tomorrow is the last day of official school holidays

Jordan goes back to school on Monday. It's kind of sad that the holidays just whirred by like this. It's been nice having her home.

On the other hand, the fighting is driving me nuts. It's not like summer holidays where we spend half the day at the park and the other half the day in the back yard running and digging and sweating and getting tired. The kids are kind of in each others faces all day, and they're starting to show serious signs of wanting to rip those faces off.

I feel guilty, because I never wanted to be one of those moms who wanted her kids to go back to school, and I don't, because those days are long and I worry about Jordan when she's not here, but I think the kids need more routine again and maybe a break from each other.

I feel guilty even writing this.

I liked kindergarten last year. My girl went to school in the morning and was home in time for lunch and the rest of the day she was here where she was supposed to be.

It saddens me that I have to register Tennyson for kindergarten at the end of the month. One by one society is sucking them out through my front door. Stupid society. Next year I'll be registering Mitchie. That seems ridiculously wrong. Have you seen Mitchell? He's tiny. And cute and little. He's kind of a baby and he likes being a baby. When we hug and I pick him up he wraps around me and cuddles in just like he did when he was six months old. Then I laugh and hug him and call him Baby Mitchie and he doesn't argue it.

Kindergarten? Ugh. It's still weird that the little punk is in nursery school.

Where was I? Oh right - part of me thinks that routine will be good. A bigger part of me wishes school would just go away.

So how do I get them to be happy with each other from 7am until 8pm? That's the quandary.

Mitchell and Elliot had it out in the van today. I was unloading groceries and making trips to the house. Tennyson and Jordan were sort of helping me and Mitchell was goofing around in the van. Elliot was buckled in because I consider her my last load into the house. It beats her stomping all over my bread and eggs in the entrance. One one of my trips I came back to the van and Elliot was bawling and Mitchell was whimpering about something. Tennyson told me that Mitchell had head-butted her two times. My kids have this thing where when they're mad at each other they either hit each other with their heads (this sounds so stupid as I type it out) or just grind their head hard against the other kid. I guess they figure it's not really hitting. Anyway, Mitchell had smacked Elliot with his head a few times while I was taking groceries in. I hauled him out of the van and into the house where I sent him to his room.

I finished up in the van and herded the other kids into the house and made lunch, all while Mitche screamed "I'm being nice now!" from his bedroom. Eventually he settled down and I went in to talk to him. Turns out he head-butted Elliot because she had given him the full-handed-face-pinch. What was he doing? Trying to hug or kiss her.

Mitchie loves Elliot. He thinks she's his baby. He wants to hug and kiss her and lay on her on the floor and be near her. Elliot loves Mitchell but wants him to bugger off when he gets all up in her personal space like this. She was buckled in the van, he got his big kissy/huggy face all over her and she retaliated by using all five fingers to grab and pinch his entire cheek. It's a beautiful move. My older two used to do that to each other all the time (my house is so fun some days). Of course when a toddler does that to someone the only rational next step is to use your head to cause some well-deserved damage.

I'm really at a loss sometimes. Okay, most of the time. Maybe I'll go bang my head against someone and see if that solves all my problems.

This sibling stuff can be so awful. Sometimes it strikes me unexpectedly as funny and I have to turn away so they don't see that I'm trying not to laugh.

Picture this one:

• Tennyson has a dollarama dart gun. It's not "darts" as steel tipped, slightly poisoned tiny missiles, instead it's a floppy little rubber stick with a floppier little rubber suction cup on the end that doesn't actually suction by any stretch of the word.
• Today I bought Mitchell one to end the fighting over the one dart gun.
• Tennyson can't find his darts. He tries to snag Mitchell's. This is after sneaking Mitchell's new gun when he couldn't find his own.
• Mitchell whines after him and they argue and cry over whose gun it is.
• Finally a kid finds the second gun in a toy box in the basement. Tennyson sincerely states that Mitchell must have put his new gun in there. Whatever.
• Tennyson wants Mitchell's darts. Mitchell says no.
• Mitchell, decked out in safety goggles, his badge and his fancy new gun, struts about haughtily and happy that he's the one kid with bullets. 
• Tennyson follows Mitchell around crying and insisting that Mitchie gives him his darts.
• Mitchie says no with a smirk on his face and an evil little glint in his eye. Mitchie was about eight days old when he learned how much he loved Tennyson's over-the-top emotional reactions to stuff.
• Tennyson won't stop dogging after Mitchie and yelling/crying at him to give him some darts already. 
• Mitchie marches all around the house, repeatedly through the kitchen and past me.
• I am slowly driven more crazy.
• Eventually I snag Tennyson on his way through and make him sit on a stool near me while I do dishes. He does, but he's really not happy about it.
• Mitchell (still in full battle regalia) stands three feet away from Tennyson with a smug look on his face and stares at him.
• Tennyson yells at him eight hundred times to go away. 
• Mitchell doesn't. Instead he shoots Tennyson in the face with his loaded dart gun. 
• I bet you knew that he was going to shoot him right in the eye. I don't think he even blinked.
• Now Tennyson is doing the high-pitched I'm hurt squeal. 
• I smack Mitchie's bum and send him out of the kitchen. Then I hug Tennyson before turning quickly away to hide my frustrated laugh. 

What are the odds? The whole thing was so stupid. I think the thing that makes it kind of slightly amusing is that here's this wimpy little 35 pound twerp in orange safety glasses too big for his face nonchalantly shooting off a gun and not twitching any other muscle while it happens. His expression didn't even change until I smacked his bum. He's a stinker these days! He used to be the good one! It's not even that he does horribly bad stuff - it was his gun and his darts and all Tennyson had to do was look around a little for his own instead of crying and he'd have found them. Instead he wanders around and wails. Mitchie doesn't even really argue back except for the odd little word to keep Tennyson going. He loves the reaction and I'm sure it gives him a feeling of power that he can cause it. Of course, Tennyson is the exact wrong kid to be put up against this since he doesn't let anything go without a big giant cry or yell or scream or whatever.

I think Mitchell is going to be a cultural anthropologist or end up in some sort of cultural studies field. He's the kid that pushes the first domino and then sits back and watches what happens. It's almost like he's detached from feeling like he's caused things, he just likes to watch shit play out. He's naughty, but he's cute about it.

Remember all that Baby Mitchie stuff? I bet he made me feel that way about him on purpose so that when he triggers the all hell that breaks loose around here and then comes running for the safety of my arms I'll think he's all innocent and sweet and little.

Meh, it might work.
Then again, he has been in time out a lot lately.

All this crap happened today, and that's only the tip of the ice burg.

They did sit nicely and paint some plaster mold things today, even if the older two did harp on Mitchell for his sub-par painting skills.