Well, a week has gone by and my oh my, what a serious roller-coaster ride it has been.  Last Friday, I went back to work for one day, seeing that my leave of absence was up.  It was a good day too – catching up and helping out.  It flew by and showed me that I do appreciate my job.  The weekend came and went – a slow weekend with not that much going on.  Then came Monday, literally the day from Hell.

I wasn’t prepared for the day and the boys just started fighting with each other right out of the gate.  I can’t count how many full blown tantrums we had, but I do remember the last one of the night.  It was bath time.  Dexter needed just one more minute with Legos.  He cannot stop building and taking apart Legos.  It’s like a compulsive disorder.  On the plus side, once Nicholas sees Dexter going down the tantrum path, he usually becomes an angel.  So, Joel fought to get Dexter upstairs.  Joel was going to give both boys a shower because he knew what kind of day I had had but Dexter would not cooperate.  I sent Nic and Joel to the shower and ran a bath for Dex in the other bathroom.  This was what he wanted, right?  Nope, he had changed his mind and started rolling around on the floor like a caterpillar.  Finally, I scooped him up, stripped off his clothes and placed him in the bath.  Then the wailing started.  Speaking softly and calmly, I quickly washed him with the promise we’d be done soon.  He went down hill from there.  I have never seen him so distraught.  Lying in bath water on his back, his whole body submerged, crying from the depths of his soul and repeating over and over, “I don’t like Mommy.”  I wanted to cry.  Finally, not knowing what else to do because all my soothing bag of tricks didn’t work, I drained the water and placed a towel over him because he would not budge from the bathtub.  I gently lifted out my fighter, dried him off and finally did something that snapped him out of his tantrum.  He turned and looked at me and asked me why I was all wet.  Hmmm – maybe because you were splashing up a storm in the bathtub?  Joel read to the boys while I changed into dry clothes.  After putting them to bed, the only energy I had left was to sit and look into space, wondering if I should go back to work.  If my being home was causing so much hardship on the boys, then maybe I shouldn’t be at home.  After all, we were always told by the au pairs that they were great with them.

Tuesday – a brand new day and I wasn’t going to let the day before get to me.  Nicky woke up on the happy side of the bed.  Hip hip hurray!  Dexter slept in and woke up on the happy side of the bed.  HIP HIP HURRAY!!!  Breakfast was consumed, clothes put on, teeth brushed.  Ok – so far so good.  But then Dexter started down the grumpy road.  Oh no – quick – need a distraction.  It was such a nice day, how about we call Uncle Too Tall and ask him to meet us at Garfield park (fantastic park by the way).  The boys thought this was an excellent idea.  Crisis averted.  Playtime resumed until it was time to jump in the car to go to the park.  Fun was had with Uncle Ryan.  A treat followed with lunch at Alfy’s pizza – home of free video games.  Thank you Ryan, for showing them how to use a Nintendo remote control.  If you had let me play video games when we were kids, I might be able to help too.  ;)  Then we got to go to Toys R Us to LOOK at, not BUY, toys.  A quick trip to Michaels for Thanksgiving crafts followed.  Back at home, everyone was still being nice to each other.

When Joel came home, the boys knocked him over with hugs.  Joel then hooked the computer up to the TV so that we could watch the news coverage of the election.  This led to all sorts of questions by the boys and they now ask about Mitt and Obama daily.  The evening ended with no fights.  Balance was restored.

Wednesday – balance was knocked back out again on the way to preschool but Dexter snapped out of it on the drive to school.  It didn’t help that the boys got their flu shots that morning and their arms hurt something fierce.  The drive to preschool was silent – so silent in fact, that Nicholas fell asleep.  Not knowing this, when I parked, I turned around to ask if we could all do a reset and saw that Nicky was asleep.  I looked at Dex, he looked at Nicky, we looked at each other and both snorted with laughter.  ”Mommy, what are you going to do now?” asked Dexter.  Good question and then Nic’s eye’s fluttered awake.  The rest of the evening was a bit of a roller coaster ride – pain + fighting over what’s for dinner even though I made chicken nuggets to avoid a fight occurred.  We skipped the bath and put them to bed early.

Thursday – craft morning plus meeting Joel in the afternoon for a cold but fun time at Kasch park put the evening in the plus column.  I took over the bath portion of the night after Joel walked off for a personal time out.  Those boys – this time Nicholas – really know how to push buttons.  His before bath tantrum involved not knowing how to walk up stairs and falling back down them.  He ended up losing a story, which made the situation worse, but with Nicky, if you don’t pay attention to the tantrum, he eventually gets bored with his acting and does what he is told.  Then he remembered he’d lost a story “Fine then, I wont’ get any stories and I’ll sleep forever.”  Seriously, the drama is amazing.  Four (if you count the two Dexter gets), less one, does not equal none.  I can’t wait until they get the concept of math.

Lights out earlier, but I think we’ll push it to 7:30pm tonight seeing that last night still involved threats and crying.

So, here we are.  It’s Friday.  This morning has gone reasonably well with a visit to Dexter’s OT at Monroe Elementary school.  Nicky gets to tag along and they both love the gross motor activities she has for them.  Today, they also got to work on fine motor skills with using and Ipad.  I think we need one now.  Yes Joel, it takes time for me to snap out of the 90′s but I eventually, sometimes, get there.  They are currently at preschool.  We’ll see which way tonight swings.  Wish us luck.