homeschool, gameschool....fight school, lessons in patience.

It has been a long morning. It started at 0400 with #10 finding her tablet and waking the household with her happy squealing. At least it was happy and not tears of frustration. Somehow I manage to doze off again for a few minutes and had the weirdest dream of my life! I certainly hope that is not a dream of my future. That is about all I can say about that dream!

This was supposed to be a baby morning but as I looked around at the living room floor, and the counters, and all the other things that did not get done over the weekend... I declined and sent her to Auntie's house. I will take her tomorrow. 

I did get the chickens to come out of their coop this morning. It will be short lived as the temperature is supposed to drop again this afternoon.

They had a bucket of water that they tipped over in less than ten minutes. I went back in to get my phone from the 10 year-old and when I came back out it was dumped. I then peeled the carrots for Curried Carrot soup and took the peelings out to them.

On arriving back in the house the 8 year-old had just squirted the 7 year-old in the eye with water from a syringe. Yes it was clean, but that was not nice nor was the chant she offered to the offended. "Come on take a drink of water to get rid of the pain" "Just take a drink" all while laughing. I was seething mad. She saw me and ran to get the other a towel. 

I then went into the sewing room to cool my anger a bit and noticed the floor was covered in the leftover craft items the 10 year-old had used the day before. You KNOW I had to call her to clean it up. I then went in to check on DH's progress with getting dressed. He was checking his bank account.

Back to check the clean up. Not all was done even if she said so. I sent her back in. Went back to see if we could get shoes on. Pull, tug, pull some more and one is on. The second was just as hard but finally after hearing how to do it better for the fourth time I left and went to get paint for rock painting.  Hmm... sewing room looks much better.

Until I lift a bag from in front of the closet... most of what had been on the floor had been shoved between the bag and the closet door. Back out to find the 10 year-old getting ziplock bags in order to make "squishies" with water in her room. We had already discussed that she cannot do this today and I sent her back to the room to finish the job.  The 8 year-old is crying in her room something about me being the meanest mom ever.

Back to check on clothing progress... still no shirt. Back to the other room to get the paints.. still not finished. I call the 10 year-old back in. I explain that while I know she went to a lot of trouble to make it look like she cleaned things up it was evident that she just spent a lot of time avoiding things. Finally she got it done. When she came out we talked about it, she smiled and we were done. 

The 7 year-old asked for paint brushes. I told her not right now and I went to the basement so I could breathe. The 8 year-old was still crying. The shirt was still absent. Finally I returned from breathing to find the 8 year-old not in her room. She was behind the piano with someone else's tablet. After taking the tablet away and being told I don't love her. We had a long chat.

Not sure I did the right thing in all of this. But I am only human. The soup is done, well almost. It turns out that I have no curry powder. It was then that the 8 year-old pointed to the ceiling and said "I wonder how that got there"

Yes that is the ceiling in the living room. At first I thought it was paint. Within seconds I figured out that it is colored glue... and I figured out how it got there. I also knew full well who got it there.

I listened carefully to the explanation on how it got there from the two youngest kiddos. Then I let them both know how it really got there. Shock and Awe; that was the look on their faces. Nor did they try to dispute my version. Since the ceiling is 9 feet high it will remain there for awhile. I do not have a step ladder that will let me reach high enough, safely enough, to get it down. To look at the bright side I can be thankful that for once the spill is not on the carpet.

It is late and the kids need to go to bed and I need to clean for the baby tomorrow... and I need to get the car seat into the van. So I will close and try again tomorrow. Oh we did learn to play a new game in spite of all of this! Ship, Captain, Crew #10 refused to learn the game or to play with us but no matter. The other two learned and that was progress.

We are also going to try and play one game a day at least for 10 days. We won't always be able to learn a new game but surely we can managed 10 games with what have here at the house.