They never stop

Have I mentioned before my kids are driving me nuts?

Today the three little terds got into my purse while I was on the phone. I heard laughing and some screaming and then, rip and more ripping so I run to find them with my purse up-side-down, everything out and they are ripping up paper that was inside it. Not only that they got into the maxi-pads in there and ripped them open and Andrew had one smacked across his face, not sure why unless it was to hopefully mute his laughing.

They love to get on top of our table and stand up and swing the light fixture above their heads. All three today snuck up there and I could hear Madelyn saying "Weeeeeeeeeeee".

Andrew has claimed the play fork and spoons from the new kitchen as his and only his. Madelyn yanks them from his hands and Andrew throws himself backwards and you'd think he was in horrible pain. Yesterday the two were fighting over these so much there were injuries. Andrew ended up with scrapes beside his eye, down his cheek and near his mouth.

Nate has claimed the puzzles as his. He gets ticked off when Andrew and Madelyn can't put the puzzle pieces in the right spots or one of them takes off with the wooden board the pieces goes in. He chases them down on his hands and knees screaming and wraps his arms around them to tackle them until he gets what he wants.

Eating is always a competition here. I can split up snacks into three bowls and they steal out of their siblings bowl if they finish first or they think the other has something they want. When I put it all in one bowl to share, both hands of each are in it digging and shoving food in their mouths as fast as they can. Today I tried to share a bowl of popcorn with them. I'm pretty sure they ate more than I did individually. Makes me wonder if they are always going to compete with each other.

On the bright side, we've found one form of discipline that works with Madelyn. I started picking her up and putting her in a corner somewhere in the house when she would go into her crying spells or get into trouble and make her stay until she was done crying or I said "Are you okay now?" and she would look at me and knod. Now we can ask her when she starts up "Do you need to go to the corner?" and she knods and walks herself over and sits down until she is done with her crying fit. Love it! Wish this worked with the boys.

As for us, we finally have another showing on our house tonight. I'm working on cleaning but after I saw some homes this past weekend, I realized people don't go to the extreme like I was trying to with my house. One house had dirty dishes in the kitchen, most were not vacuumed, and several had lots of clutter. It's so true also about what the shows on TV that talk about selling homes like "Sell This House" say about neutralizing, one home I saw had wallpaper in every room. It was awful. Nice house but I can't imagine going in ripping down every wall, patching it and painting. Agh! I really hope soon someone offers to buy our home b/c I want to settle back in, not care if the kids make disasters every day, and I know Tony wants to sleep later than 5am every morning. Back to cleaning....