And then there was one. . .

I love weekends, I truly do.  I love the do nothingness of the days, I love lounging around in my jammies and I love having all 3 curly girlies and The Doctor home.  Come Sunday night, though, I'm all for everyone getting back to our regular scheduled programming of Monday.  Long weekends usually mean by Saturday night I'm ready for everyone to go back to school and we still have one more day of togetherness!

I must admit, I was quite looking forward to today. . . to be able to go grocery shopping without little voices begging for cookies and fighting over who gets to hold on to the cart (the answer to that, by the way, is no one).  I was slightly dismayed when L woke up complaining of a tummy ache, but figured I'd send her to school anyway.  I was more dismayed when 20 minutes later she was still not dressed, still complaining of a tummy ache and added a goopy, snotty, runny nose to it.  L will be my companion today, and strangely I'm not too upset over it.

My morning this morning ran so smoothly.  I kept my calm and even when curly girlies everywhere weren't listening, I didn't yell!  I simply stated what I wanted them to do and what the consequence would be if they didn't follow my requests, and they did!  Even when they don't listen right away (and let's face it, they're kids, not robots.  They never listen right away!) and I don't yell, our mornings go so much more smoothly than when I do yell.  I love starting days out with smiles and laughs and no tears.  Mornings like this make me wonder I ever stopped not yelling in the first place.  It's sad that it took my wonderfully darling husband to subtly point this out to me.

My goal this week is to get through every morning yell free.  Actually, maybe I should scale it down because we haven't hit homework time yet and that's one of the most stressful times in my day.  It shouldn't be, given the fact that both B and M enjoy school and *gasp* like doing homework, but they don't like double checking or being neat (again, kids not robots).  For this neatnik perfectionist Mom, it's hard to watch them put away sloppy copy's.  Perhaps, while they are doing their homework, I'll hole up in my room with a book.  That way I won't see their messy work and thus, I won't yell!

No yelling count: 4 days yell free!

Lazy days

I love weekends.  I love lazing around in bed (not sleeping, since the Curly Girlies think the term "sleeping in" refers only to a bed or sleeping bag i.e.: "I am sleeping in a bed tonight".), playing on my iPad and being cuddled by O, my "very sweet only to me" cat.  Every weekend I'm hopeful this will be the weekend I can stay in bed (sleeping, perhaps?) until at least 8 and every weekend, I'm sorely disappointed that I am up at 7, taking off my sleeping cap and putting on my referee/short order chef/maid caps.

This morning was different, though!  I slept until 8!  The sad truth is, though, I slept until 8 because B has a friend over.  B and her friend were up until at least 1:30 and B came in at 4:30, afraid of something and asking if she could put the TV back on.  Backtracking a bit: B and her friend started watching Star Wars at about 11:30 last night and we think they fell asleep to the movie. Anyway, B was told no and we told her to go back to sleep.  Both the master bedroom and B's room border the patio, so we can see her room from our room.  About 2 minutes after she left our room, we saw her light come on, so I'm fairly certain she went back to her room and started reading (she and her friend were sleeping in the family room).  Anyway, once I was up, I was up.  I finally went back to sleep at 5:45, but I slept in until 8, so that counts for something, right?

B came back in at 8, followed by M and L who had had a fight over a tea party.  Sounds fun, right?  M claims L woke her up this morning and The Doctor and I claim all 3 woke us up (the only one who slept until close to 9 was B's friend!).  So, out of the 5 of us, 4 are going to be cranky messes today.  It should make for a lot of fun tonight when my wonderfully nutty family is over for our annual Hanukkah gift exchange and The Doctor's awesome latkes.

I am on a roll with my not yelling, though and I refuse for today to be the day that I break that.  As tired as I am, I will keep my voice low and my spirits high!

No yelling count: 3 days yell free!

Hanukkah presents held hostage. Send help.

The 2 younger curly girlies are on their way to losing their Hanukkah presents for tonight.  Their rooms are disaster areas.  I have told them multiple times this morning to clean, clean, clean, but they'd rather do any of the following: Fight with each other, pester me about snacks (I promise, I did feed them breakfast, but eating always seems like a better choice than cleaning does) or make a bigger mess in other parts of the house.  Just as I felt my yell rising up, I took a deep breath, called them over to me and said their presents will be held hostage until their rooms are cleaned up.  M (who I'm sure is going to end up being a lawyer) piped up with, "So, if we don't get our rooms cleaned until tomorrow, we just get them tomorrow!" I popped her bubble by pointing out that my offer has an expiration on it.  If it's not cleaned by the time we light the menorah tonight, the presents become mine. . . for good.  That got me 2 pairs of bug out eyes and M turned to L and said, "Come on, L!  Let's go clean our rooms, or Mommy's not giving us our presents!"  So. . . One would think that the idea of losing Hanukkah presents would be enough to get them to clean, but M then came up with the grand idea of having a cleaning race.  L is not having it at all.  She has been yelling, crying and whining and I'm fairly certain there isn't any cleaning going on in that little snot fest.

I have a feeling this is going to be one of those days where the girls are in their (messy) rooms and right before we light the menorah, there will be a lot of, "Wait!!  I'm still cleaning!" and "Don't light yet!  I'm almost finished!" in attempts to set their presents free.

No Yelling count: 2 Days Yell Free!