i miss summer.

After school was a special kind of nutso at our house today. Gracie was the only calm person in the whole house. She gets to escape to her room when everyone is wound up. I sometimes am very jealous of her. Moms don't get to just go to their rooms and shut everyone out. Luke had two friends over and they were so unbelievably wound up that I thought I was going to lose my mind. Bear, for whatever reason, is all about barking today. Like nonstop. Like make- you- crazy- nonstop. Katie and Drew were arguing for sport. Katie would NOT stop pushing his buttons no matter how many times I told her to stop poking the bear. When he would snap back, she would get very dramatic and run to me sobbing about how mistreated she was. There were tantrums thrown because I had the audacity to request after dinner showers. There was rudeness and disrespect coming from a six year old who is, quite obviously, worn out from returning to school and showing it in really undesirable ways.

All of this crazy, crazy chaos was going on from 3:00 on and I just wanted to escape it. As the noise and bickering and barking and tattling and crying wore me down, I could feel my temper getting shorter and shorter. I could hear my words getting less and less patient. I recognized that I just needed a moment to myself to regroup, but as a mom, moments to yourself are hard to come by sometimes. You walk out of a room and someone follows you to continue to whine/tattle/complain/request something of you.

It is now 7:45. The littles of the family had an early bedtime and are long asleep. Gracie is off at soccer practice with Ben while Luke is hanging out in the family room watching TV.

It was a crappy fail of an afternoon. I missed them all day while they were at school, but then grouched at them all afternoon when I had them back in my care.

Tomorrow is another day.