Doggone Days of Summer...

Monday: The boys fought, bickered and argued until I nearly fell off the cliff of sanity I was dangling by a thread on.  Banned them from the t.v., the XBox, the computer and phone indefinitely and sent them to their rooms for a really long time.  


Tuesday: Absolutely had to get out of the house so although it was 98 degrees outside and they had acted like tyrants just the day before, I loaded those two up in the car and headed to the nearest  HomeGoods which is a good 45 minutes away.

And the whole way there I kept telling myself that either the heat was getting to me bad or that I had finally lost my mind completely. But to know me is to know that once I get my mind set on something I get a little obsessive about it and cannot rest until I get it done.  And that thing is currently a new mirror to hang over a dresser in our bedroom that I just recently painted that lovely shade of aqua smoke.    

I didn't find the mirror but I have to say behaviors were greatly improved.  All I had to do was look at them and say something like, "You don't ever want that XBox back do you?" and they'd straighten right up!   We even went to Wally World to buy groceries afterwards.  I must have been feeling especially brave and powerful.
  
Wednesday: Due to the extreme heat index outside and the loss of all things electronic, and much to my great delight and astonishment, they began to play a civil game of Yahtzee at the kitchen table and nobody threw a single punch. 
Ahhh....things were looking up.  So I allowed them use of the big t.v. as long as they were able to continue to agree on what to watch which mostly turned out to be American Pickers and that Pawn Shop show. Whatever happened to Looney Tunes?    


Thursday: Due to boredom Dracen dumped out my basket of doggie  clothes and proceeded to have a fashion show with the Darling Wieners.  He'd disappear into the sunroom with the confiscated wiener dog, shut both sets of french doors in an overly dramatic fashion and reappear with a donned out Dachsie.   

It was cute but due to lack of enthusiasm and several looks of mortification and disgust from the Darlings, I had to put a halt to the wiener dog runway.  
I asked them to go outside and check for ripe blackberries behind the fence.  They came back within five minutes to inform me that we have no ripe and luscious berries to speak of. 


Devin then tried to talk Dracen into going outside to throw some baseballs but he said he was much too relaxed in the house to go out into the heat.  And when he pointed out that I wasn't going outside, I informed him that I played outside all day most every day when I was growing up.  


So they went outside for all of 15 minutes and came back inside with the mail that they'd apparently been fighting over who was going to get out of the mailbox.  There was much debate and whining over who did and said what so I put them in their rooms until further notice and turned off Pawn Stars.  


Morales were greatly improved upon their return to the living room and they actually played nicely outside for awhile last night without any encouragment or force.  


Friday:  Just got a call from my dad aka Pawpaw Paul informing me that he is on his way up from Georgia for their birthdays which are this Sunday and Monday. 


The Darlings will be thrilled to have someone new in the house to avert the Dracenator's attention...  


Ah, a day in the life...