Full Moon Antics

It seems every few months my children lose their minds and forget everything they've been taught. They have exceptional abilities to completely ruin a day or two and can only tell "I don't know" when I ask why. I've heard enough "I don't knows" in the last two days to question just about every bit of my parenting abilities. Tomorrow they will wake up and more than likely be back to normal, but I have to wonder if in fact they are howling at a full moon when they go nuts like they have yesterday and today. These two days have put a, well, fresh spin on childhood insanity. In other words, they have really outdone themselves.

When these days occur, I immediately consider their behavior a reflection of my parenting skills... which appear to be grossly lacking. It's like a cycle. We do well for a while, I think I'm on the right track, they go nuts, I go nuts, back to doing well, etc. I guess it's knowing that they will wake up tomorrow in their right minds that makes me even write this post. A lot of you will think what they have done today is quite hilarious. I, on the other hand, have been completely ashamed of this behavior, questioning my decision to have any of these children and to admit utter insanity in  producing another Brannon in the new year. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately, hind sight 20-20) there's not much I can do about those decisions except trudge onward and upward. It is what it is. This, however, does not mean I didn't take the time to ball my eyes out this afternoon after sending them all to their rooms. I hit 'The Wall'... that place that's covered in tears and self-doubt, not seeing what's on the other side. I took a break. I have wonderful friends who rescued me. Now, with a somewhat clearer mind, I'm trying to figure out what the heck is wrong with my kids. These are things I've come up with in the last two days.
Q: Why is every toy, every book, every game they own covering the floors? A: I'm pretty sure it's because my children have not been at home for more than two months. It's like Christmas in a candy shop. They're still enjoying the fruits of the Easter Bunny (our travels began the week after Easter).
Q: Why do they not listen to me? A: Again, traveling has its downfall in that I've been separated from my children in spurts, they've been surrounded by doting family members they see once a year, and there was always another adult to back me up.
Q: Why does most of their mischief happen when I'm on the phone with my husband? A: Caelan has expressed her semi-anger in not finding Keith at home when we returned Tuesday night. The two youngest children have not seen him since the end of April. They even talked to him on the phone before this afternoon's mischief, he encouraging them to be nice and to help me out. Apparently it was reverse psychology day. Whatever is said the opposite must be acted upon. They did a smashing job of that.
Q: Why do my children have such 'bathroom' issues? A: Two days ago, I was thrilled with the prospect of having three children out of diapers before #4 made an appearance. Today it seems like I will have three maybe four in diapers if my children continue to regress.

Oh, and to give you the icing on the Mom's-gone-insane-and-hit-the-wall cake, I will tell you the one incident that completely tipped the scales to ruination. After all their conversations on the phone with Keith, I finished the call by heading upstairs to put the sheets back on McKenna's bed (think Piccasso art of #1 and #2...oh, yeah... that's how the day began). In those minutes, my children completely trashed the living room. Not even kidding. Game pieces from three different games, water on the coffee table (I assume it was water but since I never found the vessel the water could have been transported in, it's highly likely that the liquid came from the completely naked McKenna), pencils and crayons thrown about, stickers on furniture, wet wipes ripped out of the box, every toy strategically placed on all visible surfaces in the room, and smashed animal crackers in the rug. This was NOT the breaking point. Certainly it all needed to be dealt with but that's not what I saw at first. On the way back downstairs, my two older children ran past me to conveniently play in their rooms. I should have known. Standing on the bottom landing of my stairs, I saw my youngest child (completely naked) standing on the couch and the brass chandelier only inches away from her. THE CHANDELIER WAS RIPPED FROM ITS WIRE IN THE CEILING. I sat on the stairs and fell apart. Ten minutes at the most had passed since I had left that room. HOW COULD THEY? HOW COULD THEY HAVE ACCOMPLISHED THAT? They know, after a bazillion scoldings, to not touch the chandelier. I have never actually caught them swinging from it, but have walked in to see it swinging. There is an undeniable lure to touch the pretty fixture. It's shiny and has at least fifteen bulbs on it. It also hangs directly above the couch and a console record player table, accessible. Sigh. Is this a sign of a full moon? Is this a sign that something is going on in the mind of my kids that I'm totally missing? Is this a sign that we have been away too long? Or is it because they know I'm not at my best right now and their Dad isn't home? Who knows. At least we're finally getting a new light fixture. One closer to the ceiling. My husband even suggested one with a climbing rope attached. I guess he sees the humor in it, I still haven't.

"Tomorrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet."

L.M. Montgomery



Traveling Circus, Jetta Style, Part Two

It took five hours to go from Hot Springs to Memphis. On a good day of traveling, it should take about 3 1/2 to 4 hours. My overnight stop was set in Knoxville, which is seven hours from Memphis. The odds were not looking good for us the first day. I stopped at least half a dozen times to buckle children back into their restraints, namely the Caelan trunk incident. By the time we reached Knoxville that night, I was more than ready to be done. And yet I faced another full day of driving.

McKenna began the trip by moaning, yelling and crying. And she did this for an hour. Mother insanity set in well before the trip was well underway. Claustrophobia set in, the Jetta shrinking around me. The din of McKenna carrying on combined with two sisters yelling at her because they were equally as fed up with her as I was, threatened to bring this circus to a screeching halt. I don't handly whining/crying/yelling very well but I refused to pull over. I had stopped too many times the day before. There was not going to be a repeat performance of that, circus or not. Things did calm down and a couple of them drifted off to sleep. The hours and the miles passed easily, with one traffic incident in Virginia. By the time I made it to Winchester, Virginia, McKenna was resigned to her seat... for the most part. She still had random spurts of anger. If I understood all her  baby babble, I'm pretty sure she was yelling profanities at her carseat while hitting it violently.

At one point, Chaucer had moved to lay between Caelan and McKenna, his back to Caelan and his face and paws toward McKenna. That dog put his paws on McKenna's carseat. She came unglued, yelling at him to get his paws off. For the next thirty minutes, Chaucer would put his paw on her carseat for the reaction and then remove. It was like having another kid in the back seat. She was furious. He kept right on teasing her until finally he decided to put a stop to it by put his entire leg across her body, pinning her shoulders back against the seat. She was livid. And I was laughing. Shoving his leg off, she began a tirade against him. Whatever she was saying, she was not joking. She covered him with her books, blanket and pillow. Out of sight, out of mind... or just complete vengeance on the dog. She won. He got up and went to the trunk, where he stayed for the last two hours of the trip. Those last two hours were very calm for McKenna. I think she finally got all her frustrations out.

Traveling Circus, Jetta style, Part One

    I dreaded the drive home immensely. I never had any desire to get back into a car with three kids and a dog and drive for two days. Unfortunately, I really didn't have much of a choice. As it turned out, it was my least favorite trip of all time. It's hysterically funny now in retrospect. At the time, I thought I would go insane. We set out from PA in a VW Jetta. Packing had to be light and strategic. We left AR with a tiny bit more than I had originally considered (like three Arkansas watermelons that are gigantic). The set up in the Jetta goes something like this (at least how it should work in my mind and foiled a few times by children and said dog): Evelynn sits in the front passenger seat, Caelan sits directly behind me, McKenna sits behind Evelynn. The middle seat in the Jetta flips down for access to the trunk. The dog stays in the front until he gets fed up sitting between Caelan and McKenna and goes back to the trunk. With this arrangement, I don't have full use of trunk space. As it happened, both the back floorboards were full up to the seat, and about 2/3 of the trunk was full.
    This is a great way to go even if it's cramped. So how in the world did I lose a child??? How does anyone lose a child in a Jetta that's packed to its gills? Well, it did happen. We had stopped to eat and take a bathroom break at Sonic (of course... and it's easy access/convenient location to a bathroom without unloading everyone at once). After that we got back on the road and Keith called me. After about ten minutes of conversation, I looked in my rearview mirror and did not see Caelan. I thought maybe she had fallen asleep and was leaning toward the door. I looked closer. There was NO child sitting in the carseat. My heart stopped. I'd finally done it. I'd forgotten one of my children. Did I leave her in the bathroom? Did I really leave her at Sonic? But I distinctly remembered buckling her in. Evelynn looked and didn't see her either. I called Caelan's name several times. No answer. I was feeling ill. I took the next exit, calling her name one more time. I heard a muffled response. "I'm back here." WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN THE TRUNK!!!! "I just wanted to pet the dog." Oh, dear Lord, I'm so glad I didn't leave her at Sonic and I'm relieved. Then strangely I got quite a bit upset. At that moment it was nowhere near funny. Now it's just another fantastic, hilarious example of what it means to be a parent to Caelan.