Just Not A Good Day

I've had a rough 12 hours.  My night last night started out well enough with the only 2 kids from the neighborhood that I sincerely don't mind having over coming for a few hours so their parents could head out to Dallas.  I really do love having them over.  They are calm.  Heck, compared to my 4 they're almost catatonic.  They get a little riled up with my kids, but they also mellow my 4 out a lot.  We ordered pizza, had soda and then ice cream (because I am an awesome babysitter), and the extra kiddos headed home around 11:00.  After they left, our house was invaded by another behemoth demon roach.  I am convinced that these things collaborate outside and then send in suicide roaches just to mess with me.  So, there was a chase involved.  We chased it and it chased us and eventually the 9 year old manned up (after jumping about 4 feet straight up in the air) and stepped (landed) on it squishing it dead while I stood there screaming.  Then the adrenaline that was coursing through my veins kept me up until 3 AM and I didn't sleep well and I had to get up at 7:00 to take the dog to the vet to get groomed.  Then, of course, I was up despite having only 4 hours of sleep and couldn't go back to sleep.

Then the minions began arising from their beds one at a time.  Bella was first and had the breath of a dead dragon yet insisted upon sitting right next to me despite me telling her time and time again to go and brush her teeth.  Then Jackson got up all grumpy and went into the kitchen and helped himself to a bag of Frito's and an applesauce -- the breakfast of champions.  Next was William.  Despite the fact that I was WATCHING something on the DVR, he walks in and flips on the PlayStation like he's the only one in the room and then gets mad when he realizes that what I am watching still has 42 minutes left on it.  As punishment for his rude behavior, I didn't fast forward the commercials and made sure to pause and rewind several times to prolong how long it would take to finish.  Last, as always, was Lorelei.  That child could sleep through the apocalypse.  She slept on the couch upstairs.  For the 9th night in a row, she slept without a Pull-Up.  We shouldn't have pushed our luck because she peed all over it.  Yay.

I have been reading a lot of my friends posts about what they are doing with their kids this Summer and I have parental envy.  Since the husband is still on 2nd shift, I do most of the parenting stuff on my own.  I cannot take 4 little kids to the pool by myself because I cannot watch them all.  I cannot take them all ANYWHERE that doesn't have a cart to contain at least 2 of them because taking them anywhere is like herding cats.  So when we finally do venture out -- even to the video store or Target or the grocery store -- they are so excited to just be out of the house that they stress me out jumping around, running in 4 different directions and going nuts.  It makes me want to go home where they are easily contained.  And add to it that it is over 100 degrees, and by the time we go anywhere, I am zapped.  But I WANT to take them places and do fun things with them, so today I have been looking at easy ways to entertain them without losing my mind or screaming at them.  So far I have found NOTHING.  It would help if the heat index wasn't 115 or higher every day.  I'd get us a kiddie pool, but last year I tried that and the huge, suicidal, killed themselves in it every night and I would have to empty it and refill it everyday.  Then I got a sprinkler, but it was literally too hot to use it.  And there is a water-ban.  My jerk neighbors would no doubt turn me in for wasting water.

So I am the worst mother in the world.  I keep all the kids inside, we watch movies and eat ice cream.  We listen to music and dance around like fools.  We have fun in the only way we know how, and we occasionally clean something or hunt down a home-invading cockroach with a death wish.  But not today.  Today mamma's tired.  Today they are eating Pop Tarts for lunch and watching copious amounts of Nick Jr. and  I'm going to go take a nap.

**Please take my lack of sleep into consideration when reading today's post.  I just reread it and I haven't written something this disjointed in quite awhile.  I'll try to do better tomorrow if I get some rest.