They're Taking Summer "Break" Too Literally

As I sat down to write this very post, I was interrupted by wailing from inside my closet where the kids were playing (and inevitably trashing it all to hell). "He pinched meeeeee!" One was talking over the other, trying to justify the pinching, blaming this brother and that brother, and I was sitting there mentally deciding who warranted what punishment, when I caught sight of our pug.

... Perched on a shelf.

"We used teamwork," the boys explained.

Y'all? I feel like I'm perpetually on the edge of losing it. I've already written about how summer vacation is wearing on me. Four kids and twenty-four-seven togetherness is a recipe for Amanda Bynes-level crazy. And to top it off, my freelance writing jobs have really been picking up lately, which would be fantastic - IF I had an office and time to work uninterrupted. But the reality is, I'm sitting in the middle of my kitchen with a laptop, with children swarming around me like bees. Bees that ask for stuff and whine about things.

(Click here for an illustrated portrayal of my typical workday. Only with a better-looking office.)

The trade-off for any sort of silence to work in peace is that I get to deal with the aftermath of said silence. Aside from the pug on the shelf, here are a few of the things that have gone on in my household over the last couple of weeks while I was attempting to be productive:

- My one-year-old happily splashing in the toilet. The recently-pooped-in-and-left-unflushed toilet.
- A simple request to ONE of the boys - "Go wash the dirt off your feet" - that ended up as three boys, naked and sliding around on the half-bottle of baby soap they'd squirted into the dry tub.
- The bathroom sink mysteriously filled with soggy clumps of toilet paper.
- A "mummy penis" featuring an entire roll of Scotch tape and my son's genitalia.

And this:

Yay because it's not poop. Boo because it's chocolate pudding ON MY CARPET.

It was a total accident because I saw it happen. But that still doesn't negate the fact that it's a hole IN MY LIVING ROOM WALL.

You don't even want to know all the places I found this smeared. Or how badly it stains.

And the award for "Most Tolerant Dog EVER" goes to ...

My boys don't do these things maliciously, or out of naughtiness. These are just things boys do, especially when their mom needs silence and tells them to "go find something to do."  ... I guess I need to specify.

I actually just heard my three-year-old utter the phrase, "Playing is boring. Let's do something extreme."

Oh, boys. Let's not.