Ever have one of those days?

I'm having one of those days where I'm tired and annoyed and looking for any justification for locking all my kids in a room for the rest of the afternoon. I don't know about y'all, but it's days like these when I force myself to sit down and think hard of reasons I should see my children as precious Children of God instead of vicious little monsters.

Andrew: Andrew is testing my authority lately and showing a little more attitude than I think is normal and acceptable for a seven year old (I know, did I expect to raise perfect little angels that would be as sweet as infants forever?). But he redeems himself today because he can see how close I am to the end of my rope. He's always been really aware of the difference between mommy having a bad day and uh oh, mommy's about to go postal. So on days like today, he does everything he can to lighten my load. He gets Katie a snack when she's whining at me while I'm blogging (thanks Andrew), he agrees to play some dumb card game with Braden just to be nice, and he so sweetly cut out pizza hut coupons from the newspaper and says, "Look mom, now you don't have to worry about dinner. I think you'll like these."

Braden: Surprisingly, Braden's pretty easy. I just have to think of the little things he does to try to avoid disapproval. At lunch today, daddy gave him some soda - his favorite treat. A while later, I see him lying down on his tummy, practically under the table. Weird, I thought. But, as I was occupied with laundry (explanation later), I didn't think much of it. Anyway, when I was free again, I noticed he was still there and had fallen asleep. So I went to pick him up and move him to the couch when I find that his tummy is soaking wet and his shirt is kind of sticking to the floor. This is so funny. He had spilled his root beer on the floor and didn't want me to know it, so after he couldn't find anything to wipe it up with, he decided to use himself! Instead of being irked, I almost felt guilty. He must really think I'm a shrew to be afraid to ask me for a rag when he makes a mess. He is the strangest kid sometimes.

Katie: hmmm. Have you figured out by now that Kate is source of all sourness today? I don't know what crawled up her pants today, but seriously, is it normal to wish you could lock your child in the back yard for an hour? She's making me crazy. She's been a little whiny all day, so I was really looking forward to her nap after lunch. Never happened. She wouldn't do it and so now she's being worse than whiny, she's being horrible. By the way, let me tell you why she didn't take a nap today. So, I put her in bed a little late because I had to pick Andrew up at 1:15 from school. She cried for a few minutes like she usually does, then went quiet. Totally normal, right? Well, about twenty minutes later, I hear her yelling at me but the boys have the TV on so I don't know what she's saying. I let it go on for about ten or fifteen minutes thinking she'll get bored and go to sleep eventually. Didn't happen. So I go up to see what she's carrying on about. I sneak up to the door so I can figure out what she's yelling about without her knowing I'm there and I hear this: "Mama! Poo-poo! Dipuh!" Oh yay. I figured she just didn't want to sleep with a load in her pants. Oh, how I wish it had been that simple. I opened the door to find her stark naked. There are brownish-green smears all over her bedding. The diaper is on the floor, and it's empty. Ugh. So I have to get down on the floor to look closely for the stuff that was in the diaper. Why do I have to get so close to see it, you ask? Have you seen my carpet? Scroll down I'm sure there's a picture somewhere. Anyway, so I cleaned the mess, bathed princess poop, then we had a small battle of wills. I wanted to put her clothes on, she was happy without them. Katie is struggling with the idea that she's not really the one in charge. So, when these little battles break out, mommy has to count. When mommy gets to three and Katie still won't cooperate, Katie gets spanked. Well, Katie got spanked about four times before she was fully dressed. Here's where my heart breaks. The last spanking was kind of hard because she wasn't getting the point. She started to cry, and after I finished dressing her I was hugging her and holding her and talking to her about minding mommy when she looks up at me with her ginormous sad eyes and says, "Mommy nice! (pout)No count, Katie 'pankin!" Then the water-works started again. Poor thing. It didn't help that I was struggling not to laugh at her concentrated attempts at forming sentences. Okay, I love her. She may be a willful little stinker, but she's got her sweet side. Yesterday she was like a leech. Slightly annoying, but endearing at the same time. Anytime I sat down, she climbed up beside me and just sat there, content to lean on me. All day. She followed me everywhere, wouldn't play with her toys, didn't care about sesame street. She just wanted to be where I was, especially if I was sitting. She had to be on my lap or right beside me. Every five minutes or so, she'd climb up and give me a kiss. Alright, Alright, I'm there. Precious child of God.