Hour 50 11:00 – 12:00 AM

Head home from church and things get a little dicey.    Brooke is in spontaneous combustion mode.  Someone looks at her wrong and she starts bawling.  Max sees my iPad and won’t leave me alone until I break it out for him.   Brooke starts bawling because she isn’t playing.  Jake takes off her boots, she starts bawling because I make her leave her tights on.  Brooke wants a drink and cries because it’s water.

Meanwhile Jake and Luke are screaming at each other upstairs – I learn from Luke that it was all because Jake stole his dime.  Yikes.   Time to feed these kids to get them ready for bed…I am hoping for a really long collective nap.

I make them pb&j and decide to pull out the secret weapon Corn Chips.  Brooke cries about that.   I cut up her sandwich first and put it on the table with some corn chips and her cup of water.  Max is yelling about the iPad not working…I go fix that and run back to make Max’s sandwich.  Brooke is no longer at the dinner table.  She has grabbed a bucket and filled it with corn chips to go out and watch Dora.  She is no longer crying and I no longer care.

I figure heck with it and I take Max’s plate and put it out by the TV too.

I am now blogging and eating corn chips because I don't care anymore…less than 5 hours until the boss gets back.  Sara originally said 4:00-ish

Brooke comes over 15 minutes later and screams at me for no apparent reason - so Dad decides it is bedtime for her.  She is tucked in.  Max is back in his comfy clothes and headed to bed.  The older boys are in separate rooms building legos weapons for a war.  I told them whomever I hear first making any sound loses automatically.  That ought to keep them running silent for 5 minutes.

I put Max in bed and he is still saying something through the crack under the door.  So I let him out figuring I'd forgotten to get one of his watches or something.  I tell him to run downstairs and get it.  He runs down, stops in the living room and laughs as he turns on the TV again.  I am such an amatuer.  He does find the watch though and is now locked in his room.

That's it - it is really 12:18 PM and I am hoping the next hour's post is only z's.