The Witching Hour

If you're a parent, you probably know the time of day I'm talking about. That's right, the dreaded 4:00 - 5:00 p.m. time slot when, no matter what kind of day you've been having, all bets are off and the kids are probably going to cease functioning rationally. I'm not sure why it's called "witching" hour, but I've been thinking of some more-appropriate, rhyming terms, like "fit-pitching" hour (for the kids) or "bitching" hour (for the moms) . . .

I do know, though, that it's a problem. It sure is hard to make dinner, for example, when someone is clinging to your leg, crying, "Put Jemma down!" only to knock Jemma over on purpose when you do. Also hard to play outside with the neighborhood kids when they're all simultaneously unable to take turns, share, talk nicely, or cooperate on the swing because they're all "bewitched."

Usually, Jason is still at work solidly through this special time of day. On weekends, when he's home, our family is often out and about doing something "really, really fun" like playing at a park or riding bikes, so he misses it then, too. Today, though, he had a staff meeting from 12:00 - 3:30, so he arrived home just as it was beginning. We had just come inside (not without a scene from Annie, who didn't want to stop playing on the slide even though my hands were freezing) and were in the middle of a meltdown about I-don't-remember. Jemma was clinging to my arm, in full finger-sucking mode, whimpering approximately every minute and a half for no apparent reason. Things degenerated from there, with Annie finally being sent to a time-out during which she screamed at the top of her lungs and beat on her door. It took both Jason and me to assemble the chicken enchiladas for dinner while running interference between the girls. At one point, he looked at me across the kitchen counter and said in a puzzled way, "Is it like this here every day?"

Well, not every minute of every day, but, yes, I think there's usually a good hour or so of chaos and drama every day, and it's usually right when I'm trying to unload the groceries or get dinner started. So, maybe now Jason will realize that it's a major achievement when I have a hot dinner on the table when he gets home. Or maybe he'll stop asking me, like he did last night, "What do you want to do later, when I get home from the gym around 9:00?" Do????

As for the witching hour, are there any solutions? And, if not, at what age will this end?