What am I going to do with Three?

This morning my kids woke up at 7. I managed to ignore them until the alarm went off at 7:30. Then I dragged myself out of bed, released them from their room and we all piled on the couch in the living room with pillows and blankets. This is how I finish waking up when I'm not quite ready to start the day. There's no chance of falling asleep because the kids are wiggly and PC spends most of the time climbing up and down off of me (usually taking the most uncomfortable routes). By the time I need to get Sir up to start getting ready for work, I'm pretty much awake. Or at least awake enough to function. And break up fights. And confiscate things my children are not supposed to have. And to wonder if I'll survive the day.

Today I woke Sir up, and started getting his lunch ready. Since I was already there, I worked on the kitchen a bit between breaking up scuffles over toys in the playroom. Finally the lunch was packed and I could escape to my room to get dressed. Except as soon as my bedroom door closes, no matter where my children happen to be, they suddenly need me immediately and start calling, fighting with each other to require a referee, or they instantly appear at my door where they knock and whine until they get some kind of response. Sometimes I wonder if it would be faster to get dressed without closing the door.

As soon as Sir kissed each of us good by and rushed out the door for work, I started breakfast. Food always seems to help fussy kids be just a little less fussy. While the kids ate breakfast I took the opportunity to wash the living room windows. Saturday the Landlord brought over a powerwasher so we could powerwash the slippery outside stairs. While we had the powerwasher, I removed all the window screens and had Sir wash them for me as it would save me the load of energy required to scrub them by hand. Since the screens are all clean and off the windows it gave me a perfect opportunity to wash the windows inside and out (well, as far as I could reach on the outside.)

Anyway, I got half of one of the living room windows cleaned and one screen put back before the kids were done eating and needed to be washed up. I had turned the radio on while I was cleaning the windows and it was still on when I had finished washing the kids up and getting them down from the table. Then I had to make a trip to the bathroom. For once neither of my kids followed me and just when I thought I'd have just a few minutes of peace and quiet, I heard the radio station change and the volume maximize. Of course they hadn't followed me to the bathroom. There was an unguarded radio within reach to investigate. Then I heard the screaming and scolding begin. They weren't just playing with my radio - they were fighting over it. I rushed to the living room just in time to see each of them pull the antennae in an opposite direction and observe that it was bendable - and not really unbendable.

This was a very bad way for the day to start. Sir gave me the radio for my birthday this year because I really wanted one. It was more than just a radio. It was a tape player, and a CD player and it came with a remote so I could adjust the volume or skip CD tracks from anywhere in the house. So, I broke up the fight, and sent the children to their room. Then I turned my computer on and MSNed Sir all my latest woes. He promised to look at my radio when he got home, which cheered me up and I left him to get back to work and went to let the kids out of their room.

But as soon as I opened the nursery door, I wished I hadn't. PC had done a job in his diaper, and then managed to get the diaper off. The room was a disaster. Everything was dirty. The floor, the toddler bed, the walls, the kids... It wasn't even 10 o'clock yet. So, I cleaned up the kids, cleaned up the worst of the room, put my radio safely in my room and returned to my computer to pour out more frustration to Sir. Then I banned the children from the nursery, and got out the cleaning supplies. I vacuumed so I could use the carpet cleaner without collecting hair elastics and toilet paper shreds in the carpet cleaner tank. I scrubbed down the toddler bed and mattress before moving them to the hall. I washed down the walls, moved the bookshelf, cleaned the nursery window - inside and out -, put the screen back, cleaned the carpet and wiped down the lower half of the door on both sides. Then I put all the furniture back where it came from, dressed my children, put some triple antibiotic ointment on Dolly's scrapes, and found a pacifier for PC so I could put him down for his morning nap. An hour late.

Since I didn't feel like hanging out the other half of the living room window to finish cleaning it just then, I decided to take a break and work with Dolly on her schoolwork. It was 11, and PC should sleep for about 2 hours. Dolly did well, and I was able to unwind a little. I even managed to finish the living room window during the recess breaks. When PC woke up at quarter to 1, we called it a day. I don't see the point in trying to keep one kid focused on learning and the other from being a distraction. I knew I should start on lunch, but the kids did seem to be getting along for the time being, so I decided to move the couch away from the wall and vacuum underneath. I moved the couch, and then called the kids to come pick up all the junk that had made its way underneath. We even found the missing library book that had gone overdue and started accruing fines before I noticed and renewed it!

Once the junk was clear, I vacuumed, put the couch back and we had lunch. Of course in the morning's excitement I forgot to put the frozen dinner that I had taken out of the freezer into the crock pot. I discovered it as I made lunch and got it going right away, but it means that supper will be late tonight. Now it's naptime, and I thought I'd have all the windows cleaned by now but I still have four left. I'd wanted to get the house vacuumed too so I could start cleaning the carpet in the hallway this evening, but that hasn't happened yet either. Oh well, at least my Jade plant is still intact. I had moved it to the coffee table so I could work on the living room windows and it's a very favorite thing of PC's to dismember when I'm not looking. I'd been envisioning the next disaster... like the Jade plant being dumped off the coffee table to its death and the living room being scattered with plant and potting soil debris, but thankfully it only took place in my imagination and the poor Jade plant is back in it's relatively safe place.

I should go. My kids need to go to bed so I can become sane again. Somehow we have to survive the evening, and tired, hungry kids are not the way to do that! But I was wondering... if this is what TWO kids can do in a morning.... what am I going to do with THREE?!?