Summer Break, Week 5

Today I tried to be the cool mom. Ryan went to a birthday party at the Lego store yesterday for our friend Henry and had a fabulous time. He experienced a renewed interested in his Legos and could not wait to play with them yesterday afternoon. Ryan is not much of a Lego kid and can go for months without playing with them. So when he got all excited again I decided to help him out.

Today it is raining. Again. For the 8th day in a row. This is unprecedented for July in Seattle. We went from a horrendous heat wave to fall-like weather (only the weather is so NOT fall-like because the humidity is almost unbearable with the cloud cover. The humidity is so high right now that our living room carpet is damp. Again, need I remind you we have no air conditioning? I am determined to complain about this weather until October. Just so you know). So, being the cool mom that I am, I decided today would be Lego Day. We have Harry Potter Legos, Spiderman, Batman, and various Star Wars Legos. They are fairly complicated and Ryan does not have a lot of practice with his Legos. So I agreed to put the sets together for the boys.

And today was a great reminder of why I will never homeschool my kids. Or teach others. Ever. Ryan yelled at me because I was not working fast enough, that I couldn't find the right pieces, and that I was raking through the Lego box too loud. And I was really getting into putting the sets together and was starting to get very annoyed that the boys were getting in the way of my, I mean, our project.

This took all morning. The laundry was abandoned, the kitchen a complete disaster, the living room in desperate need of a vacuum--but I decided Housework Be Damned, We're Going To Have Lego Day! So after about 4 hours of quality Lego time, in which the 3 of us became increasingly more and more annoyed with each other, and I was starting to harbor some serious resentment that I'm only 3 chapters into Harry Potter, Ryan destroyed all of the Legos. Harry Potter's flying car crashed into everything and all of my work was in a million pieces in about 5 seconds.

THIS IS WHY MOMMY DOES NOT PLAY LEGOS! If I'm going to spend 4 hours putting these things together, I want to see my kids play with them for 4 HOURS. I am not going to spend 4 HOURS getting yelled at and criticized, only to have my work completely undone in 4 MINUTES.

I then sent Eric upstairs for a much needed nap. Put Ryan in his room for some much needed quiet time, and I settled down with a bowl of cereal and Harry. Eric appeared 30 minutes later, declaring his nap was done, with Ryan following close behind. Ryan then spend the rest of the afternoon complaining to me that I was not spending any time with him because he wanted us to read Harry Potter together. Not me read to him. He want me to read #7 while he sits next to me and silently reads #3.

First of all, I JUST SPEND ALL MORNING WITH YOU AND YOU YELLED AT ME THE ENTIRE TIME. Second, I am going to do the laundry. Remember this morning when you couldn't find any pants? I'm trying to take care of that for you. I would love nothing more than to sit and read the most anticipated book of the year, but our feet keep sticking to the kitchen floor. And we didn't eat at home yesterday. Third, you know how to read. Feel free to sit down and read. Alone. On your own. By yourself. Independently. That is something I can only dream of these days.

And now your father is home, so you can go yell at him for a while. Harry and I are going to enjoy a nice Mike's Hard together.

And thus begins Summer Break, Week 5. The magic is non stop.