I love how calm and quiet it is in our home at night.  I get to watch the gentle rise and fall of my children’s chests as they are in peaceful slumber.  When they were little I loved to kiss and squish their tiny, super chubby cheeks while they slept….squishy, rosy, and sweet.  Such precious angels…WHILE THEY SLEEP!

While I love and cherish my children and husband, the TRUTH is….wait for it….keep waiting….life isn’t always so smooth here in the Summerhays home.  Spoiler Alert:  We’re not all merry and bright all the time.  My children have salty attitudes that are apparently the result of “pre-teenage raging hormones that have hi-jacked my children’s brains, are in total control of their bodies and aren’t planning on leaving any time soon” (this is a direct quote from my 11-year old son).  We have bad attitudes, snarky remarks that fly out of our mouths because we fail to stop and think before we speak, and we have epic parent fails on an almost daily basis.

Two weeks ago I think I almost broke.  I was ready for the men in white coats, a straitjacket, a white wall to stare listlessly at, and some vanilla pudding with Ativan mixed in.  The week started off casually horrible (if that’s even a thing!) and moved right in to Crazy-Town.  In fact, I am the self-declared mayor of Crazy-Town, y’all!

Day One:  Snow Pants – An Obvious Choice.  It was Snowmageddon 2017 here in Crazy-Town so lots of snow had piled up in a short amount of time and the temperatures were about -20 or so.  I had to dig our truck out and use 4-wheel drive….GASP! The perfect kind of weather to go to school without your snow pants, hat and mitts…NOT! So after morning drop off back to school I went with, of course, no time to change out of my “mom pants” and “mom hair” (aka grey and white polka dot pajamas and bed head!).  Snow pant-less child (aka Jake) informed me that it is my duty as his mother to make sure he is properly dressed for the elements before leaving our driveway so that I don’t show up to middle school in my mom pants with mom hair as that is “like so totally embarrassing”!

Day Two: The Advent Calendar Crisis. Preface to what I’m about to tell you: one of my children, like her daddy, is a serious chocoholic!  In our home, it is tradition to start our Advent Calendar event on December 5th or after… Don’t judge, I’m thrifty and the Advent Calendars go from $12.99 to $3.99 around the 5th!  Our morning routine was in full swing when a scream shrill enough to shatter glass could be heard all throughout Crazy-Town.  The Princess (aka as Chloe) had just consumed her first Advent Chocolate of the season.  As the screaming continued,  my husband (aka Daddy) came to see what was going on.  Chloe burst into tears and pointed at her Advent Calendar.  I calmly explained that one chocolate each day is how this game works.  At this point, my husband turned to me and said, “One chocolate a day for a chocoholic is like giving an alcoholic one sip of alcohol each day.  It’s just not enough.  All it does is wake the monster without feeding it!”  Seriously, honey?! No words.  Parenting logic at its finest 🙂 Clearly, I did not think this through (maybe teenage hormones hi-jacked my brain as well??)

Day Three:  All is Calm, All is Bright…said no Mayor of Crazy-Town EVER.  I’m sitting in my mom pants quietly reflecting on the week thus far, contemplating a dose of Ativan with a Kahlua coffee chaser (don’t worry…I decided to read my Bible and PRAY for survival instead) when I received the first of many texts.  My chocoholic monster is screaming and kicking at school and it’s only 9 a.m.  She did the unthinkable…she peed on her nurse!  I’m sorry…WHAT?!  In a moment of total shock, how could this be, I think to myself?! My children are perfect, my family is perfect (social media supports this notion as it pops up perfect pictures of us to repost on a daily basis).  We don’t have any problem children, only angels…. HA.HA.HA. I’m wondering, as I drive to school to retrieve my disruptive child, if I deny this is even happening will it make it less true?!  It’s not even lunch time yet!

Day Four:  The Beat Down.  I started this day trusting and believing it would be a great day; the BEST day of the week.  I was hopeful and ready for greatness but that is NOT what unfolded.  The phone rang and it was school calling, “Chloe is being combative.”  Combative, really?!!  She’s in a wheelchair, a wheelchair and she’s taking people down! How is this even a thing?! She kicked her bus driver in the head while her wheel chair was being secured and then decided biting her teacher was a wise choice.  This is the third major incident day for Chloe since September. Just a side note:  we will be going to marriage counseling in the new year or genetic counseling, we’ll figure it out, as my husband is pretty sure all the behavior issues apparently are a gift from my side of the family 😉 I think at this point in the story it is safe for me to assume that one can understand my pain.  Kev had to come from work and pick Chloe up as I had an appointment.  He scolded her; a rare occurence as she IS daddy’s princess.  I arrived at home just in time to hear him say, “Chloe, this kind of behavior has to stop.  You can’t keep beating up the school staff.” As she’s clapping for herself and laughing, Chloe responded with concise, choice words…”yeah, yeah, yeah.”  Really?? Of all the moments she could choose to talk, this is the time.  God really does have a sense of humor!  Chloe is our stubborn, very strong-willed child so as you can imagine there aren’t too many effective approaches to disciplining her.  She is my child who literally laughs when I cry.  For lack of any better ideas for appropriate disciplinary action we decided to ground Chloe from her Advent Calendar. Yep. Grounded.  I’m pretty sure she is the only child in the history of Christmas to get grounded from her Advent Calendar.  Side note: Solution to the behavior and attitude problem according to Grandma: buy Chloe a mini-pony.  Solution to the behavior and attitude problem according to Daddy:  buy her a bunny.  (Mmmmm-K so we’re like the movie We Bought a Zoo except I’m not dead yet). Yeah I’m just going to leave these 2 BOLD statements here on this page because both of them have LOST THEIR MINDS!

Day Five: Grocery Mayhem – A Cereal Event.  Disclaimer:  I truly love my husband, really, I do, but making healthy and wise decisions in the grocery store is sometimes an unbalanced struggle that may cause marital strife.  I began this day with Christmas cookies for breakfast because I had failed (based on the craziness of the previous 4 days) to purchase milk, yogurt, eggs and any other “normal” breakfast foods and something is better than nothing, right?! I could have had cereal with water on it as we did have 5 boxes of cereal (remember that number…5!) I was ragged and worn, to say the least….still in my mom pants with my mom hair and my mom face. Great! At least I matched with all the mom stuff! Kev, seeing my less than beautiful self-portrait of exhaustion, offered to take my grocery list and conquer the beast.  Just to be 100% clear, it had 7 things on it (yogurt, lunch items for naughty children, milk, fruit, veggies, meat, and eggs).  While some of these items did actually make it into my refrigerator, the meat, yogurt and lunch selections were very interesting choices….slim pickins, if I do say!  We did, however, end up with a surplus of cereal and ice cream as these items were on super sale!  The plan:  in a pinch, eat the cereal with melted ice cream and we’re all good to go!  When in doubt, use the blender for a nutritious lunch on the fly and with an ice pack or two you can totally send the blended cereal and ice cream to school for a nutritious and balanced high calorie snack, lunch or dinner!  Marketing tagline: Cereal, the new super food!  Many options, limited ingredients = a win-win situation. You get where I’m going with this, right?!  Yep, that’s right, 5 new FAMILY size boxes of cereal now grace our cupboard shelves, joining the ranks of the other 5.  I’m so thankful that I didn’t have to go to the grocery store, though (insert sarcasm).

All joking aside, my husband really is super helpful!  While he’s not so good at sticking to the list he’s really good at going to the store when I don’t really feel like it.  Kev’s strengths are my weaknesses and that is just one of many reasons why we make an awesome team.

Question for my readers:  Does every parent have that one difficult child that challenges your parenting skills; that takes you to the ledge on a regular basis?  Please tell me I’m not alone here.

I hope this story brings you lots of Christmas cheer and laughter!  Merry Christmas!