IT MUST BE THE CHANGE IN THE WEATHER -- OR ELSE I NEED TO UP MY WINE INTAKE

Ugh. It's been a rough week. From the get-go.

After -- let me repeat that -- AFTER they karate tip-tested on Monday night, we found out from each of them, on separate occasions, and completely by accident, that, in fact, he had received an orange card on Monday from his substitute teacher, and that she had decided to take her scissor blade to her dollhouse table and CARVE some unintelligible hieroglyphics into it!!!!!

So, slipping into my out of body experience, I turned green and grew ten times my size, and flung every single teensy tiny little plastic and stuffed toy from the second story window, and then used my magical powers to mentally explode every damn broken crayon and uncapped marker in the house into a bezillion miniscule pieces, and then invoked my super stretch abilities to yank every poster, scribble drawing, and sparkly thing stuck to the wall with ticky-tack, if I was lucky, but more often than not, with some other unidentifiable substance, and then wrapped my enormous invisibility cloak around the whole room and made it all disappear for a few minutes.

By the time I came back to my senses, Amy had already doled out their punishment. No movie privileges for the rest of the week.

WHAT?!?!?!

Not that I didn't agree that they needed some sort of punishment, and not that I didn't agree that it should hit them where they live, and not that I didn't agree that it should be quick and pretty painful, but not for ME!!!

Who was going to have to be their alternative for the movie distraction to keep them from strangling each other over breakfast with their banana peels? Who was going to have to entertain them during their afterschool snack so that they wouldn't start chucking cheese nips at one another from across the table? Who was going to have to endure the telling and retelling and retelling of what happened at school today, and who got into trouble, and who ate what for lunch, and who's mom forgot to pack their snack, and who ate their own boogers when they thought no one was watching, and who didn't quite make it to the potty on time, and on, and on, and on, and...

And it's not that I don't love my children to death. And it's not that I don't adore every little thing about them, including their inherited love of storytelling and embellishment. But deargodhelpme, the end of the week just can't get here fast enough!!!!