Livid

It's not often that I completely fly off the handle at my kids, but here's a glimpse into one of my less-than-finer moments.

Let's start with the dinosaurs. What was once a sweet little childhood phase for Andrew has now evolved into a fullblown case of obsession for both kids. The dinosaur thing stopped being cute at roughly 3:00 pm yesterday...when I noticed a teeny tiny hole in one of the window screens of the kids' bedroom. In the Motz version of the Clue game, the culprit was determined to be Mr. Andrew in their bedroom with a plastic brontosaurus tail.

Fast forward to around 4:00 pm today. Mike went to help out some church people for a few hours. I sent the kids upstairs to play while I cleaned downstairs. I heard them yelling out their window at the neighbors. (A HUGE pet peeve of mine). I told them immediately to close the window. "What window Mom?"

Mm hmm.

I went upstairs to ride them for lying about the open window when I came across the following.

As if the gaping hole in the screen weren't enough, I looked down at the grass below. It was littered with dozens of toys that had been shoved through the broken screen.

Normally I try to keep it together, but this was it. We have been on the kids for a month now, with them ignoring everything we say...doing everything their little hardened hearts desire. We made it explicitly clear for two days straight that the window and screen were off limits, only to have them escalate their snot-nosed disobedient behavior. Bottom line, it's a safety issue. The last thing I want is one of them pressing on the screen and falling a straight 15 feet to the ground below.

So. How did I react? After a litany of less-than-controlled comments, a round of spankings, and a nice time of solitude for each child, I pulled them both outside and made them pick up each and every toy. They placed each one in a plastic storage bin (thank you CVS), and I told them that each and every toy would be off limits for three days.

I had every intention of throwing the entire bin in the trash. But considering the amount of money, and the number of 'favorites' involved, I chickened out. This is the stash the kids collected from the front yard (note the overflowing 18 qt storage bin):

I can't wait until I spend the WHOLE DAY alone with these precious angels...