My Bipolar Day

Sometimes my days seem to just fly by and while there may be minor annoyances like endless food and toy messes to clean up and kids whining or crying, the day really is enjoyable. And then there are those days where I go from the complete bliss of being with my fun kids to locking myself in the bathroom so I can count to 10 and calm myself down. I hope I'm not the only crazy one out there who occasionally gets driven more crazy by their kids.
So here's a recap of my up and down, bi-polar day today. Well first I'll have to begin a little before that. Ethan has never been interested in coloring or drawing or arts and crafts of any kind. But suddenly within the last few weeks he has fallen in love with drawing. I was very excited about this development until he started copying Isaac. Isaac has always loved crayons and basically any writing utensil he can get his hands on. Tragically, he doesn't like paper. I think it's because it slides around on the table so he prefers to just be rid of that annoyance and draw right on the table, or the side of the chair, or the floor under the chair, or the wall next to the chair, whatever's convenient seems to be to his liking. So my solution has been to hide every writing utensil in our house and then watch him like a hawk if I do let him have one to make sure he's only drawing on paper. I haven't really punished him for it. Maybe I should. So apparently Ethan has picked up on that and has decided that he likes to color on things other than paper. So 2 weeks ago I found huge pen stick figures on his sheets after his nap. There was a subsequent time out and a lecture and I thought the problem was solved. He certainly seems old enough and smart enough to understand this.
Then yesterday he was napping in our bed and apparently found some white-board markers leftover from Taylor's BAR studying and since he found no paper, he decided our bed sheets would work well. He's very into treasure maps and pirates right now, can you tell?
Since we'd already thoroughly covered that this was inappropriate behavior the previous week, Ethan was given a longer time out and then made to help me clean up the weekend's mess for the next 2 hours since I told him I'd have to wash those sheets and clean up his mess so he got to clean up other people's messes. (Trust me he thought this was absolute torture)
While we were cleaning, I was also making homemade rolls which are worth it but sure take a lot of time rising. So I had 36 lovely dinner rolls rising very peacefully on the counter and to my surprise, came back to find half of them squished into playdough like shapes. Ethan's explanation was that he liked them better in the shapes he made. I put myself in a time out after that one. And tragically since he squished them they weren't as fluffy when they baked and came out very dough-like in contrast to the others that were perfect.
Once I got over that, we had a fine evening and Taylor kept saying how penitent Ethan was about the sheets and the rolls and how he kept telling him how sorry he was and how good he was going to be in the future.
So I had high hopes for today. My neighbor brought me the book they're reading for the book club this Thursday so I lingered a little longer in my pajamas this morning to start reading. I will admit my children were neglected in the process and Isaac even came in the room naked from the waist down because he decided that his diaper was too full and he'd rather go kamando- but really there are tons of toys in the house to entertain them and it was only 8:15 when I stopped reading. Apparently this was too long and during this time, Ethan forgot the torture I put him through yesterday and did this to his bedroom wall:
And this to the laundry room door:

So when I did stop reading and started in on the week's laundry, I naturally found both drawings and my lovely, peaceful morning went in the opposite direction. Ethan even tried to blame Isaac for these drawings although I'm sure you can see why I didn't believe him. So he got to spend the next 2 hours scrubbing off the crayon. And being mean I didn't let him use a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser until the end. So the morning wasn't so great.

Then I had a doctor's appointment at 1:50 and my wonderful next door neighbor volunteered to watch the boys for me. She called and asked if she could take them to a movie with her kids and naturally I said yes so she ended up taking them 2 hours earlier than my appointment so they could go to the one they wanted. And suddenly my day was back up on cloud nine- I got to read in peace and quiet!

And then I went to the doctor... which really was fine. Taylor's cousin gave me the name of her OBGYN doctor that she loves and just raves about so I trusted her and went to him. He seems like a really nice guy and was very thorough in questions and answers and all was going well until he paused, and said "so you're a Woodbury, who are you related to?" and when I replied Taylor's dad, he stopped again and said, "I'm actually in your ward, we live on the street behind you." Utah is suddenly WAY too small! Anyone else think that's weird? I mean sure, Matt Pinegar our Elder's quorum president did my epidural at Georgetown when I had Isaac but that was just a naked back and at that point I just wanted the drugs and didn't care who was dispensing them. This seems a little more weird. Seriously he's going to start checking how far dilated I am in another month and then I'll see him on Sunday and when I'm out on a walk in the neighborhood. My mom thinks I should just buck up but I'm still a little weirded out. So the day went down- or at least in a weird direction for a while there.
There were several more ups and downs that I won't detail too much- getting to chat with my neighbor while the kids played so nicely together, then having Ethan yell, kick, and scream his way back to our house since he didn't want to leave. Then a nice family dinner where Isaac literally ate 3 full bowls of chili and sides to go with it and every bite he took he smacked his lips and made an "arf" noise as he chomped down on it and then smiled at us and he held his little fists in a ball when we told him it was time to pray but then wanted to eat so badly that he kept one hand up in a ball and snuck bites with his other hand. Great entertainment.

See, up and down, and up and down. Thankfully the day ended very well. One of our local grocery stores is doubling ALL coupons so I begged Taylor to put the kids to bed so I could go shopping by myself since I knew it would take forever standing in each isle looking through my monster stacks of coupons to find the right product and then decide if doubling it really made it worthwhile and then making sure to buy the correct number of items in the correct sizes. It was worth it in the end, and actually a lot of fun if you're crazy and cheap like me. So I ended up with 15 cents off my next gas purchase which never hurts and I saved $51.69 in coupons. And now my pantry and toiletry closet are stocked for the next month.

See how long my crazy receipt is. I have to admit I felt bad for the poor cash register guy who scanned over 25 coupons for me- twice each since they got doubled.

And to top off the night I decided to run to Rite Aid where they have a free rebates program. It's awesome if you've never done it. Basically the Sunday Ad tells you exactly what the store will charge you for the item and then what the rebate is and I just stick to the absolutely FREE ones. You buy it, go to their website and enter your receipt and store numbers, and voila, 6 weeks later a check comes in the mail for the exact amount you paid, minus tax. That easy! And it's stuff I'll use so it's great.

I have high hopes for tomorrow too. Office Max has major school supply sales which I can hardly resist having been a school teacher. This is this week's ad so I haven't actually gotten the 1 cent rulers or 10 cent packs of computer paper or 10 cent packs of notecards but last week they had 1 cent crayons and 20 cent eraser packs and 20 cent kid scissors. They do limit you to 3 of each item per customer so I have to admit that I gave each of my kids their own pile of 3 crayons, 3 eraser packs, and 3 scissors which they were happy to throw at the store clerk along with the dollar bill I gave each of them. Come on? My mother used to use all of my siblings like that and there were 6 of us. We were quite the sight all lined up with our exact number of items and cash in hand- annoyed we were being used but my mother loved it. And you have to admit less than $3 for all the stuff in the picture is pretty great. And the best part is that since we don't honestly need all of it, we're making a care package for our friend Jessica who helped paint the baby's room last week and I know her 4th graders will use all the supplies up.