They Conned Me Again!

It's hard to pass up on fun. I had anticipated being able to get a lot of stuff done in my house over the weekend because when it's rainy, the kids don't beg so much to go outside. Saturday started out rainy, so Charlie's soccer game was cancelled. Most of the day was really cloudy so we stayed in the house. I did 5 loads of laundry and put away all of that laundry plus the other laundry that had been resting nicely folded on my couch all week. When I went in to put the sheets on the girls' beds (don't you think someone could invent bunk beds that are easy to make up?), I noticed the junk underneath Joanna's bed (bottom bunk) and I pulled it all out. I told Joanna and Marcie that they needed to go through it, put the toys in the toy boxes or bins and through the trash away (a lot of candy wrappers -- Marcie and Charlie are the culprits). Joanna started working right away but Marcie balked and then ended up bossing Joanna around. Marcie even threw some cards on the floor and ordered Joanna to pick them up. I intervened and sent Marcie away and added a frowny face on her chart. I then got Marcie to work on the toys in the living room, though, it really was a losing battle. Joanna worked like a trojan all day. Charlie came in 2nd with the work ethic, then Kyle 3rd and the princess last. Marcie did vaccuum the living room floor and washed their snack dishes after dinner. My parents came over for dinner and my dad replaced the faucet in the kids' bathroom and put the mirror on the girls' dresser (thanks, Daddy!). My Mother made the cube steaks (a.ka. "Granmommie steaks" to my family), showing me how to do it without killing them (thanks Mom!). We had a wonderful dinner. I so enjoyed eating "real" food. I get tired of chicken nuggets, hot dogs, macaroni and cheese, etc.

Then, Sunday dawned bright and beautiful. One of the kids said, "look Mom, the sun!" They were thrilled. Unfortunately, that meant the end of the cleaning that I wanted to do. They begged to go visit a friend, so I agreed and fully intended on only staying about an hour and a half so that I could come home and continue working inside the house. My friend has a large capacity, front-loading washer so she let me bring a comforter over to be washed while we visited and the kids played. When it was time to go, my friend's daughter who is Marcie's best friend, wanted to come with us, so I said she could go with us to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things. We had to stop by my house so that the kids could change clothes since they had squirted each other with the hose. I guess with the 80 degree weather, they decided it was time to play in the water. They wanted the pool, too. :) Anyway, when we went to Wal-Mart, I instantly realized why having the extra child wasn't such a terrific idea. The kids weren't bad, just silly. They wanted to walk in a line holding hands so they were blocking the way for some of the shoppers. Then, they wanted to run. Fortunately, my friends' child responded to my stern voice. Then, they wanted to goof off in the parking lot. After that, I took my friend's daughter home, and my friend and I ended up talking for awhile longer and watching the Medical Mysteries show on the Discovery Channel. Needless to say, no work ever got done at home. I kept thinking that I needed to gather the kids up and just go but they were having so much fun and I knew with all of the activity, they would end up going to bed easily. Well, I knew we had stayed too long when Charlie came running over to say that Marcie was hitting her friend. I looked over and saw the 2 girls literally wrapped all over each other on top of the trampoline. They rolled over and Marcie sat up and I saw the wild look on her face and her wild hair, then noticed the girls punching each other. My friend and I both ran over to them yelling at them to stop and get off the trampoline, which they did. Fortunately, neither had hurt the other. My friend talked to both of them and told them they had to kiss and make up. They started laughing at that and I moved them together to hug each other, joking about it. They both hugged each other and then we all started making kissing noises. It was really funny but there was a clear message to me that we had stayed a bit too long! They played a little longer, then I got my kids into the car and Marcie still wanted her friend to come with us (so I was relieved that there was no lingering hostility!). We finally got home just after dark and they had sandwiches and chips for supper (we had a decent Sunday dinner) and then my younger 2 had baths and were in bed by 8:30 and the older 2 by 9. I vowed never again to 1) let them con me into spending an entire afternoon away from home when I have so much to do and 2) let them con me into taking one of their friends with us to the store! I did enjoy the day, though!