Thursday, August 27, 2009

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year...


They're going ba-ack!!

{to school}.

And I am very excited about it to be honest with you. It's not that I don't want my kids around, but I'll be even more honest with you...it's just that I don't think I'm going to miss having every sassy-mouthed, mess-makin', loud screamin' kid in the neighbourhood hanging out at my house. NOT that every kid in the neighbourhood is like that. Not at all. It's just that the sweet, polite, and quiet ones seem to be at the sitters during the summer and through some, ironic, twist of fate it's all the lovin' spoonfuls that are available to come over every day. I know that may sound very mean and grumpy, but this is the first summer in my life I've ever had a new baby in the house and two school aged kids at home. That is a, at times, very frustrating combination.

I'll tell you that more than once I've been in the bath-tub, when my kids have let other kids in the house and then come flying into the bathroom (as they always do when I forget to lock it). I'll screech "Shut the DOOR!!!" just in time. However, there was at least one occasion during which I stood there in just a towel when two neighbourhood kids were standing outside the door staring at me. For how long they were there before I even noticed them, I'm not even sure. (They just let themselves in my house!)

I've also been sitting on the couch nursing the baby when the kids have all come flying up my stairs. Now, I don't cover myself all up nice and discreet-like when feeding the baby in my own home so unless I whip the baby off and manage to grab her spit-up blanket for cover within 0.0003 seconds those kids were in for an eyeful. This happened a few times this summer. Not exactly the peaceful experience it is supposed to be for baby-one. She must have wondered, "What the...?!?"

And, the biggie, is the never-fail banging on the door 2 minutes after I've gotten the baby to (finally) go down for a nap (kids don't knock, then go away...they bang, and bang, and bang, and then kick, and kick, and kick at the door until someone comes to answer it, dammit).

Wait...that isn't even really the biggie. I think the real biggie is the fact that these are not my kids so I don't usually feel free to, let's say, remind them of their manners and/or common-sense when they are screaming, hitting, pushing, calling names, throwing stuff, littering, lying down in the middle of the road, dangling each other off the back of our truck, playing in the back of my husbands trailer with all his landscaping equipment, putting crap all over my lawn and my front entrance way, helping to completely destroy the Toy Room, yelling at my dogs, telling my little 4 year old to go "change her shirt" (because her tummy was showing and she) "looks disgusting", stomping on and killing the flowers in the bed at the side of our house...you know...that kind of stuff.

I'm actually really going to miss having my kids home. We've had a lot of fun together working on our "summer homework" and playing in our pool out back, and going on little adventures together. This special time with them made me question that Staples commercial in the past (What is so great about them going back? I wondered).

But, I've gotta' say, I think I get it now and I think it probably is
the Most Wonderful Time of the Year.

{Anyway....
now that I've gotten all that off my chest...
with the kids headed back to school in just 12 short days I've started planning lots of fun stuff for us to do together. I'm really going to miss them and I want the school year ahead to still be full of adventures and Family Fun. So...more on that tomorrow...}

:)

4 comments:

Shan said...

Oh I have no problem reminding little visitors about manners/common sense stuff. My motto is you're more than welcome to play here, but you're going to follow the same rules my kids do. If you can't well then - we're done playing for the day, here's your hat, thanks for stopping by. Probably doesn't make me very popular, but oh well.

Mommy Project said...

You know, you are absolutely right and I suppose I don't really have a problem with ~telling~ them stuff like that...I just get sick of having to deal with it in the first place, I think.

We've had a few "rough days" in a row around her w.r.t. the behaviour of kids...so I guess I was feelin' that when I posted today. Just getting a little Mommy-Fed-Up.

p.s. Abby is such a great kid! I'll e-mail you about that...

TM said...

Oh boy - so been there, done that in a small town. One solution is the move out to a acre in the country with no neighbours for miles. The other solution that I used was similar to Shannon's. Kids at my house got one warning and then got sent home!

WIDNEY WOMAN said...

See, this is why kids will not want to hang at our home. I have no qualms telling kids what they can and can't do in my home. I'll even toss a kid in time out if they persist. I'm mean like that.