Worse than normal atrocious.
It always begins with Terrorist #1. His birthday is on the 17th. I think he gets overwhelmed with the thought of so many presents in such a short time frame, and he just freaks out. EVERY. SINGLE. YEAR.
One year, it was so bad that we cancelled his birthday party.
He is obnoxious. He is bratty. He is rude. He tortures his siblings. He is everything dreadful.
He hasn't lost his party yet (scheduled for January), but there's still time.
This year, the other terrorists seem to have amplified their own appalling behavior more than usual in order to keep up with Terrorist #1.
#2 hates life. According to #2: everything is unfair, we hate her, and she never gets to do anything she wants to do. She is a teenager stuck in a tiny 8-year-old's body. God help me.
#3 is weepy. I don't know if he's just going through a growth spurt and needs some naps, but he screams and cries at every single little thing. I feel bad for him, I do, just not when he's screaming and crying. He's got my clumsiness and the basement is a mess. This means that he steps on a toy or stubs a toe about once an hour. When he got the black eye a couple weeks ago, I didn't even get out of my seat. I assumed that he had dirt on his face and he was crying about something little that #1 did to him, AGAIN. My husband actually got up to see what was wrong and saw that he really had a problem.
Oops.
I can't help it. He's The Boy Who Cried... that's it. Just The Boy Who Cried.
#4 is evil right now. Downright evil. Possessed. She speaks in tongues. She is demanding. She is violent. She'll hit me because I'm not giving her something she wants, and then hug me 10 seconds later. She is 22 months old and the Terrible Twos are in full effect - tantrums and all. Shoot me now, because I may not survive another year or two of this.
I see daycare in her future.
Mix all four terrorists together and you get one big police state. There's no other options. Everyone is on high alert, and punishments have increased from just time-outs to week-(or month-)long tablet suspensions. As I write this, #3 is trying to clean the ENTIRE basement to win back a week of tablet loss. After walking by and hitting either Terrorist #1 or #3 THREE TIMES yesterday, he lost games for a week.
Why was he hitting them? I have no idea. I'm pretty sure he has no idea why, either.
I also threatened to cancel Christmas yesterday. I was threatening to return a present or two before that, but now I'm onto the whole shebang. I could do it; I have the receipts. We haven't even decorated our tree yet because so much has been going on between puking, the hospital, and general holiday running-around. It wouldn't be that hard to just toss the tree out the front door and be done with it.
I've already visualized it. Their little terrorist faces on Christmas day... with the tree laying in the front yard and no presents or stockings to be seen... I'd act like it's just a normal day. Maybe I'd wake them up early like they had to go to school.
Ehh... yeah, I've thought too much about this.
The sad thing is that I really love Christmas.
I'm all talk. I don't think I could really cancel Christmas. I would feel guilty about it forever.
Sigh.
But, I WILL continue to threaten to do it (and maybe fantasize about it).
It's the most wonderful time of the year.
Say a prayer for me,
Kristin
