It's Not Always Roses..

Just keeping it real here, folks.  Our days are, more often than not, terrible right now.  We are going through a terrible, horrible, awful, no-good stage.  I loathe it.  Seriously.  Adelyn is great by herself.  Brecken and Joelle are great by themselves.  Adelyn and Joelle are great by themselves.  Adelyn and Brecken are (mostly) great by themselves.  But, man, when you add that third one in there...  Someone is ALWAYS, and when I say always I mean about 90% of the time, someone is ALWAYS crying.  Not exaggerating in the slightest.  They fight over ev.ery.thing.  Adelyn yells at B or Jojo for doing something. B will scream in her face.  Then A will cry.  Jojo will take all of Adelyn's favorite things.  Just to make A mad.  Then A will yell at her.  Then I yell.  Then I'm mad at myself because I yelled.  Then I talk nicely.  Then no one listens.  Then I yell.  No one listens.  And repeat.  Then I go read Parenting (or anything else) and they tell me that I'm an awful no-good parent because I raise my voice to my children.  Then I feel like a terrible person because of that.  Last night::Adelyn ran Joelle's hand over with the trains and pushed her out of the way.  Joelle bit Adelyn.  NOW who am I supposed to punish?!  And I'm supposed to talk nicely and think everyone hears me all while everyone is crying.  Ha.  I didn't punish either of them, just made them say sorry to each other and I cuddled them both.  Some days that's all I can do...

Take today for instance.  I go into every day (ok..most days) determined to make it a good day.  Today was no different.  After, I might add, that I was up with both B and J until 2:00.  

Side rant:: That's fun right now too.  If Brecken wakes up he won't go back to sleep until someone cuddles him.  Like we'll let him scream for an hour-no sleeping until someone cuddles him.  But if you cuddle him for about half an hour, he'll go right back to bed, no complaining.  Joelle::She'll scream (loudly) for 15 minutes but go back to sleep.  The second you walk in there, you have her for the rest of the night (or you'll have to put her back down and listen to her scream for 15-30 minutes, again.  Catch 22 every time we try and creep across the carpet of their bedroom.  Side rant::Done.  

We started out pretty good.  Brecken woke at 8:15 crying up a storm, which is unusual, but I just went and got them and decided to for-go my shower for the morning.  Getting dressed, B has my Kindle.  I ask him (nicely) to put it down.  Precisely 2 seconds later he rips the Kindle out of it's jacket and breaks the jacket.  A piece of metal still in my Kindle and still have not gotten it out.  Whatever.  Now Eric can just find me a pink one instead of a black one..

I decided we are going to go outside, negative windchill and all.  The walls of this house are closing in on everyone and we need some fresh air.  Mind you it, literally, takes me a solid 20-25mins to get everyone's snow clothes on.  Brecken's boots are large on his tiny feet, so that's fun trying to make them fit.  I wanted to put two pairs of gloves on him because I don't have thick gloves for him.  Can't find the second one of the second set.  1 glove on one hand, 2 on the other.  Whatever.  Adelyn has a fit because I put her pants inside her socks and then put her boots on.  "They feel weird."  And by "they feel weird," I don't mean she calmly tells me they feel weird and could I pretty please fix them.  I mean crying and whining and flopping around like a fish on the floor.  She rips her gloves off.  The same ones I have painstakingly put each of her fingers in the correct finger holes.  We put the gloves on again.  And I try to put a second pair on her.  Hardy, har, har.  I succeeded at putting them on.  But the second I put them in the nice thick coat (that she also hates) she has a fit and tells me to take them off.  I do.  And I tell her she's going to be crying because it's cold.  "No I won't."  Whatever.  We go outside.  I start shoveling.  Everyone is super happy because they are freeeee.  I congratulate myself for the best idea I've had all week.  Then I try to start our snow blower.  Because, in all honesty, our drive way is not the shortest drive way ever.  And we got a lot of snow.  It starts right up.  I let it run for a minute.  The second I try to blow snow with it, it dies.  No amount of trying nicely to start it, kicking it (hey, it works sometimes) or yelling at it is working.  So now I'm uber frustrated about that.  Probably because my lap top took a huge dump on me (again) last night.  Things.  They are always breaking.

So I pause.  Take a deep breath and focus on the adorable snow angels Adelyn is making.

Ha ;)  The hand with the pink glove is the one that got two.  The other hand froze.

Joelle's attempt at a snow angel.  I'm not sure if she's trying to make one or lick the ground..

Three cuties.

Aannnddd cue the crying.  Adelyn was upset because Brecken accidentally whacked her in the face with a snow covered glove and B was pissed because he couldn't get up...because he looked like the little boy off of a Christmas Story.

I get everyone standing, they stop crying and I try again to start out decrepit snow blower.  Still no luck.  Absolutely nothing.  Adelyn and Brecken have started crying because their hands are cold (big surprise).  I'm pissed because the drive way is precisely 25% shoveled.  And the snow blower won't work.  I'm crying because of how frustrated I am with everything.  I tell them to pick up the toys and we are going in.  Joelle starts crying because we have to go inside.  Can't say I blame her..  But we did manage to stay out for an hour!  I think that's a record...usually I spend 20 minutes getting all the stuff on just to come in 15 minutes after we go outside..  I get everyone in and A and B are crying because their hands hurt.  I made us all some hot chocolate and the crying stopped while we drank it.  Then everyone just started fighting (and crying) again.  
Not to mention, right after lunch, I had to go to the bathroom.  I'm in there, I hear the door to the pantry open...and then close.  It's usually not a big deal when they open it and go in there but it always means trouble when they close the door.  So I tell them (loudly) to get out.  The girls listen.  I hear B getting into the packets of gum.  I peek around the door, sure enough.  Now I'm really trying to get him to stop.  With my luck it would get lodged in his airway.  I talk nice, I yell, I talk nice, I yell.  Finally, he puts it in his mouth...and then brings it to me and spits it out.  I finish on the toilet.  Flush.  Clogged.  Seriously.  Only me.  We got a new toilet just over a year ago because our old one clogged.all.the.time.  Our new one has never clogged...yet.  I'm not joking.  When I was talking to Eric (and crying) I mentioned this last tid-bit after I was done crying.  He says "Stop. You're lying."  I said "I'm not.."  He bursts out laughing..and I'm laughing.  Yep.  Only me.  A girl can't even get a break in the bathroom.  And I threw away all the packets of gum.

My favorite part of our day is nap time and bed time.  Not because they are going to sleep (although that is part of it).  But because we always read books together and everyone (usually) sits nicely by each other and listens quietly.  It's about my only guaranteed 15 minutes of happiness twice a day.  Today I just put them all in their beds and walked out.  I RARELY do that.

Someone please, please tell me that almost 4 and 2 (just) 2-year olds are just terrible ages and someday (hopefully) soon our lives will get easier.  And people will stop crying.  Including myself.