Well, Easter has now come and gone…… quite early this year, n’est – ce pas?  Last week I took my advice and stocked up on craft supplies and kept the girls busily creating fun little things in the days leading up to the holiday.  We made sheep, we made paper bead necklaces, we made little birdies.  They also made lots of pretty pictures, and painted their eggs in gold-flaked colors.  All in all, It’s been quite a successful enterprise.

The fruits of our labor:

Then Saturday came and I felt like roadkill.  The girls went to an egg hunt (Neve predictably ate pavement as soon as they got there) and I stayed on the couch letting my brain go to mush with a steady supply of Spongebob.

Sunday we ate yummy food with the ‘rents (and drank wine with our good friend Uncle Daddy) and I discovered that the Maddie Emo Socks won’t fit because Maddie’s feet are now bigger than mine.  Sheesh.  Well, good thing I enjoy knitting socks, right?   Maddie came home with us that night (and stayed up watching George Lopez on Nick At Nite with me) and then helped out with my “Day of Hell” Monday.

Actually, it wasn’t that bad.  Could have been worse.  We could have had Neve with us (she stayed home with Paul, who was miraculously in town).  We made the trek out to the dentist (an hour away) and waited through an initial exam and x-rays of Emily’s tooth (2 hours in a tiny uncomfortable room, and we had the baby with us).  We were famished by the time they said they could do a root canal for her at 2 pm.  So we high – tailed it to the nearest drive-thru and gorged ourselves on fatty, greasy nastiness that makes me vomit in my mouth a little thinking about now.  And then we went to Target to kill an hour and a half (and more cash than I had intended to part with that day…).

The root canal went well, though poor Maddie had a few moments in the waiting room with the baby where Oona decided she was over it and cried her little lungs out until Maddie found my cell phone and let her shove it in her mouth.  The day ended with us getting home around 6 pm (after leaving at like 8:30 in the morning) and it was a day where much was accomplished, but I was worn out!

Yesterday we took a 4 mile walk with some good friends and vented lots of stress.  A Walk – N – Bitch if you will.  ANd today we went to the Chidlren’s Museum and had lunch at the park.  I’ve kept the kids pretty busy, I’d say.  And let me tell you – I am exhausted.  I think a lot of it is that I am still getting over the Ick that struck me down so rudely this past weekend, but either way I am going to be laying around the house in my sweats the next few days and trying to knit.  And looking for any and all non mess-free markers to throw away.  Why, you ask?  As if you really need to!

She looked like  Marilyn Manson with the black lips and eyes (and was starting on the arm tattoos when I looked over and caught her.  She managed this while sitting on the couch right next to me).  When she realized she was busted she wouldn’t let us look at her.  Needless to say, taking a picture was quite difficult.  But, we managed.  How else am I going to embarrass her on the world wide web?????

The first Maddie Emo Sock is done.  Yay!  I’ve cast on for the second so I don’t lose focus.  Too much.  It’s a little snug on my foot, since Mad’s foot is slightly smaller than mine.  Or, at least it was when I started these socks!  When these are done I am going to knit up a bunch of baby socks.  Small, easy, quick baby socks.  My problem now is that whereas some people have S.A.B.L.E. ( yarn Stash Amassed Beyond Life Expectancy) I have Projects Lined Up Beyond Life Expectancy.  (PLUBLE? sounds vaguely dirty).  

I just can’t seem to get on top of things lately.  I’m sure most parents know what I am talking about.  And I have those moments where you wonder if you will ever get on top of things.  And the possibility that you will is so small that you consider whether it’s even a worthwhile goal.  This week has been especially trying.  Emily has a bad tooth that needs looking after and while we wait for the dentist to see her (even with an emergency, it’s still a several day wait….how’s that for a real downer??) she’s been in and out of school as we try to manage her pain level.   The baby has a cold so she’s been smearing nice green ickiness all over me and running a small fever.  She kept me up all night on Monday, thus ensuring that my ability to deal with Emily’s problem is massively reduced.

But it’s O.K.  I’ve been plying Little Mac with mess free markers and paint brushes and a pile of construction paper……and it’s working.  As long as she’s got a project to work on she’s perfectly well behaved.   I’m thinking I’ll dive into my craft stash and see what else I’ve got to keep her occupied.  Maybe I’ll invest in a big bag of colored pipe cleaners and wooden beads.  And tissue paper!  My hamster’s running pretty quickly now!  I think I may be on the verge of a child controlling breakthrough!

-Insert evil little smile here-

My kids had a blast this past weekend playing with their grandparents, visiting from up north. My Hungarian Goulash was successful on Saturday and I got rewarded for my efforts. You see, on Sunday morning my living room looked like this:

which resulted in a far better outcome than I could have possibly imagined from my poorly built home. By Sunday evening I was relaxing by this:

Doesn’t it look great? Who’d a thunk a gas fireplace could look so real? And it put out a nice heat and didn’t smell like burning propane. How psyched am I????

AND I had some knitting time this weekend so I worked for a bit on what I’ve been referring to as “Maddie’s Emo Socks”. The yarn is to die for, from Blue Moon Fiber Arts (Socks That Rock in colorway Hardrock); it’s soft and black and grey and pink and fuschia. It doesn’t look like much, but it’s been knitting up pretty quickly and I’ve been having a blast with it. I’m using the basic sock recipe from Stephanie Pearl McPhee’s Knitting Rules.

Hopefully I’ll have a bit of time this week to work on them. (No, we are NOT mentioning the eleventy other projects I have begun and need to work on).

So the day started off rather nicely.  (Oooooo, you just know something bad is coming now, don’t you????)

Emily got off to school in a good mood and looking more neat than sloppy for once.  Oona took a nice morning nap, allowing me to properly groom myself.  Little Mac (that’s Neve – we call her McEnroe due to her disagreeable nature) didn’t fight me too much about her clothes or her hair.  And I got where I was going on time.  I met up with some friends and their kids and we got to have normal grown – up type conversation.  We had coffee.  We experienced no more than the usual wild disobedient child behavior.  All in all, not too shabby.

I got  the little ones home and we had some food, Mac played on the Wii, and I cleaned up.  Some moderate stress occurred when the otolaryngologist called to say that our app’t to have Mac’s ear tubes removed was for 7 am tomorrow.  At  the hospital, in town.  7 am.  A good half hour from here, half an hour before Emily’s bus comes.  I did the math:  in order to get there on time I’d have to leave the house by 6:15 (so we could swing over to pick up my mother who offered to help) which meant I’d be probably keeping Emily with me since who’s gonna take my kid that early, and that also meant in order to get myself plus all 3 kids ready to go I’d need to be up at….yikes.  But, problem averted; little Mac’s papa decided to come home from Charlotte to take his little princess to her “procedure”.

Yay!

Got Emily off the bus.  She wants to play with her friends from down the street.  I decided sure, why not?  I talked to their mom, kids come to my place, everyone has a blast.  Except Mac is showing more and more signs of surliness and “talk-back-itude”.  Being optimistic I think that a trip to the video store after their friends leave will probably stave off any  impending melt-downs.  I was way off.

When V. came to get her two very adorable, friendly, respectful children, Emily went into threat mode, and Mac went into Def Con 1.  I’m talking to V., holding the baby who is hungry and fussy and trying like all get out to get my boob out, I’m trying to keep Pippa the dog from jumping all over everyone, the kids are looking for their shoes and squealing, Emily’s saying over and over she’ll only let go of them and let them leave if I let her get a new Goosebumps dvd, and Mac is, well, shrieking.  She wants to go home with them and I can’t tell her what to do.  She doesn’t want a new dvd, she wants a new place to live (namely, at her friends’ house).  While all this is going on, V.’s poor husband is waiting in the car.  The kids had ridden their bikes over to our house, and he planned to drive alongside them back home.

When we finally got his kids out the front door through the commotion, Mac took off after them like a shot, with Emily bringing up the rear.  Off up the driveway, into the dark.  And there I am helpless on the porch holding a squirming Oona. V. and her husband can’t leave because their kids can’t go because my kids are trying to follow them.  And they won’t answer me.  When Emily finally decides she may as well give up (or, when V. says they can play this weekend) she tries grabbing Mac, to haul her back to the house.  It sounds like a Texas style throw down out there with all the yelling and arms flailing and the “get off me!” and “Ow you’re hurting me!”

I’m about mortified now.  I like these people a lot, but I don’t know them very well.  And even their 5 year old is looking at my kids like they’re cracked – out mental patients.   Fortunately, V. is great with kids.  She picked up Mac (still shrieking, btw) and hauled her back inside for me while Emily chanted Goosebumps dvd! over and over.  With an apology and a “See?  I told you my kids are evil!”  I bid them goodnight.  I’m sure at this moment they are ritually purifying their girls to keep the evil from catching.

But wait, it gets worse.

I told my kids as soon as the door was closed that there was no way on earth they were getting a movie after that display, and they’d better get in the van, NOW.  

I imagine that the sound of hell, if I were to believe for a moment here that it exists, is something akin to what I experienced on my way to the video store tonight.  The wailing and blubbering of the bitterly bereft.  The screams of the indignant.   The moaning, the sighing,  the occasional “I hate you” whispered under someone’s breath, and unbelievably, even the “if only papa were here”.

The only reason they weren’t sent to bed without dinner is that Neve has her “procedure” tomorrow, and I have to starve her from midnight until after her tube is removed, so I can’t very well be starving her tonight.  And actually, all the dramatics in the van seemed to wear them out pretty well, so all the discipline that was needed was some stern words.  But trust me, these kids will be sans goodies for quite awhile.  (Emiy even calmed down enough to kiss me good night).

Once Oona goes to sleep, I’ll be knitting my pent up crazy into a sock on teeny tiny needles.  I’m sure that’s what I’ll be doing when the men in white coats finally come to take me away.  It’s like a slogan for the overwrought parent.  “Knitting.  Because you can’t beat your children”