Now That Things Are Calmer...

Yesterday was the day from hell. Actually the morning went well, but the afternoon sucked bigtime. I woke up as "Good Mommy" who made the beds, cleaned and vacuumed the boys' room, organized bookshelves, and did 2 loads of laundry, all before breakfast. Then, feeling bad about not taking the boys to the last Douglas Toybus before the summer break (it was a potluck and I didn't have anything to bring, nor did I want to spend a morning with a bunch of moms who never talk to me), I brought a bunch of containers and utensils outside, and let the boys go crazy with the hose. I was able to sit on the porch and knit, in a very domestic stay-at-home mom fashion until lunchtime. The first inkling that things were going to start going wrong was when I guiltily made a box of genuine KD for lunch (and didn't even put peas in it like I usually do - gasp!). For the last year or so, when Russ insists we buy mac & cheese so he has something to eat when we spend the night in Ottawa, I've insisted back that if we're going to buy it, it has to be the PC stuff geared towards kids that is apparently healthier because it doesn't have any artificial colours or flavours or preservatives. Last weekend we saw that the No Frills had a special on a 9 pack of 3 different kinds of KD, including spirals, so he coerced me into buying it. While eating my share of the sweet cheesy goodness, I took out a box of the PC stuff to compare nutritional values and ingredients and found that while the PC stuff doesn't have any unnatural crap in it, it does have a ton more of all the other bad stuff like sodium and cholesterol, and not as many vitamins. I am annoyed with PC for making me believe I was doing the right thing (ok, deep down inside I know KD is never the "right thing"), but I digress. That was really a mild annoyance compared to what was to come.
When we finished lunch, we went upstairs for stories and naps. Stories went well, then I attempted to get Roanen to go to sleep without me in the room. In hindsight, doing something completely out of the norm like that when he's just had his entire routine shaken up by being moved into different room was not the greatest idea, but he had actually fallen asleep the night before while I was out of the room so I thought I'd try. He immediately got off the bed and ran over to Josey, who was delighted at this fun new visitor. Pulling a Supernanny, I picked Roanen up, put him back in bed and walked out of his line of sight. What a fun game! As soon as I turned around, he was off the bed and running again, laughing hysterically. This continued for half an hour, with Josey getting increasingly wound up and laughing, leading to me getting extremely angry and frustrated and dealing out some spankage. Then the hormones kicked in and I felt really bad that they were now wound up AND crying so I got Roanen calmed down and they both fell asleep after about 1 1/4 hours. Naturally, since they weren't settled down before they fell asleep Roanen woke up crying about 30 minutes after, then went back to sleep (in the meantime I was crying over the computer because Adventures in Babywearing had a cry-inducing post about her son and I felt like the crappiest mother ever for getting so mad when I had caused the problem myself in the first place). Josey then got up about 30 minutes after that and I had a talk with him and apologized for spanking him and explained to him why I had been so angry. He understood all this, then proceeded to smack me in the arm angrily (violence begets violence, people - remember that) when I told him we couldn't go outside until Roanen woke up. He ran into their room screaming that he wanted to wear another shirt and woke Roanen up. I sent him downstairs and tried to get Roanen back to sleep for the third time in an hour, which actually worked, amazingly enough. Josey was relatively calm while I started dinner, although he was pretty liberal with the "Mommy, you don't let me do things!" and the "Mommy, you don't like me!", and was even gentle when we had to go wake Roanen up (which felt counterproductive after all the time I spent getting him to sleep). We didn't go outside, as Josey's punishment for waking Roanen, so the boys fought and screamed at each other for the rest of the afternoon. Oh, and they smashed a glass on the island too. And Josey hurt Roanen every chance he got. By the time Russ got home I was completely depressed and stressed out, so we ate dinner (even the boys - Josey even said "I like this! Make it again Mommy!", not that that helped my mood much) then Russ took care of them for the rest of the evening. Last night was the first night since Josey was born that I didn't start missing them an hour into their bedtime, and I was totally dreading having to deal with them today. Fortunately, as usually happens after a crappy day, they've been angels today, or as close as they can get. They read for a long time this morning while I got some stuff done, then after breakfast I filled the pool up and they played in there and around the yard all morning. Even Josey didn't require much attention, other than the occasional presentation of "tea and cakes" for snacks. I felt bad dragging them away from their fun to have lunch (tuna on whole grain bread with veggies - making up for yesterday's white flour garbage lunch). The ate well, went down for their naps easily, and are now awake and eating the fudgesicles that this morning's Good Mommy made. And I'm still feeling like Good Mommy! Yay! Hopefully she'll stick around, because Russ "has" to go out for coffee with his buddies tonight, so I'm alone with them all evening. Wish me luck ;)
And speaking of luck, Adventures in Babywearing has another contest to win a Solarveil ring sling from Kimzkreations . I'm determined to figure out a sling when this baby comes, so hopefully I'll win!
For those of you asking, I did win a prize from Cool Mom Picks last week. It was the "A to Z with Dr. T Supergoop kit" with sunscreens and a t-shirt. Yay me!