Institution for the Maternally Insane.....

I was walking through the house trying to find Ivan and his friend who are supposed to be playing here while my neighbor ran an errand. I can't find them anywhere, it's been a long time since they were supposed to have been here, and I'm starting to wonder if maybe they've snuck back to the neighbor's house to play there while they aren't home. As I'm wondering what to do about it, I walk downstairs and am greeted by this scene in the kitchen:

Adelia, standing in a pool of water that's covering half my dining room floor, bent over, using a sodden paper towel to push water around. There are about a role's worth of similarly soggy towels in the garbage can already.

"Hi Mom! Don't worry, I'm cleaning it up. These paper towels are working great! I already tried using a kitchen towel, but it got soaked really fast. So I'm using these now." she says brightly.

I just stood there, stupid look on my face, gaping mouthed, words aren't coming. Not angry, just stupefied.

"It wasn't me Mom. It was Ollie. He was playing with the hose on the patio, any every time I opened the door to tell him to stop he tried to squirt me. I kept opening the door and he just kept spraying water....that's how this puddle got here."

I turn around and walk upstairs to find her another towel. Cal and Ruby are sleeping, and all is quiet upstairs. Except that suddenly loud alarm sirens are blaring from Lincoln's room. He's been working on a booby trap to sound an alarm for when the little kids try to sneak into his room. I guess he figured it out. I'm not sure if I'm proud or annoyed; maybe both?

Diverting from my course to the bathroom, I step into the hall to ask Linc to please not set off his alarm while the kids are asleep...but before I get the words out, Ivan and his friend leap out to scare me. They'd been hiding from me "for fun" and following me around, it turns out. They love to play "spy".

I grab a towel for Del, and I've been downstairs about point-three seconds when I hear Ollie sobbing and wailing, and some chanting and laughing upstairs. I head back up. Ivan and friend are playing keep away from Ollie with my giant exercise ball. Ollie is not amused. He is also soaking wet, presumably from his encounter with the hose earlier. Lincoln is yelling at everyone --full voice-- to be quiet and stop bumping him.

Cal's crying. I shuffle the big boys outside, and get Ollie settled back down in the school room to play quietly. I get Cal out of his crib and take him downstairs to feed him lunch. Adelia is nowhere to be found, and the floor is still wet.

Cal is on his second bite of baby food when Lincoln appears at my shoulder, begging me to print him out another star chart wheel because he can't find his anywhere, and he wants to sleep on the trampoline tonight and try to find constellations. I tell him I'll print it when I'm done feeding Cal, since he doesn't need it until it gets dark. He does a full circle walk around the kitchen comes to my shoulder again and asks if I can print his star chart now. Seriously? I tell him again, that I will not print it until I'm done feeding Cal. Another lap around the kitchen....

"Mom, what if I print it out myself, I know how to look things up on Google, it's called Uncle Al's Star something....?"

Me: "No. I can print it out for you when I'm done here. You don't need it right this second."

Another lap around the kitchen.

"Can you print it now?"

"Lincoln! I'm feeding Cal."

"What if I feed Cal?"

So I print his start chart.

Adelia comes in, she wants to use a poster board out of the school closet. Great, go ahead. I say, knowing full well that I will go up there later and find it snipped to little bits and spread all over the school room carpet amongst twisted pipe cleaners, bits of yarn, beads, and dried out glue sticks whose lids she forgot to replace. We go through so. many. glue sticks.

Ollie comes down, he's starving. I give him some of the goldfish crackers that Cal is now also snacking on.

I can't hear Ivan and his friend playing basketball anymore. When I step outside to see what they are up to, I find the hose. It's still on from when Ollie was using it. And it's nonchalantly bubbling water all over onto our patio....not the grass that desperately needs it, but the patio. Of course it is.

No boys in the backyard or the front. Adelia says she saw them on their scooters heading towards Ivan's friends house. I send her to retrieve them, and sure enough, that's where they were.

I dole out Otter Pops to all the kids in hopes to divert them from further hooliganism. Later, of course, I will find little plastic wrappers spread from hell to breakfast, and wonder for the thousandth time why I still distribute popsicles at all.

It's hot. No one wants to be outside, except Ollie and Del who are making bird nests out of rocks in the grass and trying to hatch ping-pong balls. Cal is ready to go down for nap number two. Ruby is still asleep. Lincoln, Ivan, and the friend are upstairs in the school room with the door closed playing some made up version of dodgeball with  my exercise ball. It seems to be the favorite toy today. I can hear them yelling, and things crashing and lots of laughing. I'm afraid to go upstairs. But I need to put Cal to bed, so up we go. As I reach the top step, all three older boys come surging out of the school room door with an explosion of bodies and sound. And that wakes Ruby up.

I send the boys outside once again. They've probably got me pegged as the meanest mom on the block.

Cal falls asleep, and just about then Adelia comes in deciding it's a wonderful time to put on a piano concert.

Aaron's sister and her kids will be here soon to make Father's Day crafts. I pop a giant bowl of popcorn to feed the masses, the go over to the computer to try and print out the stuff for the craft. I've been on the computer for about a full minute when I turn around and see Ollie and Ruby chucking handfuls of popcorn into the air, and trying to balance several pieces on their heads.

I'm not even phased.

Because THIS is my every day. I mean not exactly, the incidents vary, but generally speaking, I basically combat chaos from sun up to sun down, and I lose every time. What't the definition of insanity again?  Repeating the same thing over and over again expecting different results? Yepper.

And then I have to stop and wonder, when did this become reality? Am I looney? 'Cause if I'm not already, I'm surely going to be by the time Cal becomes and adult.

Holy Moses, I need a Pepsi....