Time the Heck OUT!!!!

All four of my children are currently in their bedrooms. One is napping. The other three…

Wow.

This is a truly rare occurrence, but all three of the older kids are in Major Big Trouble right now.

Eldest, after having been told five times to go upstairs and get dressed until finally she was physically pushed by her mother onto the stairs shortly after I got Captain Adventure down for a nap and told to Get Dressed, and Get Back Down Here Quietly, went upstairs and started goofing off in the bathroom. More mess was made, pipes were rattling, and Captain Adventure woke up and began crying.

And, when I went up there to tell her to knock off the playing, she was still in her nightdress. ARGH! So I yelled (quietly) and got her to get dressed.

Coming back down the stairs, I found that Danger Mouse had gone into the downstairs bathroom, taken the baby shampoo and poured it into a cup which she was ferrying into the playroom to pour onto Boo Bug, who was stark nekkid behind the sofa. What the hell?!

So after boxing Danger Mouse a good one on the butt, I took away the shampoo and put them into Time Out.

Eldest came downstairs and asked if she could watch cartoons. Which she did for all of five minutes before snarling, “SHUT UP, YOU IDIOTS!” at her sisters.

Upstairs to her room she went, with mother scolding all the way and then giving her a brief lecture on Watching Her Tone of Voice and We Don’t Speak To Each Other That Way, YOU IDIOT!, followed by the injunction to “stay in this room until you have thought things over and see them my way”.

Then I come back downstairs and find the middle two have, in less than two minutes time:

Found a baby bottle, taken the lid off it and poured rancid milk all over the floor and played in it;

Swiped the sugar dish off the counter and gotten most of the sugar on the floor;

Upended a box of mega-blocks and scattered them all over the playroom, making it worse than a minefield to get across.

Also, there is now baby shampoo all over the sofa from Boo Bug’s dousing and the entire downstairs smells strongly of sour apples and sour milk, combined.

So I marched them upstairs and put them to bed. Where they proceeded to jump on the beds and wake their brother, who has not gotten a decent nap in four days due to assorted stupidities ranging from Costco to the pumpkin patch.

And Yet! I have it on the best of legal authority that murdering them outright is against the law.

A quick check of the almanac confirms my suspicions: the moon is full tomorrow at 7:14 EST.

Until then, wish me and my offspring luck.

Well, actually, they don’t really need it. My wrists are too sore for prolonged beatings right now anyway…