This is My Forties

I find it difficult to maintain my sanity at the end of the day. It always goes the same way... every... single... stinkin'... day. From the hours of 6-8pm I am having the "worst day ever", every day. Lemme break it down for you. All day long the kids are beating each other up, teasing, making messes, all the usual stuff. We get Noah from the bus stop, have a snack, and then the magic begins. It's 6pm, which means I need to start making dinner. It's like someone gave my children a combination rabies/caffeine/pure sugar IV drip. It's always worse when Josh is gone. They act out more and I don't have someone to "tag" for normal referee duties whilst I prepare our gourmet dinner (hahaha). Tristan and Brennan take turns beating up Noah, who makes it a point to wail like the widowed ghost in a crappy horror flick. Then Noah turns on them and starts fighting back and they in turn scream and cry and stomp their feet, taking small breaks to ...

As usual our weekend began on Friday night. We drank hot chocolate (well, in all honesty it was chocolate milk after having to cool it off so much) and ate cheetos while watching "Matilda", one of my all-time favorite movies. Since we started Saturday Unplugged we've admittedly had a few Saturdays when TV is more than welcome (like the weekend we were all sick). This Saturday we were back to "the norm" even though it rained all morning. We set the slide up in the living room again and the boys tackled each other for a solid hour. There was a lot of jumping and screaming, but all in good "boy" fun. At least they left me out of it this time! ;) I finally cleaned the playroom and fixed the DVD player up there so they could watch movies again without monopolizing MY tv ;) Noah and I worked on a 1,000 piece puzzle diligently most of the morning. Then we got out the wikistix from Aunt Michelle and played with those for awhile. Tristan made ...

Saturday was baseball game day, as per usual. I chatted with friends and cheered on their kids while Noah practiced before his game. Then everyone started clearing out, and Noah's game started... the wind picked up and the temp dropped, Brennan and Tristan started whining and throwing fits because they were tired. I was trying to maintain order and balance while cheering Noah on from the stands. Brennan was crying at my lap, smacking me in the legs. Tristan was whining about wanting yet another sucker, hanging on the fence and arching his back in true toddler style. I was kinda done... I had tuned them out and was just watching the game quietly while I'm sure the parents in the stands were wondering why i was ignoring my kids. Same as every other Saturday! Then I hear "need some help" and there he was... my Joshua :) He got off work a couple hours early, went straight to the airport, boarded in Naples, connected in Rome, landed in Madrid, and jumped into a c...