Parenting

Right now, parenting sucks. Today was one of the hardest days I've had with the kids in a long time. I'm not sure what was so different except that Britney is gone to some sprint car races in Iowa for the next several days and his mom left yesterday after a long visit. I don't know if the kids were just overly tired or not sure how to handle all of the sudden changes. Here's a quick rundown of just a few of the arguments I faced today, and I'm ashamed to say that I didn't always act like the mature adult I am :)

Carter asked for Cheetos for breakfast. That should've been a sign of the day to come. I said no, which was not the answer he wanted. But, I stuck to my guns and he had a slightly more nutritious breakfast of cheese toast.

I was planning to paint some old school desks I got for the kids at the Spittles' yard sale. The kids wanted to help, so I thought I would give it a try. It was just a can of spray paint, after all. WRONG! Ashlyn liked to hold the can about 2" from her desk and spray a steady stream for a good 30 seconds. You can't even begin to imagine how much paint I had to wipe off that desk! After an argument with her, which I'm sure ended with her feeling like a total failure, we compromised and I did the desk and she did the seat. Unfortunately we ran out of paint before we got 2 coats on the seat...

Tonight was the first night of the Nobles County Fair, and in my eternal optimism, I figured that if I took the kids out of the house, maybe our day would improve. At first, it seemed that I was once again, a genius! Happy kids, nice kids, kids who were thinking of others first! Oh, but wait, I only spent $23 on tickets, which was enough for them to each ride 4 rides. All was going fine, until Ashlyn told Carter he wouldn't want to ride one of the rides she wanted to ride, even though he wanted to ride. Because she is the all-knowing big sister, he conceded that he didn't want to ride, which made her happy, until she found out that I couldn't leave him standing all by himself while I rode with her and she would have to ride by herself. Needless to say, she was not a happy camper with that information.

And finally, when I told Carter to pick his last ride, he picked a little motorcycle ride - for the second time. Ashlyn didn't want to ride, so he rode by himself. Then it was Ashlyn's turn to pick her last ride. She picked the swings. Carter didn't understand why we didn't have more tickets for him to ride in the blue swing. So, all of Ashlyn's ride, I was holding a screaming 3 year old, pitching the fit of his life.

Oh yeah and let's not forget Ashlyn and Carter fighting over who would carry the bottle of water and then screaming "I want to go home!" while I was trying to get some information from one of the vendors at the fair.

After the kids went to bed, I made a kindness chart for both of them with some Bible verses on it and character traits that we need to work on. I hope that it will remind me too so that we don't have many more days like today!