It's Opposite Day-This Is Going To Be Terrible!

My kids have this habit of walking to the cliff's edge of discipline and then turning their nasty little attitudes into a game-Opposite Day. Over time, they've developed this keen sense for when it's just about time to commence play, before hell's fury rains down on their little heads. Here's a typical exchange: "Hey Evan, it's Opposite Day. You're not stupid." "Hey Ella, it's Opposite Day. You're skinny and beautiful.", and so on, and so forth, until they either run out of gas, or we begin to interject our version of the game, and it immediately becomes uninteresting and lame. So today, in celebration of their mischievous minds, I've decided to write my entry in this fashion. Of course there's always an outside chance this could be awful. See? This is going to be easy. Oops, I did it again...

Our two older kids started back to school last Friday and I was so sad to see them go. The summers go way too fast and we had so much more we wanted to do. At least we were able to take a relaxing vacation with the entire family. It was sheer joy riding in the "man van" for 10 1/2 hours with four kids, ten years old or younger. They were so incredibly well behaved, you could not possibly imagine. They sat quietly for the entire trip, watching their movies, never once complaining of boredom, or wanting to decapitate a sibling. They refused to stop every two hours for bathroom breaks, and never once uttered the words hunger, or McDonald's. Upon arriving at our destination, they co-existed seamlessly, and without incident, for the duration of our stay and not once were they disruptive in public. All-in-all I would have to say this was one of our more proud experiences as parents. And camps? Our eldest son and daughter were both of the opinion that they were the worst..weeks..e-v-e-r.

On several occasions, to break up the sheer monotony of the days, we decided to venture out into the casual dining arena. We typically operated under the guise of some reward for previous displays of awesome social awareness and functionality, or merely to show the general public the fun, drama-free nature of our daily lives. Much to our delight, no drinks were ever spilled in the first five minutes of our visit, no one had to be called over to 'Bissell' up the remnants of a broken plate, our 18-month-old angel never chucked a peanut at the head of another patron in a "high-class" steakhouse and never, at any time, did a waiter at this same fine establishment, scare the life out of this aforementioned child, screaming, and clapping, and banging out his version of 'Happy Birthday', to some poor 82-years-young gentleman, who quite possibly wished he would be around for countless more years, to experience such joyful noises emanating from future gaggles of apron clad, independently wealthy, entrepreneurs. Now THAT'S a run-on sentence.

Today? Today's not much better. It's cloudy, cold and downright miserable outside. The kids are so subdued and needy, and the baby is sitting alone, quietly and calm, moving every once again, I can only assume, to assure me he's still breathing. There's absolutely no life in this house. If only they could venture outside to play for the day. In fact, glancing around, the atmosphere is a bit unsettling. The dogs aren't barking every two seconds when the door slams, from some young individual running in and out, repeatedly, to get water, or a snack, or use the restroom, or change their clothes from using the restroom; and the house, it's so...clean. Yes, it's days like this that make me wonder why I ever decided to do this; why we ever thought we could handle being parents and subjecting our lives to decades of torture and madness. I can only assume we had some momentary lapse of reason, on some day we called Opposite Day. If there is any certainty in all of this, it's that if we were to do it all again, we would change everything. We would erase all of the memories, experiences, triumphs and heartaches, and trade it all for a world of nothing...in a heartbeat. 

Now, wouldn't that be 'stupid'? Oh, did i mention it's not Opposite Day anymore?

Until tomorrow,

Scott