Mental Health Day

My dad's secretary finds it necessary to take "mental health" days. I decided she's on to something. The past few weeks have been nothing but the kids climbing over the fence, me responding badly to their behavior, the kids getting into the water, me responding badly to their behavior, the kids whining about how it was too hot to go outside, me responding badly to their behavior.

Then there was the small incident when I heard Miriam, who was standing outside the bathroom door, say, "Cowen, let me in quick. Mom will see me."

Unsettling.

I rushed over and found her covered in green paint from head to toe. I felt sick. I had two kinds of green paint downstairs--craft and house. Both bright lime. I told Miriam and Cowen to stay in the bathroom on pain of dismemberment and went downstairs. Miriam had pulled over my stepstools I use to exercise (okay, that was an exaggeration--the stepstools I would use to excercise if I ever exercised), unlocked the store room, and got into the craft paint. I almost cried in sheer relief. All the green paint smeared on the new carpet in Miriam's room came right up with soap and water. Hallelujah.

The days following the paint incident just reinforced my unstated feelings that I needed a break in a big way from certain little people. I, in fact, needed a mental health day. I called my mom-in-law who, bless her, agreed to take the little darlings for a WHOLE DAY!!!

Tomorrow, I am spending the morning at the library looking for books about insects for school (we can't handle summer vacation--too much free, unstructered time, I recently decided), then I am going to eat lunch with my hubby, then I am going to spend about four hours doing research on Emmeline B. Wells. Doesn't that sound FABULOUS!!

I'm so excited I can hardly contain myself. In fact, I decided since tomorrow I got a vacation, I should prep myself for the vacation by getting into vacation mode--so I let the kids watch TV all morning *gasp* and read a book called kira-kira. When Timothy came home for lunch today the children were crowded around the computer watching netflix and I was crying on the chair. It was a beautiful book. Ah.

And now? Where did I find the time away from my offspring to blog? Right--to continue prepping myself for vacation mode, I locked my children outside after they took two good cups outside and got into the water. Again. Blogging: the new prozac. Ha.