I should have known there was trouble when I woke to the youngest bellyaching about the TV in the living room not working. We suggested that she go and use the one in the family room, but she whined and insisted that she NEEDED the TV in the living room (which was strange - because she almost always parks herself among the blankets on the couch in the basement and enjoys the bigger screen TV). That 'disaster' was quickly fixed and she was happily watching TV, but within minutes it became crystal clear why she wanted the living room TV . . . she knew that her brother had a game on the Wii that he wanted to finish this morning, and of course it is THAT TV that the Wii is attached to. Yes folks . . . she IS the pain in the arse little sister that we all hear about. In fact, if you were to look up Pain in the Arse little sister in the dictionary, it'd show Banshee's name and picture (At the same time, if you looked up aggravation, it would show Imp's picture and hame, and if you looked up hormonal, well, it would have Teens picture and name). That of course got Imp up in arms, which caused a HUGE argument between them, which ended with Banshee running out of the room yelling "I'm telling" - while I simultaneously hollered out "You don't need to tell - I can hear it!". That of course woke the sleeping, hormonal teen - who slammed her door closed and attempted to head back to bed, but the fighting between the younger ones was constant, and as Mom, I was trying to go about my business of gathering laundry and tidying things up, so was in and out the door, so she finally just got her miserable self up - which means she walked down into the kitchen to retrieve her electronics (I'm a mean parent because I make her put all her electronics on the counter overnight - which causes daily arguments) and parked herself in her bed while she did whatever teens do on the computer. She was already in a bad mood because after losing her cell phone on a ride at Wonderland (for real - she put a phone in her shallow little pocket while she rode the Behemoth - what did she expect to happen?!) I refuse to pay to upgrade her phone 'early' or to rent a loaner phone - so she's about to do without a phone for a month. Apparently that's a big deal for a teenaged girl. Funny . . . her losing her phone was a big deal for a mother. Unfortunately for her, I'm the boss - and I say no, and because of that, she's kinda-sorta pissed about it.
I figured that yesterday I more than made up for the fact that I refuse to pay the extra for her phone when I sat like a crazed fan and got tickets for the Justin Bieber concert in December. I poured my heart and soul into getting these tickets (I knew how bad she wanted them), and in the end had MAJOR success: Floor seats. I can assure you, they weren't cheap, but I was super excited about it, and likewise, so was she. BUT . . . in true self-centred, teenaged girl style, it's never enough. She came home from a friends house asking if I'd give her money for a manicure and pedicure - she's going on a 'girls' day with her friend for her birthday in the upcoming days (which is great - I think it's a nice idea - but the timing of her request wasn't very good. That's a "thing" with Teen - her timing. She definitely needs to work on that one). I told her that we'd talk about it later. She didn't like that. It made her grumpy. Obviously she didn't sleep off the grumpy because she was super foul, rude and nasty to everyone this morning. Apparently we were too loud for her tastes - you know - because she is never loud with her crazy teeny-boppy music (I'd like to point out that her Justin Bieber and One Direction tunes make me want to poke my eyes out - I can't stand it!!!). She was nasty to her sister, which in turn set Banshee off, which in turn set Imp off, which in turn set ME off, which sets my other half off. You get the picture.
And by that time, it was only 8:00am.
The fighting, the chirping, the raised voices, the aggravating, the irritating, the crying, the whining - and the bloody phone ringing (one HUGE disadvantage to Teen not having her phone is the increased land-line use - Good Lord!!) all continue. Everything is a battle. No one agrees to anything without a fight. My other half forces Imp to get dressed and head to the building centre with him - I think my teetering on the edge made him realize that it would be damn good time for him to fix the holes in the garage wall - the ones he said he'd fix about 2 months ago - but didn't. He came home with all the supplies - plus he bought Imp a piece of wood to hammer away at just for fun (which acutally created one of the only pockets of humour in my day: when Imp arrived home, he came barrelling into the house to retrieve his toolbox. He excitedly hollers out to his sister "Come on out, Banshee! You can use some of my tools and play with my wood!". I can't decide what I'm most horror-struck about: His choice of words and my obvious mind-in-the-gutter mentality, or the fact that my young daughter replies, "Can I screw it?"). But within seconds it's clear that Imp isn't willing to really let his sister play with his wood - and that sets her off in a tizzy because Daddy didn't buy her "a wood" either. Yeah. Imagine how THAT argument sounded to the neighbours as she raged about that with words and phrases such as 'wood', 'power tools', "It's not fair that Imp has wood and I don't", and "I like to screw wood too". I quickly made my retreat into the house when Imp asked "Daddy; instead of putting your little wood in the hole, can I put my BIG wood in?". Yeah, I let him deal with that one. Sometimes it's a good thing that Daddy can't hear so well. Either that, or he just deliberately chose to ignore him. In the end they made a teeter-totter out of the wood - which was actually quite crafty - so both can play with it, but you can well imagine the battles that can ensue from that - and it did. ALL. DAY. LONG.
By noon - I'm COMPLETELY exhausted. By 1:00, the headache starts. I try to lie down, but the only thing worse than fighting, arguing, crying, whining and tattling family members, is unsupervised fighting, arguing, crying, whining and tattling family members. As the day painfully dragged on (seriously - this was THE slowest day in history!), I managed to putter around the house, and in the end, the hormonally challenged Teen wound up heading to her friends house (which created a new 'rant' for her siblings - because THEY didn't get to go to a friends house, or moreover, couldn't have friends over here (there was no way in hell I was about to add other peoples kids to my hell yesterday). I was going to head to my refuge, Walmart, all on my own, and knowing where I live and that tourist season is in full-swing now, you KNOW that I'm desperate even to THINK about going to Walmart, let alone actually going. But when I mentioned it, my other half looked desperate as his eyes pleaded with me NOT to leave him alone at the house, so against better judgement, I forced the remaining masses into the van and we headed
Finally, we arrived home and dealt with dinner. It was clear that everyone needed to go bed to on time (typically we allow a little later on weekends and such). Banshee always creates stress at bedtime with all her stall tactics, and as usual, she did not let us down. After 45 mins of stalling, we ALMOST had her to bed. My other half was just giving her the nighttime meds, and that would be the end of it. Except it wasn't. I had parked myself in the bathroom (I had some offensive to my gut food for dinner so was there for the long haul as I entirely cleared my colon- yeah I know, too much information), and Banshee comes to the door asking how long I was going to be. I directed her to the other toilet that was vacant. She said she'd wait. Within seconds I hear her start to scramble down the stairs and then I hear a TERRIBLE sound (which made me hold my breath with fear and anticipation), and then she declares, quite matter of factly actually, "I think I just pooped my jammies".
And indeed she did.
She sharted. A huge, colon-blow sized shart. I'll leave out the graphic nature of it, but suffice it to say, it was the icing (dark chocolate at that) on the cake. Imp, being the smart creature he is, went to bed without being told - he did NOT want to be involved with any of that. FINALLY - we got Banshee and the floors and the shower and her jammies all dealt with, and sent her into bed. Except I'd forgotten to put her clean sheets back on her bed. Fixed that and got her into bed and she started to cry, worried that she might need to shart again and that it might be hard to get out of her bed quickly enough. We had a flash of the disaster that could ensue from a shart similar to what we just dealt with - except way up on a loft bed, and quickly sent her into her sisters bed to sleep.
I figured we FINALLY were done for the day, and walked down, exasperated, to sit on the couch to regroup. The second I collapsed on the couch a little voice chirps out about closing the blind. For real?! We were JUST in there. In one last controlled effort, my other half stormed up the stairs in silence, pulled the blind and stormed back down. She started to say something again, but her wise brother called out and interrupted her, telling her that maybe she should just be quiet. I called up and told both of them that I didn't want either of them up before 7:30 this morning.
And they listened.
Right on the nose at 7:30 this morning, Banshee's feet hit the floor. BUT . . . I know today is going to be better already. How do I know? Because she came down here to the family room to watch TV (as normal), and I feel recharged after a reasonably good night sleep. Except, Teen DID sleep over at her friends house for the night, and that ALWAYS makes for a good time the day after. What's better than a hormonally challenged teenaged girl? Why a tired, hormonally challenged teenaged girl, of course!!!
Let the good times keep rollin'.
Edit: I'd like to point out that last night was NOT sponsored by any sort of alcohol. While we both could have easily downed a few bottles of something to numb the day, we didn't. I guess we just weren't in the mood for the cloudy-headed feeling; in some warped way, I guess we wanted to wallow in the crappiness (literally) of the day and face it head on. We're crazy like that.
Welcome to "my-not-so-sane-life".
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