One of Those Days

Today was one of those days. The kind of day that explains why you're finding more gray hairs than you'd like. The kind of day when you think there isn't enough white wine in the world to make you feel better. The kind of day when you wonder what the age cut-off is for being able to drop your kids off at a fire station under the Safe Haven Law. Yes, definitely one of those days.

Nothing particularly bad happened. No one got hurt. No one failed a test, had a poop accident or threw up. I must have, however, missed the announcement that today was declared "An Official Day of Whining" because I spent the day listening to all three kids whine about every. single. thing. all. day. long.

Sydney whined about the contents of her lunch kit. She whined about having to correct the mistakes on last week's math worksheets. She cried and whined for twenty minutes when we couldn't find her bike helmet. I finally had to make her go inside by herself because I just couldn't take it anymore. (And then I found the bike helmet which temporarily made me a hero.)

Evan threw a fit about not being able to hold my hand while walking into church (kinda tough to do when you're struggling to carry a twenty pound box of church-wide garage sale donations). He whined when we had to leave the park because Liam needed a bathroom pronto. He whined when I took away a toy that he and Liam were fighting over.

Liam whined about having to eat goldfish crackers for snack (he wanted pretzels instead). He whined about having to eat oranges instead of pears at lunch. He whined about Evan getting to play with a toy he wanted. He whined about having to clean up the living room before he was allowed to watch TV.

By 6 pm, I'd had it. With Ryan still at work, I told Liam that if he didn't help clean up the living room, he'd be going to bed right after his bath. He all-out refused to help the other two clean up. So even though Ryan arrived home while I gave Liam a bath, I brushed his teeth and he was put in bed. It was only 6:20. But you know what? I didn't care. I'd made a threat and I knew I had to follow through.

He threw a major tantrum, especially when he realized that Evan was still up and watching a little TV with Sydney before bed. But since we have a door knob cover on the inside of his door to prevent him from breaking-out, he was stuck. He cried for help, he cried for Ryan and eventually he cried for Evan. Evan toddled back to Liam's room and opened his door since there's no knob cover on the outside of his door. Evan rejoined us and declared, "I nice. Bud not nice." At least we got a little chuckle out of that. (Side note: Liam's nickname is Bud.)

By then, it was 7 pm so it was time for all three kids to hit the sack. Liam calmed down when he realized the other two were on their way to Sleepytown and we haven't heard a peep from any of them since.

I sure hope tomorrow goes better than today because I'm about to go open our last bottle of white wine.

Then again, if things don't improve, I might just have to learn to like red wine.