We let Annie stay up late-ish last night to watch Olympics. She rewarded us by acting like a total brat all morning today. Literally nothing I said, did, threatened, or ignored was stopping that trainwreck. Jemma, for her part, ran around the house finding things she wanted, pointing at them, and saying, "Mine!" 452 times. So, in frustration, I decided to go with a strategy that my mom often recommends when I lament about how hard it is to entertain my children AND get things done. Namely, I ignored them and cleaned my house. I swiffered the floors, vacuumed all the carpeted rooms, cleaned the bathroom, sorted two loads of laundry, and even got out the Windex and cleaned mirrors and windows. I have to say, after an hour or so, I felt better. And they had sort of figured out that they could find something constructive and fun to play together in the meantime. Lesson learned? Ignore your children more during the day, especially when they're already being horrible. It just might let you get something done, and they just might turn the trainwreck around when they see you've given up.
Then, at 11:00, we went to the pool, where all was glorious and sunny and strawberry-smoothie-filled. Ahhh, summer. What will I do when you are over?
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