Can't win for losing

Some days, like yesterday, I sit at my desk all day and I can't concentrate. I wonder what my kids are doing. I wish I were with them. I wish I could read a book or play a game with Joseph. I wish I could throw the ball in the yard with Charlie. I wish I had more time to spend with Will and Helen, and that maybe if I had that time they would know as many letters, numbers, shapes, etc. as Charlie and Joe did at that age.

Then Cort calls and tells me he can pick up the boys at school so I can stay at work, and I know I should be grateful for the extra time to get things done (which I desperately need), but again I can't concentrate because I wonder what the boys and Cort are doing, how their day went, what they have for homework.

Then I get home. Dinner's ready, how nice. Should be a great evening.

But then three of the four kids SCREAM at dinner. Will screams because he doesn't want the chicken I cut up for him but wants to "Do it myself" (like most two-year-olds, he is neither allowed to use a knife nor capable of cutting up meat himself). Helen screams because she wants to GET the chicken by herself, by crawling on TOP of the table, and I won't let her. Joseph screams because everyone else is screaming, he doesn't like it, and all the screaming "makes" him fall onto the floor where he rolls around under the table with his hands on his ears, screaming. Both Will and Joseph end up in time out. I spend dinner time cutting up chicken, serving vegetables (including separating the desirable vegetables from the undesirable ones -- and which is which varies for each kid), refilling four cups of milk (never at the same time), cleaning up spills, disposing of seeds found in the oranges, and promising an insistent Joseph that I won't actually throw the seeds away but we can instead plant them and grow an orange tree.

After that, everything is kind of a blur.

I remember Joseph ripping down our chore chart and me blowing my top at him.

I remember sending the boys upstairs for a bath but then not being able to convince Will and Helen to leave the dinner table, even though they weren't really eating, and the boys whining that I wasn't upstairs yet.

I remember the boys taking up space in the bathtub so that there was no room for Will and Helen, which made Will and Helen mad. I remember telling Joseph three times to sit up in the tub and make room, then yelling at him. Which I sort of had to do because by this time Will and Helen were screaming. Again.

I remember Will crying because he wanted to do something else himself, but having no idea what that even was.

I remember at least three, if not four, kids crying when they got out of the bathtub.

I remember Helen refusing to get dressed and making four (fruitless but looonnng) trips to the potty. I remember chasing her around naked (she's fast) and struggling hard (she's also strong) to hold her down to put her pajamas on. While she screamed.

I remember Cort blowing his top and taking every single book out of Charlie and Joseph's room as punishment, and Charlie crying, crying, and crying over it.

I remember more crying from Will and Helen, but I don't remember why.

I remember making Charlie go to bed early, and his crying over that, over the book we read, over the fact that Joseph was playing with Will and Helen and he wasn't, and over just about everything for at least half an hour before bedtime.

I remember Joseph getting mad because he did not want the breakfast planned for this morning (a breakfast that is usually one of his favorites).

I remember whining. I remember screaming. I remember crying. I remember more whining, screaming, and crying. I remember both Cort and I yelling. Lots.

I remember thinking that I didn't know why, when I was at work yesterday, I ever wanted to come home to these kids.

But it's kind of like childbirth, I guess. I'm back at work this morning. And I can't wait to see them again.