It was a disastrophe of a day

Or, somehow the plot was lost.

photo credit: Tambako the Jaguar

My oldest son came up with the word disastrophe out of the blue one day when he was about four and I’ve been quite taken with it ever since. Sometimes things aren’t really disasters or catastrophes but they need a big word to describe just how awful they feel and disastrophe fits the bill quite nicely.

You’ve probably already seen the site Shit My Kids Ruined where people submit photos of things that their children have destroyed, mangled, begrimed, fouled, mutilated and otherwise ravaged. It’s nice as these sorts of sites go but why look on the internet for things I can see in my own house, you know?

There’s probably thousands of folks every day that flip through SMKR and tsk tsk to themselves and ask “Why isn’t anyone watching these kids? Why aren’t they teaching them some respect?” You probably think these are people without children, but I find that it’s a crap shoot, some people who hate children and avoid them at all costs can be surprisingly sympathetic while there are iron fisted mothers of 8 whose children never dared dream of opening the fridge without asking.

I used to be one of those parents, my oldest son was remarkably placid and good natured. You told him to sit somewhere, he sat and waited patiently. You told him not to touch something and it was as good as invisible to him. He also taught himself to read at about 3.5 years old, so it became our habit to spend the afternoons together on the sofa, each with our book, enjoying our me time, then I’d get up and make some homemade bread or corn some beef or something while he’d sit on the counter and chat nicely with me.

Firm but loving boundaries, that was the ticket. Or at least what I told anyone that asked. I was smug. Oh yes, I was.

Then number two came along and he was a little bit more of a handful but we managed.

Number three brought quite the temper into the mix.

Number four was somehow born thinking he was the emperor of the universe and has this sort of way of getting exactly what he wants leaving everyone in his path confused as to how he managed to do it.

And then five is what you’d call spirited. It’s okay though because anything he breaks, he will surely fix it with his tools, if only we’d let him use the power drill and sledge hammer.

Don’t get me wrong though, things are usually more or less in control and I only find myself cleaning one major disastrophe a day.

But today, today was completely beyond anything I have ever experienced. I don’t know what was going on in their minds today. I don’t know why I couldn’t wrestle back control. If they interviewed me on the Today show I’d be all “Uh, well you see, uh, in these uh, situations, with the unpredictability the paradigm, uh sometimes the models um, uh, can’t predict but uh, we’ll know more about this uh, after the uh, full investigation, uh DidntyourwifekickyourasstothecurbMattLauerletstalkaboutthat hmmmm hmmm hmmm?!?”

It started with your standard sneak to the fridge while mom is answering emails and pour half and half down the floor register. I had to take that off and take it outside to hose it off and get everything out of the flappy things. Since it’s a very old register and decorative and probably expensive to replace and I couldn’t dry it all the way with a towel because my hands wouldn’t fit all the way in, I left it outside to dry completely in the sun.

Then the rest of the morning was okay but then the afternoon. My word, the afternoon.

I’d put on Team Umizoomi so that I could get things straightened out and maybe start some dough to make pita bread later that afternoon. Suddenly, I smelled coffee. He’d poured almost an entire can down the still open register. So I bent down to try and clean up as much of it as possible but the air kept blowing the grounds up into my eyes and decided to just wait until my husband got home and let him do it with the shop vac.

1. I know now that I could have just turned the air conditioner off but I don’t think well under pressure. Also, I don’t like being hot.
2. Don’t ask why our vacuum cleaner doesn’t work. We opted not to buy a new one since we only have one small rug in the house.
3. I didn’t go down to the basement to get the shop vac because I know that little monkey would lock me down there in a heart beat and eat all the good granola bars and giggle at my pleas to be set free from the dampness and the mutant crickets and the ominous hum of the water heater.

Then I go upstairs to get them some clean clothes to wear and brush my teeth and use the bathroom to get ready so that we can pick up their older brother from school and come down to find:

• An entire box of baking soda that was in the freezer scattered around and in another floor register.
• Red streaks up and down an entire 8 foot wide section of wall, up to the ceiling molding (our ceilings are pretty high, maybe 12 feet). We’re still not sure what happened, but we suspect somebody jumped on a not-frozen freezer pop and make it explode.
• The entire contents of my purse scattered here there and everywhere.
• The kids taking running leaps to jump over the still wide open floor vent and laughing maniacally.

At this point, we’re going to be late to get my son from school and nothing seems like it will explode so I quickly scoop up what I can of my purse contents, slap some socks on the kids and strap them, screaming and wriggling, into their car seats.

Of course, they fall asleep in the car so rather than wake them right away, I go through the Taco Bell drive through and get a cherry limeade and frozen slushy drink for us all to share. That turned out to be a big mistake.

We get home and I divide up the drinks into cups and sit down to try and get one little semi-urgent email answered while they are having their beverages and then clean up the huge mess.

My second big mistake, I think.

Because that’s when all hell broke loose. I don’t even remember what happened but it was like Lord of the Flies except with one very easily intimidated grown up on the island. There was screaming and fighting and running around me in a circle and drinks spilled and shoes and socks and underwear thrown all over, so I decided to send everyone upstairs so I could blitz the downstairs and then make dinner.

My third big mistake.

For as I was sweeping and putting things away and washing dishes they were systematically trashing the upstairs.

And that’s when I started crying.

And that’s how my husband found me.

And you know, I feel kind of sheepish admitting this but at the same time, I think all those people who ask me how I do it all should know that while most of the time I can keep it all together and have things running more or less smoothly, other times I’m crying into a sink full of dishes, thinking about how nobody ever makes me a sandwich and wondering what on earth is wrong with me that nobody ever thinks I might want a sandwich.

But don’t worry, the baby has reassured me that as soon as he gets big enough he’s going to buy a truck and go out and buy me some more coffee and the other kids have agreed that tomorrow is a new day and we’ll all have another chance then and right now everyone is asleep except for my husband who did indeed clean out all the floor vents and put them all to bed, which is where I’m going now because I do think our chances of avoiding disatrophe will be greatly increased if I am well rested.