Yesterday was very rainy. The past several days have been around here. Though I'm sure all the farmers are appreciative, those of us with kids off school for summer break are less so. Especially those of us with 5 kids living in two bedrooms due to ongoing home renovations (ahem).
The way our morning began, I knew that it was NOT going to be a good, happy, flowers, sunshine, and lovey-dovey sort of day. From about 6:30am (and what are they doing getting up so early on holidays, anyway?) the bickering began. Fighting over toys, over whose turn it was to choose the TV show, over who was breathing too loudly (seriously!)... The littlest one was boldly expressing his almost-2 nature for the whole neighbourhood to hear. And they asked for more food every-five-minutes!
I was so close to my wits' end that I couldn't even see it!
So I called up a girlfriend and invited myself (and my 5 kids) over for coffee and a visit (for us) and lunch and playtime (for all the kids).
As it turns out, her wits had ended earlier that morning, too!
We had a good four hours of fun before the kids got tired and started scrapping - this time over dress-up clothes. So I pulled out the big guns and offered a "reward" (aka bribe) to the one who worked the hardest at cleaning up. Everyone ran around like crazy tossing toys in bins, her house didn't look too much worse for having 7 kids climb all over it, and kids were ready for home.
We stopped at the store and grabbed some popsicles (the reward) and were home just in time for the rain to break and the sunshine to peek out for about an hour.
Two tips for the price of one today ;).
#1 - Sometimes when your kids are making you nutty it's best to just pack 'em up and head off for a quick change of pace.
#2 - Bribery works, use sparingly.
Happy WFMW! :)
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
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Too true, too true. As crazy as it seems I find it helpful to have my sisters 3 kids over for the boys to play with and it is somehow EASIER. It is all about a change of pace, scenery sometimes. Oh and of course bribery when needed. I plan to look around your blog. I am glad that I found it via WFMW.
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