Our "feel bad"

We had a rough day today - a day a friend of ours calls a "feel bad".  I should have guessed when I woke to Mr. 1 ready to get up so no hope of a shower.  He joined me for coffee and before I had even taken my first sip Mr. 8 had joined us.

There was never one really terrible moment that sums it all up but just a lot of demands, loud demands, and more demands.  I sent Mr. 8 to do his math in another room because he couldn't stop yelling to me to answer questions that he knew the answer to.  Mr. 10 lost his battle plan for Bull Run and needs me to print a new one out for me right now despite the fact that I am changing Mr. 1.  The boys really wanted tortellini for lunch so I went ahead and made it and then no one would come to lunch despite multiple requests.  So they were sent to their room while I put Mr. 1 down for nap.  Just many small cranky moments across a long day.

There was a long discussion at bedtime about chores and respect and schedules.  I realized that I have continued to try to make the fall schedule work for us despite it not working for the past 3 months.  It just worked so well in September and October.  And then Mr. 1 started really walking (and climbing) in November.  And then December was so crazy.  And Mr. 1 really started his destruction phase in January.  I just kept thinking that if we got past our current insanity we would be back to everything working smoothly again.  And so I held on to my well-laid plans until today.  So now we have a new streamlined schedule.  It will hopefully have the boys doing more on their own - we've had to give up on time together for now.  It just always ended with Mr. 1 screaming, Mr. 3 jumping on top of people, Mr. 8 acting wild and crazy, and Mr. 10 loudly complaining that he was doing everything right and why was I upset.  It's still a work in progress but it's progress and I'm hoping that will count.