The One In Which Summer Comes To An Abrupt End

Technically,  there are 4 days of summer left.

But today, I called Summer 2013 finished.  Done.  Complete.  Concluded.  Over.  Terminated.

I am a firm believer in "too much of a good thing."  And that's what these last weeks of summer break are:  too much.  We've been to camp, we've done VBS, we've done the road trips.  We've visited family, we have good (enough) tans, and we've checked the main stuff off the bucket list.  In fact, all that's left on the bucket list are the things that I hastily wrote on there with good mom intentions.  Things like "Write a snail mail letter," "Do something nice for our mailman," and "Go to a farmer's market."  I know, I know--I was fighting a losing battle.

Today, the cowboys had their favorite neighbor-brothers over to play, making five little boys all together.  The problem started when my two oldest cowboys felt the need to show off for their friends, vying for wins against each other in  competitions such as Insult Hurling, Name Calling, and Steal-a-Wii-Turn. Their friends were probably overjoyed when their mom called for them to come home for lunch, and that was the unfortunate moment that The Cowboy Who Shall Remain Nameless made a very poor choice in the way he spoke to his father and myself, and he ended up washing my car (lovingly nicknamed The Bus).  At 12:02 in the afternoon. Yikes.

Once all the cowboys had been denied a trip to Sonic for lunch, and once again been forced to eat sandwiches (the horror!!!), I strongly suggested that we enjoy a screen-free afternoon.  "Screen time" applies to TV, video games, phones...anything fun.  I logged their complaints as usual and assured them that they could do it.

Little Middle and Baby decided to play Legos.  They had been upstairs maybe 10 minutes when they came back down.  One of them was crying and one of them had his arms crossed defiantly across his chest.  Apparently, one brother needed 5 specific Legos that were in the other brother's building, so he just took 'em out and made the whole building collapse.  This led to an argument about each individual Lego in the tub and who its rightful owner was.  Seriously?  We own approximately 2.4 zillion Legos.  So Little Middle says to me, "So what are you going to do about him, Mom?"

Before I could escape those two jokers, the big one comes in.  He is supposed to be reading a book, but LOOK!  While he was reading, he found the walkie talkies that have been missing.  "I'm just going to try them out, OK, Mom?"

Nooooooooooo................

I managed to wrangle the walkie talkies away and I declared a mandatory Quiet Rest Time for everyone.  We haven't had a formal QRT since 2008!  

Little Middle ended up falling asleep for a while.  I wish the other boys had too.  I think my Baby might have slept a little bit if he had stopped somersaulting for just a few minutes.  He's cute, but the constant movement can be irritating.  It didn't help that the doorbell rang about 14 times in a row.

By the time we were ready to go meet the new 2nd and 4th grade teachers, I wasn't feeling very rested or refreshed.  I was feeling sweaty and melty.  August in Texas is hot, no matter how you slice it.  So it would have been very nice indeed if the air conditioning to the elementary school had not been shut off just a few hours before Meet the Teacher began.  I imagine that heads will roll for that little shenanigan!

Attending MtT meant that I had to drop Goliath at his jiu jitsu class earlier than usual, which earned me quite a bit of complaining.  He would be bored, blah blah, he didn't want to watch the other class, blah blah blah, couldn't he walk down to Pet Smart, blah, blah, NO!  I ignored him most of the way to the gym, but before I smashed The Bus into the windows of the strip mall, I had to put a stop to his sassy mouth, which probably raised my blood pressure into the next universe.

Somehow, we all managed to get home not much worse for the wear.  Hubby was kind enough to make the dinner that I had on the menu for tonight:  Burger Sliders.  Well, Monster is having none of it.  He's not a fan of burgers.  Monster and I were hungry, so we settled on Toaster Strudels.  I don't think I've eaten Toaster Strudels in a year!  The strudels popped out of the toaster, I put them on a plate, and guess what?  There were no icing packets left in the box.  All gone.

I had to make my own icing.

That's it.  I love my kids with all my heart.  But really...settling arguments about Legos?  Quiet Rest Time?  Icing-less Toaster Strudels?  And I haven't even told you that it was a bad hair day, that Monster conquered Ambien again last night, or that the one thing I have volunteered for begins on the very first day of school.  This is all too much.  I will be a much happier mama, and thereby we will have a much happier family, when we aren't all together all the time.  Summer is over.  Starting NOW!