There's happy messes

And then there's this. It can generally be anticipated that there will be moments that require you to exhale just that little bit more deeply before launching into wrangling children over the course of school holidays, but it just felt like the majority of these holidays were like that. And there's still three days to go. We have experienced lovely holidays before, so I know they do happen and it's wonderful when they do but somehow, this time, my usually quite pleasant girls were replaced with Perpetual Whinger, Painfully Petulant, The Antagonist, Quietly Destructive and Borderline Demonic. Yes, I only have three children but over the last two weeks, I'm pretty sure two of them had split personalities.

Admittedly, I've been preoccupied with wedding decorations these past few weeks so I haven't necessarily been "in the moment" with my children when I ought to have been. This has led to some interesting discoveries around the house. Like my lovely rimu kitchen table with oil-based paint smeared on it and gouge marks where somebody helpfully tried to scrape it off with a steak knife.

When I found a whole new roll of toilet paper unravelled and stuffed down the toilet effectively blocking it, I was annoyed but calm when I explained that it was perhaps not the most economical butt wipe of the year, but when it happened another two times in the same day, the writing was on the wall as far as how the rest of that day panned out. Panned, toilet - hehehe. My good moodometer was close to hitting expletive point* by this stage, but there were still gems to come.

The girls decided to perform in a circus another day. Great! I'm all for imaginative play and fashioning props from general household items. Except when the prop happens to be my broom being used to walk a tightrope between their beds. Rest in peace, broom, rest in peace.

I have to remind myself they are still little and while their brains find workable solutions, they still don't have the capacity to see possible flaws in their logic. I could hear the girls outside playing swingball - a two-person game, but they were taking it in turns and playing nicely, so I left them to it. A while later, I went out to find my washing line in two pieces. Apparently, it was in the way of the swingball set so they decided to cut it in half.

Now, any good blogger would be out with their camera capturing these gems of parenting moments and I originally inferred that I would not be showing them here to protect the guilty parties. However, it seems I can be persuaded to add photographic evidence if my readers ask nicely enough.

If I receive comments to the effect of how wonderful your school holidays were and how so much fun was had spending quality family time together, I will get violent. Wish me luck for the weekend.

* Disclaimer: I have never ever sworn at my children, not even during childbirth, I just say it REALLY LOUDLY in my head.