My Kids Are Out to Get Me Tonight!

   Thank God they are finally in bed.  I am exhausted!

   Don't get me wrong.  I love my kids.  I'd do anything for them.  But there are four of them and one of me, and I expect them to take a small amount of responsibility for themselves.  Not a whole lot -- they're just kids -- but some.

   My Kindergartner came home first, because the others all had their after-school activity to go to.  He was happy and behaving well, got his homework done without being asked (hallelujah), had his snack and went off to watch some TV.  But when we got to school to pick up his brothers, he suddenly got so hyper and it went downhill from there.

   My 2nd oldest swore to me on 3 different times that he did get all his homework done.  I finally got to his backpack shortly before bedtime and realized he did not do his writing assignment.  I got, "Oh, yeah, I forgot about that" as feedback . . . . not good!  He does have ADHD so I give extra patience to this child in particular, but lately he's been slacking off in school and I've had to be extra vigilant about his work.  So he was up past his bedtime writing his paragraph.  Then he presented me with a 2nd-grade level paragraph that restated itself over and over (you know the kind).  "My dogs love me.  I love my dogs.  My dogs love to love.  My dogs love each other."  Yikes.  He is a very good writer -- I don't like when he gets lazy.

   He also neglected to lay out anything for clothes except a jumbo tee meant for sleeping that comes down past his knees.  And when I asked him to straighten his room, he and his little brother decided to completely trash it instead!  This was while I was cooking dinner.

   My oldest didn't necessarily do much that he shouldn't have been doing.  It's more like he didn't do most of the things that he should have been doing.  LOL.  He usually helps me with laundry a little each night.  Tomorrow is a dress down day, and of course school didn't send home the notification until today (thanks, school!).  So of course mass chaos ensues in the laying out of clothes routine.  Basically he laid out his clothes and decided that was it for laundry detail tonight.

   I discovered after the writing assignment fiasco that my daughter had dirty laundry hidden in various nooks and crannies in her room, and that she had not one pair of clean socks available.  In fact, I found she was tucking dirty socks in her clean sock drawer, much to my consternation!  The Princess shall be cleaning out the castle bedroom tomorrow . . . . .

   My kids are not bad kids.  They are very good kids.  My 2nd oldest did run the dishwasher for me, and I only had to ask once.  That is doing pretty darn good for his age.  But I don't like last-minute laundry, or finding surprise messes when I've barely sat down all day.  Tomorrow night will be a chore night, we'll hopefully whip the place into shape somewhat, so we can relax and hang out together over the weekend . . . right after we finish the world map my oldest has to finish up.