The Simple Life at Home

This has been one of those days that I'd like to get back into my bed and start all over. For some reason, both of my normally even-tempered kids have been having super-emotional days. Most of my day has been spent going from one to the other comforting them.

First they fought over a book Emily needed to read for school. Daniel was just kidding around by hiding it from her, but she over-reacted and jumped on him to grab it. Then he retaliated by sneaking up behind her and hurting her about 5 minutes later. This is UNHEARD of in this home and I disciplined him severely. Now they were both crying. Emily was crying from the pain of whatever he did to her (still not sure what it was) and Daniel was in tears for about an hour, initially from shame at being disciplined and then at true remorse for having hurt his sister.

Once that drama settled down, we began our schoolwork. Emily has decided she'd like to take a more independent route and do her studies on her own. I think that's a great idea, so we wrote out all her assignments for the day and she set to work. While I was working with Daniel, she asked me a few questions about her assignment - searching for answers to given questions about India in the encyclopedia. And suddenly, she burst into tears! She starts shouting about how she's so stressed out and she doesn't know what to do. I go over and she's trying to answer all the questions at once, plus she has her grammar sheet out and she's working on that at the same time! I explained to her about skimming the article, then going through the questions (they are in order with the encyclopedia article). She still was just sobbing about being under so much pressure. I don't know if it's a hormonal thing (I suspect it is), but it took me almost 45 minutes to calm her down.

Finally this afternoon, I figured some good outside activity would be good for them, I kicked them out to get in the pool. It's been so hot and they haven't wanted to leave the a/c, so they haven't been in all week. They aren't outside 2 minutes when I hear screams. Emily had tried to push Daniel in the pool but somehow he had slipped in vertically and scraped up his entire ribcage. So he's crying, she's feeling horrible - so it's another drama scene.

Add to all this that we are without a car this week, so we are all feeling a little cabin fever. I'm sure if I could pick them up and head to the library or the movies, we'd all feel a little better.

But that wouldn't be as fun and exciting, now, would it?