Worst day EVER!

Wow!  I knew it would happen some day; I just never knew it could happen so fast.  A few weeks ago I survived the worst day ever.  It's hard to imagine that it could get any worse.  I'm sure it can be worse, so I'm not going to jinx it by saying I won't have a worse day.  I'm only now writing about it because it has taken that long to get over it.  I can almost laugh about it.... almost.

It all started with me daring to get up early to work out.  I should have known that was not a good idea.  Of course the kids got up early and were fighting with one another and that fighting did not stop ALL day.  So the work out didn't go as planned and my 30 minute work out turned into a 45 minute work out.  As I was stretching I heard, "Mom... the TV is broken."  At first I thought they had just messed something up with the remote, but I had a sinking feeling that it was something else.  The TV was in fact broken.  My darling son had cracked the screen.  All I could do was walk away.

Then I had the nerve to take a shower.  There's nothing like having a 3 year old sneak in on you while your face is covered with soap, especially after he's broken the TV.  We survived the next couple of hours with no big incidents; just constant fighting.  I got my son down for a nap, made some banana bread and hung out with my oldest for a while.  Then the baby needed to be fed.  So I went to my room and left my daughter downstairs to play.  A little while later she came up to ask me if my son had gotten into the banana bread because she noticed the tops had been messed with.  I knew my son hadn't done it because he was asleep, so it had to be her.  So not only did she eat the top off the banana bread (bread I was supposed to be taking to some one else), she tried to blame her brother for it.  I really didn't know how to respond to that either, so she spent a few hours in her room.

That same day I was worried our baby was coming down with a fever, so I was taking her temperature and foolishly left the thermometer on the kitchen table.  I let my daughter out of her room for a snack with her brother.  And of course my son immediately reached for the thermometer and promptly dropped it on the floor where it broke.  I really didn't know what to do from there.  The kids wouldn't stop fighting with one another.  My parenting skills had already been taxed that day and I had nothing left.  I sent my husband a text that said, "I don't think I'm going to make it".  He was home within an hour.

When he got home he was greeted with a very quiet scene.  I told my daughter to sit on one side of the room, my son on the other, I had the baby in my arms and I dared them to speak before their dad got home.  He walked in and I told him to go on upstairs, change his clothes and take a few minutes to wind down from his day and when he was ready, to come down and I'd fill him in on the events of the day.

As I recounted the day's events his face got more and more sullen.  His shoulders noticeably drooped and after I had recounted everything I could remember, he just rubbed his chin in that intellectual way and told the kids to go to their rooms and that we would talk and come up with appropriate punishments.

I am happy to say that the kids have seemed to have learned their lesson and have behaved much better.  It doesn't hurt that they went about 2 weeks without TV and still haven't been able to watch much television.  Our daughter spent 2 days grounded to her room for lying and while we are still dealing with some lying issues, I think she has learned her lesson.  Really I'm glad that day happened.  I survived it and am hopefully more prepared for the future.