Today, by contrast, was awful awful awful.

[conuly]

I woke up this morning to the sounds of my mother calling for me to let her in. She in turn woke up Evangeline, who, after promising to go downstairs and watch TV with my mom for half an hour while I finished my sleep, proceeded to open up two cans of anchovies and drain the oil onto the back porch roof. Why? Because she had nothing to do. A house full of games, and toys, and books, and art supplies, and a television, and an iPad, and she had "nothing to do".

While I was dealing with that, I noticed it was about to rain. "Quick, Ana, run and fetch the clothes in from the line so they don't get wet!"

Ten minutes later I glanced out the window as the rain started to pour down, and there was Ana finally ambling her way out the door to sloooooowly pick the clothes off the line. I called her in, of course. I never pull wet clothes off the line. What's the point? The sun's bound to come out again.

She ambled her way up the stairs and then ambled her way to sit in time-out. I wanted to scream. I think I did scream, actually. And then I sent her to help her sister clean up the living room. "Nothing to do" my butt! There's lots to do!

I asked them to please pick up the books on the floor and stack them neatly with the others on the buffet. Somehow, this ended up with all the books off the buffet and stacked neatly on the floor. "Make your beds" became "Squabble over which bed is whose". "Stop screaming and pick up all those clothes!" apparently means exactly the same as "Put on that ripped dress that you're not allowed to wear until you sew it up, lest it rip more, and then whine about your sister". (Also, somehow it became my job to sew up a simple tear along a seam. Um, no?)

Whatever, it was now lunch time. I made eggs. My mother requested that hers be put in the fridge. The niece in charge of this brought the plate up and left it by the window where the cats ate it. "I thought you were putting it in the fridge!" Why would I do that? I didn't even know it wasn't all eaten! Four people ate lunch, but somehow only three plates made it into the sink. One was my mom's, one was mine, and one was covered in ketchup. Where's the fourth? No idea, but how DARE I suggest that either child is being less than totally honest on the plate front!

Evangeline fell asleep not long after lunch time, when they were reading. Ana went downstairs to be with Nanen, because honestly, I was sick of the pair of them and hoping time apart would make me feel better. It would've, except not long after Evangeline and I woke up, I found a pile of butterscotch candy wrappers. Whose are they? "Not mine!" Well, they sure as hell aren't MINE. Tears fell freely all around when I confiscated the snack they'd picked up at the corner store. The candies WERE theirs, that was fine, but you can't leave the wrappers on the floor and blatantly lie about it. Seriously, who wins when you do that?

It was a very, very, very, very, VERY long day. And I overcooked my beets while undercooking the green beans, how that happened I don't know.

On the plus side, some of the front got cleaned up a little. Sorta.

Comments

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

OMG, sounds like a day when you'd not only sell 'em to the gypsies; you'd pay the gypsies to take them.

(Apologies to the world in general, and the Romany in particular, if it's no longer Politically Correct to tell yer kids you'll sell 'em to the gypsies.)

[conuly]

It's DEFINITELY not PC, but I think we can still say we'll feed them to the wolves. Or the zombies.