Awful Dinner, Similar Day...

Our George Foreman grill and our heart shaped waffle maker look similar...I guess...they are both white, and round in the front. Tonight I was making chicken in the grill, and Adia came into the kitchen to set the table. She started doing the happy dance and ran to tell Ethan that we were having "affles (like awfuls) for dinner, the love kind!"(heart shaped) We weren't having waffles, but the more I tried to explain that the less she listened. She pointed out that I was cooking bacon (I was making potato skins, and the bacon was for them) and bacon goes with "affles" sometimes. I lifted her up so she could see that it was chicken not waffles, but that didn't seem to convince her either. Finally, I just said "I am not making any waffles for you!" She started to cry, then Ethan came in and she told him Mom isn't going to share her waffles, so he started crying too. By that time dinner was done and I put it on the table, said the prayer, dished out all the food, all the while the kids were both crying. Finally I said "What can I do to make you stop crying?" I was expecting them to ask for waffles, which is something I almost would have agreed to do at that point, I was so tired of the crying, but instead they both said that they needed syrup. What the...!?! We were having rosemary chicken, potato skins, green salad and steamed carrots, what part needed syrup? They didn't really know, they just knew that breakfast for dinner required syrup, and that's what they needed. I gave in and put a little dollop on each of their plates. That's all it took. They quit crying and started eating. They ate everything on their plates, though after a bite or two dipped in the syrup they gave up on that and left the puddle on the plate. They finished it off and even asked for seconds! They both kept commenting about how happy they were that I had made an "affle" dinner for them. Heck, with results like that I will give them syrup on every awful dish I make:)



Now on to why the rest of the day was so "affle". It really went pretty great until 4:30AM, then the doorbell rang. One of Troys guys lives in a little town nearby and had asked Troy for a ride to the shop in Logan this morning. They like to be at the shop and ready to leave by 5, so he was here at 4:30 ready to go. What a good employee right? The only problem is that we were both still sound asleep. The alarm clock hadn't gone off. At closer inspection we found that Troy had set it for 3:45PM not AM. So Troy let the poor guy in and started scrambling around getting ready for the day. Then he started feeling bad that the poor guy was sitting in the living room waiting all alone, and asked if I would go out and visit with him while Troy finished getting ready. The first thought that came to my mind was "How do I get out of this?" I couldn't come up with a good excuse, so I knew my options were to give him a look and tell him I really didn't want to. I narrowed it down to either the Stink Eye, or the Puppy Dog Look, and quickly made my decision. I went with the Stink Eye, but it ended up being a poor choice. He countered with the Puppy Dog, and I found myself out on the couch in my pajamas with no makeup and my hair sticking up at various angles from my head, talking to some guy whom I had never met before about dumb things like how crazy the weather had been, and what he was planning on doing over the weekend. Then the kids woke up, so I am chasing them around as they get in the poor guys personal hula hoop(Ethan) and cry because the lights are on and it isn't even morning yet.(Adia) As much as I would have LOVED to turn the lights off and crawl back into bed and pretend like this wasn't happening... that just wasn't an option. I don't know who was happier, the poor guy or me when Troy walked in and announced that he was ready to go.

So they left, but do you think we went back to sleep? Of course not! It was party time! Ethan went to school at 7:30, and the rest of the day went like normal, until he got home again. He did really good at school, so I told him he could go down stairs and watch a movie while I made him a snack, and he could eat it down in the family room (a treat at our house) I went to the kitchen, made strawberry smoothies for both kids, I even put crazy straws in the glasses. I went down to give it to them, and what I saw made me want to stick that crazy straw right up Ethan's nose! He had gone into the office, climbed up and got Adia's scrapbook down, and started taking pages out and ripping them to pieces. He had made it through the entire first year and was about half way through the second year by the time I found him. I didn't even know what to say. All of a sudden I was to that point where if I wasn't careful some one's head was going to explode. I said in my so-calm-its-scary voice, "Go to your room now! I will be there to talk to you in a minute" He knew he was in trouble, and ran to his room while I assessed the situation. I gathered up all of the pieces and put them in the keepsake box along with my wedding photo album that he had done the same thing to the day after he came to live with us. Then I went to talk to him. I told him how angry and sad I was that he had done that. I explained that it had taken me a lot of time and hard work to make those pages, and that many of the pictures had been given to me by someone else, so I couldn't replace them. I explained that he had made a really dissapointing choice, and he was going to be grounded for a while. I was really proud of myself for handling it so well, then I asked how he felt about it. I expected him to say that he felt sorry, or acknowledge that it wasn't his best choice, something, but nope, he said he felt great, in fact, he started laughing. He thought it was fun to rip the pages, and he liked the sound of the paper taring. All of a sudden I was fighting the urge to find the crazy straw again. Luckily, my mom called at that moment-funny how she always knows just when to call. She must be inspired- honestly, I believe it. She talked to me and cooled me down, and then she had to go pray for us-Really, that's what she said, she had to go because she had a lot of praying to do-boy we really must be screwed up. She was teasing...I think! Ethan had fallen asleep by then, and when he woke up we did have a good chat about it. I know that I shouldn't be so upset about it. It's just stuff so it shouldn't matter, and I knew what being Ethan's mom was going to be like long before I got the job, but still... anyway, I am moving on, I just got the kids to bed, and now I am going to bed myself. Maybe with a little sleep tomorrow won't be quite so "affle".