A Very Strange Day

I think there must have been something in the water or the air. Dh said the kids at school were difficult and I had my fair share of kids--and technology--being difficult today, too.

I woke up too early to start with. Came down around 5:30. Discovered the computer was off. Uh oh. That would mean the monitor might not come back on. Started up the computer and it just kept restarting and restarting, with some brief flashes of one screen that seemed to have options between restarts. So I up-arrowed and it stopped restarting, but the monitor kept turning itself on and off. I finally gave up trying to get it to work and just worked on preparing for the day. I had things I had wanted to print off but couldn't, so I felt out of sorts. [We eventually borrowed a monitor from the two oldest and will see if our monitor is perhaps still under warranty.]

Dd, despite having fallen asleep around 8 last night, was still sleeping at 7:40 this morning. She doesn't sleep that late, but she's been so tired and a bit sick, so I just left her. She finally got up at 8am. So that threw the day off a bit, too.

On to work time... The 12yo was very willing to work today, although did keep laying around on the floor (I still can't decide what to do about that--do I let him? Do I insist that he sit up because usually it means that he's not really paying attention and is certainly not looking at what he needs to be looking at? Is it that important how he's sitting? If he's not looking and he needs to look, then yes. What's the point of me sitting there 'working with him' if he's not working?) or just getting up and leaving. (It didn't help that the oldest was trying to finish up something that required a lot of my help.) It turned out to just be a very difficult day in general with him as he was constantly doing things that annoyed other people. One incident in particular left dd very unhappy, involving him tapping the back of her chair. She'd asked a few times and he had apparently said, I'm stopping, but still did it. Well, people don't want to know that you're stopping to annoy them, they want you stopped! He received many little lectures over the course of the day.

To boot, his sister was in a mood today and the two of them were having little sibling fights on and off from about 11am on. About being in their way, and the 12yo--who was in a "I need to touch everything" mood today--playfully kicking her and she got mad; but then she had her share of just nagging on him and I finally had to say to them, "You know what? If you two have such a need to argue with each other, do it at home. I don't want to be around it." I can't remember if they stopped. They stopped that argument, but it seems to me there were some other issues later. Then the oldest simply got hyper. Too much sugar, I kept teasing her. And it truly could have been. Or maybe it was just release.

My niece was super crabby this morning and flew into ear-piercing screaming tantrums at the drop of a hat.

I can't remember too much with ds, except for him constantly playing loud things around us and he and the 12yo playing with little hockey sticks and being noisy in the van. Dd was actually the only 'sane' one today. She got herself dressed, had breakfast, saw a book I had pulled out laying on the table and proceeded to reading nursery rhymes and folk tales for the next 40 minutes or so. Then she found a Star Wars colouring book and coloured for a good while. She was totally self-directed and calm and content. (She's now massaging my shoulders--don't I have a great dd?? :) Oh, she's gone now to go read Nancy Drew.)

We 'quit' school early and ran some errands, came back for lunch, then ran more errands. It was when we came back that the fully insanity of the two oldest came out. What a crazy bunch! They ended up putting notes on each other's backs about kick me and the oldest was laughing incessantly. Someone put a note on my back, I scratched out 'kick' and replaced it with 'hug'. Then the oldest took it off, scratched out 'hug' and replaced it with 'save', so it said "Save me". She then created a little sign for herself with "Hug me" on it and taped it to her mom when she arrived.

It was a very strange day.