Fried brains!!!!

I thought I could make it through spring break without having a flippen meltdown.  All I can say is, I wasn’t even close. The melt down started Wednesday afternoon: the instructions I left for the kids never took place. I absolutely hate kids at home, not in school all day long. They call me at work a hundred times. The fact that I share an office with others does not allow for privacy in the first place; getting mad at them with others in room bothers me.  By the time the second one call about some piddly stuff I am agitated, my voice gets strained as all I want to do is yell “stop bothering me”.  Now all of them have called once and they are on their second round of calls. Work is getting tense and I know I need to get home quick because someone is coming by to visit one of the foster dogs, but I need to stop at the store on the way home;  my shoulders are up around my ears, and my head ache is coming on like gang busters. By the time I get out I have 15 minutes before she arrives, I am hoping to slip out 5 minutes early but the security company is working on the door and they want to leave 5 minutes late. Here comes the anxiety attack, because I do not want the dogs to greet the lady before I get there to run interference. I am racing home and decide to skip the store because those damn dogs will be way overwhelming for this unexpecting lady. I drove just a little quicker than the garage door was opening and almost took out the door. My mood is totally primed and it won’t take much to meltdown.  I get the excited, I have not seen you in years, greeting from a mob of barking dogs while I am trying not to step on them going up the stairs with the jumping barking dogs all around me.  Shit, it’s all over the hallway and the dogs are jumping in it and the hooligans are in the basement. Wow the only good thing is all the kids were together when I blew.  Usually the first kid I see gets the brunt of my eruption. The blinds were drawn and the room was dark and the girls are laid out all over the place, with blankets everywhere and their still in their jammies; TV blaring Korean soap operas with ear piercing volume. What the Hell have you guys done all day, and why is the volume up so loud? You don’t even speak Korean you read sub titles, Are you kidding me????? I started in “there is shit everywhere and the dogs are in the basement, the sink is full of dishes and Archie is in the garbage”.  Everyone up and clean this kitchen and straighten things up before the lady arrives.  You didn’t do anything I ask today, you just sat up in that living room frying your brains with TV. Then the silence the kind that comes when you know things will get bad if you don’t shut your mouth. We did make the clean up in time for the ladies arrival. The first thing the foster did was nipped her nose, OK this placement is gone.  My mistake I just think people know not to put their face in striking distance of a strange dog. I forget that not everyone knows this, so now I want to kick my own ass but I’ll go get a glass of wine instead. Thursday morning two kids were to go on a field trip together, first thing I find out one changed her mind without telling me, now the whole house is awake as I am screaming up the stairs to lay down the law and proceeded into the sentencing part of the infraction. I barked out my daily instructions and told them don’t let me come home to the same thing as last night and headed for the door before I could say one more thing because it was going to get bad.  Ahhh Work what can I say it started out normal then I get the e-mail from offending child.  Begging me to not punish her ,my reply was the same,  As she proceeded to plead her case through e-mail and my no was now in caps, all I could think of is, I can’t believe we are arguing with e-mails.  Things just did not brighten up any and it’s time to go home to kids laid out all over the place frying their brains with the TV. GAWD I hate it when they’re home all day.  Dogs running amuck and nothing done, I want to run away. When I arrive home things are much better and the offending child has gotten over the morning encounter. Laughter is coming from the living room and dishes are cleaned up and the dogs didn’t seem as obnoxious so hey this is better.  Then a senior moment came over me and caused me to go into overload with one of them. As I am briefed on my own actions that caused this overload I apologized and shut my moth as I can see I am not really better. Then one pips up and said are you done fighting with L? Because I don’t want to hear another feight like this morning. Then I had to listen to how the day got started for the offending girl.  She said I scared her out of sleep and when she jumped up she ran into something and hit her head, as she, barley, stood there dazed and confused I am yelling you better answer me.  Now we are all laughing as we get to see both side of the confrontation.  Ok I need to relax or I will blow an artery.  So we cooked and ate dinner or they cooked and I ate dinner. Life got calm and I barked out one more order to get the grass cut before Sunday, and headed down to my room.  This morning I am so happy it is the last day I have to go home to the brain fried kids, now if I can just get out of the house without an incident I might get through this with my attitude intact and  because I need all the patience I can muster up to get through Easter.  We pack'm in at the holidays and I can barely get through holidays anymore, It has become the hardest job I have to do, make a house full of people happy all day, cook a ton of food and fend off the dogs. As I made my 12^th trip down to the basement looking for my shoes and back up again still looking for my shoe as if one more trip will make them appear; I realize I am out of time.  I ‘m starting to sweat as I’m feverishly runny around looking for the shoes: I had my socks in my hand the whole time I even mopped my forehead with them, when I finally found the shoes.  I sat down and then realized where the hell did I put my socks now. I had No time to look just go get more socks, as I am sliding into work hoping I am not too late to start the morning out Ok, when the first kid calls, can I go to my sister’s house, OK, Then the second kid calls, can I go see my friend; now when the third one calls and says can I hang out at the mall, all bets are off on the rest of the day.  So when is that grass getting cut? I told you all I wanted it to be done before Sunday.  Ya Ma I will cut it on Sat.  What if it rains? It’s not, I looked at the weather.  Ok if it rains I am going to blow and you will just have to suck it up, and it will be worse than yesterday morning,OK, good bye Ma. The one good thing is, at least I won’t have to go home tonight to fried kid brains from the TV.