY at this point they could play by themselves.  Ha!  I apparently should've done a shot to purge silly thoughts like that.  It wasn't long before I was dragging out the tub of Legos.  Yes, things were so bad, I was willing to risk picking up all four hundred million little Lego pieces just for a few minutes to wash dishes.  It is a sad life I lead.

I did manage to actually restore some order to the kitchen, by then it was time to clean up and read books before naps, and I don't recall any significant disasters during any of that.  I finally got everyone tucked in, and then I finally had time to take care of Natalia.  Yes, the forgotten child was there!  Thank goodness she was having an amazing day and was happy to mostly just play in her bouncy seat, with some occasional time in the sling, while I dealt with the insanity. 

Wow that was a lot of rambling about a single morning.  I guess I will eventually get to the remainder of the past ten days!