Take last night, for instance.
At 4 pm, having waited for 30 minutes for the 13 year old to make the 5 minute (lets say 10 minute to be fair) walk home from school, Simone woke Baby B up so they could go and get the 10 year old from school.
Baby B did not take kindly to being woken up from his nap, for the record, but Simone could hardly leave him unattended so wake him she did.
At 4:10, having picked the 10 year old up from school and driven back home, Simone spotted the 13 year old scurrying home in the company of his friend J.
"Hurry and run upstairs before they get to the house," Simone instructed the 10 year old, well aware that the two 13 year olds would harass the young girl should they find her in their path.
Unfortunately, the 10 year old had homework that required Simone's help and the two thirteen year olds had no homework.
Simone went over the 10 year old's homework and pointed out a couple of problems with it. The 10 year old did not agree that she'd made mistakes. In the meantime, Baby B, quite irate by now because Simone was not paying attention to the computer game he wanted to play, began throwing a temper tantrum at Simone's feet. Simone told the 10 year old to go to her room and review her homework. The 10 year old climbed the stairs and deposited herself on the floor outside the room and proceeded to sob.
Meanwhile, the two 13 year olds picked out a couple of apples to snack on and, juice dribbling down their chins, traversed the house. Simone herded them to the kitchen table, dutifully ignoring the still-screaming Baby B.
Sitting at the table gave the boys a great view of the deck.
"Why is your deck covered with snow?" Johnny demanded of his friend.
"Simone didn't get to it yet," said Simone's 13 year old, taking a chunk out of his apple.
Johnny laughed. "You should be shovelling it yourself. "
"Yeah, well, I will if you help me," wheedled the 13 year old.
The two boys donned their boots and the 13 year old demanded that Simone lend him her snowpants because he did not feel like going upstairs to put on pants.
By this time, Baby B was winding down. Simone pulled him onto her lap so she could resume computer game playing.
Simone refused to lend the 13 year old her snowpants. He went upstairs, thumping along, and presumably found his sister lying on the floor sobbing because her noisemaking quickly shifted to squeals of terror. Her noise finally woke up the dog who started barking. Baby B gave Simone a head butt with the back of his head and slid off her lap again to join the mayhem with an excessive amount of screaming...
So many thoughts rolled through Simone's head, but first and foremost was something said by one of Simone's friend after her kids misbehaved very, very badly. "I don't want this job!"
Does someone out there have a suggestion for new employment that would involve less stress? Almost anything's gotta be better than this!
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