Wanted: One padded room

I almost went to the gym this morning.

Almost.

My gym bag was packed, my alarm was set, I was all for it.


Last night.

But then I woke up this morning with the same headache that I went to bed with and so I pulled up the feather blanket and rolled over and closed my eyes.  I'll try again tomorrow.

It's kind of a pain in the butt to be healthy, you know?  It's not that I don't like it, or that I don't love how I feel when I'm working out regularly and eating properly.  But sometimes it's just exhausting mentally.  I'm tired of putting so much thought into everything and not getting the results I want.  Or really any results at all.  So I give up.  At least for today.

And also all last week because it was fall break and I had a lot of apples to bake into desserts.

Speaking of fall break, I don't like it.  We are not the 'go on vacation for fall break' type of people, mainly because we prefer to spend what extra money we have on things like 'fixing the car' and 'food.'

My children are incredibly deprived.

I do not actually believe that.  I think it's a bit ridiculous to be expected to go somewhere and do things for every time the kids are off of school for more than one day.  Of course, that means the kids were home all week and bored.  My husband was off for most of the week and I was off Monday and Friday and part of Thursday and we all were ready to separate by the end of it.  My mom did take the kids to the movies and the park on Wednesday, so at least they got out of the house.  And Chris took Sebastian fishing on Thursday while Adele and I stayed home and she got pissed because her Duplo tower fell down so she threw a block at me and bruised my hand that I held up in self defense.

Girl's got a temper.

And then on Sunday night I realized that Sebastian didn't have school on Monday either because of teacher in service or something so basically I cried myself to sleep thinking about all the peace and alone time I wasn't going to have.

I am in a funk.  Can you tell?  Also I maybe need to go get some more coffee.

I am strongly in the "let the children learn to play by themselves" camp.  But my children don't seem to know how to do that unless it involves a screen.  I'm okay with television.  I happen to love television.  They will eventually go play when denied television, but not before spending an inordinate amount of time laying in the floor at my feet whining about how horrible I am for not letting them watch another hour of Pokemon or Barbie's Dreamhouse.  I am the worst, obviously.

(Have any of you actually seen Barbie's Dreamhouse?  It makes me sad and also want to punch the creators.)

So I have to use my mean voice, which is pretty much my all-the-time voice now, and banish them to their rooms because NOBODY LIKES A WHINER.  Does anybody have any tips for getting them to play by themselves?  Or maybe together?  Because "together" is a whole other issue.  My daughter thinks 'playing together' means she tears up whatever her brother is touching, then throws the toys at his head.  Understandably, whenever she gets close to his toys now he yells at her to leave him alone.  I've attempted to play with them and guide them, but as soon as I stand up to run to the bathroom or refill my coffee cup someone gets a Lego to the eye.

What am I supposed to do with that?  How do you foster good sibling relationships?  I'm thinking of locking them in a padded room for a day and see what happens.  They'd come out hating me, but at least they would hate me TOGETHER.

Before all the sibling rivalry started ...