It's a Molson Night

It was a dark and stormy night in the Sawdon house. It began when the toddler woke up from her nap with an attitude that rivaled her older sister's. In fact...I think she had her older sister scared.

"Irelynn, did you have a good nap?"

The toddler whirled around and glared at her sister.

"Um...ok then..."

It all seemed to go down hill from there. I was making a Hamburger Helper meal...mainly because I couldn't justify eating pizza for the third time in the past week. Jaylond was making a sound that he called "beatboxing," but sounded more like an angry duck with bad flatulence. The older girl was repeatedly telling him to "stop." The toddler was on a mission to take out her anger on every living thing in the house. I hear the CD player in her room switch songs. She was at the table glaring at Jaylond, so I went to her room to see what was up.

Owen was standing on his toes, reaching up and hitting the skip button on the player. He found a song he liked and started bouncing up and down. I scoop him up to take him out of the room, and he loudly expressed his displeasure...which only encouraged Jaylond's noise session to increase in volume as well.

Connor...where was Connor? I head back into the kitchen to find him scooping scraps of food out of the garbage can...and eating it. Well...there's a nice story for them in a few years...while Owen is mastering his technical skills, his brother is eating out of the garbage. Nice. For the record: I do feed my children. Honest.

Dinner is ready, Bruce is home, and I crack open a beer. We sit down at the table, and our toddler quickly informs us that she does not like what we are about to eat. Now, just telling us this was apparently not good enough. She had to circle the table and whine...and repeatedly tell us that we ate this just yesterday and she did not like it.

"Irelynn...we did not eat this yesterday."

"I know. But I don't like it!!"

Owen was grabbing handfuls of meat and sauce and tossing it on the floor. Connor was taking his spoon and smearing it all over the table with all the concentration of a brooding artist. Irelynn circled behind them and came to me to tell me, once more, that she did not like what we were having. It was then that Connor decided that she would make a nice canvas, as well.

I thought Jaylond's flatulant duck was bad. The scream that came out of the toddler's mouth as food hit her head made me fear for the glass bottle sitting in front of me. No...not the beer...please, not the beer...

When the toddler came to her senses and moved out of the range of our little abstract artist, she circled back around the table only to discover that the older girl had taken the cup that she had wanted. As we witnessed yet another meltdown, we also happened to notice that the older girl, having put strawberry syrup into her milk, did not bother to get a spoon to stir it. Instead, she shook her cup in a circular motion, thus splattering pink milk onto the table.

Owen growled. Connor screeched. The older two argued. Irelynn continued to demonstrate just how healthy her lungs are.

The rest of the night is a bit of a blur. My husband let me take a shower. I'm not sure how long I was in there...but I did run out of hot water. I was beginning to imagine how long I could survive locked in the bathroom if we stocked a mini-fridge full of beer in there. The children are now finally in bed, and I have cracked open another Molson. It's a good thing we bought the case at Sam's Club.