Do that one more time and I'll pop both your eyes out.

This is not a Christmas post.  Or an advent post.  Or a happy holidays post of any kind.  This is a chronicle of my day and the way my kids tried to kill me - by making me want to beat myself in the head with a hammer while I baked them chocolate chip cookies.   And knowing my little darlings, they would totally enjoy the cookies while dribbling crumbs over my dead body.

The other day kid 2 kicked kid 3, so kid 3 pushed kid 2  - into the path of an oncoming car in the grocery store parking lot.  A slow moving car, granted, but  the driver gave me one of those...  you're a bad mother kind of looks.  I recognized it. From other times my kids have pushed each other in front of moving cars. 

Not long ago on Facebook there was this adorable video circulating of a mom singing sweetly into the camera while her little boys rough and tumbled all over the place behind the scenes.  And I thought it was cute - but then I thought that my boys could eat her boys for lunch.  And I wish that young mom strength and a quiet place to hide in the years to come. 

Right now kid 3 is mad at me, because I made him get a haircut.  The deal was if he can keep the hair clean and out of his face, he can grow it as long as he wants.  But he's a deal breaker straight from a bad game show.... and lives in his knit cap to hide the grease and whatever else might be under there.  So now he's all coiffed and shorn like a sheep and growling at me every minute of the day.  And poured out his wrath this morning getting ready for school.  I think the Bible says something about gnashing of teeth and wars or something. Or maybe demons ... I saw a vision of the end times this morning with Sam.  

And kid 1 just pinched the H-E-double-hockey-sticks out of kid 3.  Don't know why and I didn't ask. 

And kid 1, again,  - not loving math and science right now in school.  But darn that Kindle Fire... it's just so much more fun than school work.  So he's mad at me  because I'm holding the Kindle for ransom. 

And kid 2 ... he's been around.  Didn't quite get his homework all done for tomorrow.  Practicing his Scarlett O'Hara attitude... tomorrow's another day. Just another miserably long day he has to wait for Christmas break.   

So I stepped out on the porch tonight.  In the cold night air.  To breathe and listen to the quiet. And to walk away from the boyish yells of Do that one more time and I'll pop both your eyes out.  

I'm struggling a bit to get through this season.  Not just the holiday season.  That too.  But mostly this season of tough parenting.  And I'm praying to find the beauty in the every day of our family right now. 

But this is my story.  And I write another page every day.  A story worth finishing.