Whomever mistakenly claimed that "storm days are fun," did not have the exquisite pleasure of living with a bevy of kidlets as is my distinctive delight.
Two storm days back-to-back, and I am more exhausted and wrung out now than I was Friday afternoon at 3:00 p.m. I now know why some animals eat their offspring. It would, at the very least, be one way to keep things quiet around the den.
I have to so much as see one more board game, or have to pick up the scraggly remains of Littlest Pet Shop or the like off of the floor—I swear—you will see the bonfire from here to Timbukto. Lighting up the sky will be Uno-Spin.
And don’t get me started on the game To Know Me is to Love Me. Disney Fairy Princesses have no right to garner that much information in one setting from hapless players such as myself. We let A Certain Someone win that game, and if we hadn’t, WWIII would now be in progress. Figures—the only question that was answered right about my preferences was this one: Pick ‘A’ if said player’s favorite thing is when everybody gets along. Darling Daughter didn’t even bother reading out the other five options. Everyone knows what mama loves.
Peace and quiet.
Ok, so it wasn’t that bad. I’m just joshin’ you about some of the above. Specifically the part about eating one’s young.
But there truly was nary a moment of peace over the last two days. By breakfast time this morning, when the screaming was just reaching a fever-pitch, I overheard my husband saying to Darling Daughter, “Can’t we just pretend to get along?” to which came the reply, “Do you know how hard that is?"
Yes, Darling Daughter, I know how hard it is to pretend how much I love playing board games. So, Darling, you can pretend that you are all getting along.
Kids need to learn through modeling; this is how we roll over in our neck of the woods. The Kidlets watch the pros in action, the True Pretenders (a.k.a. Ma and Pa), act as if that they love playing board games.The True Pretenders in turn expect that the Kidlets will "pretend" to like any number of communally shared things, including the chili that Ma served both yesterday and today for the main meals. Things have also not been smelling the very best, but that just might be more than a body needs to know.
So while the fights were breaking out over Apples to Apples this afternoon, I leaned over to my husband and made the subtle comment that I wished this game would soon be over. To which came the reply: "We need more T.V."
Yes, indeed. That, and a pillow to drown out the incessant racket that is children’s programming.
It is so very much fun being home with six people in a house together for forty-eight-plus hours.
(excuse me a moment here while I insert the contrived and expected ‘cough’, ‘cough’ sound effects)
While we're locked in for Snow Days, one’s toilets get much more experience. The fridge gets emptied faster. The meals get more scant. (Great for those on a diet!) The company goes from friendly to combative—the conversations from descriptive to terse. It’s just one new life episode feature after the other. And having survived it all, I must say it was comparable to starring in a bad television sitcom with the only thing absent being the paycheck rolling in at the end of the weekend.
But I don’t want to leave you with the wrong idea. Most of it was good and so much fun! And I especially loved it when the kids asked me this: “Do you think school will be cancelled Monday, Mom?”
Over.my.dead.body.
Printer-friendly version