Bad Influence

I painted the boy's fingernails black yesterday.

I was having a tough time this week with the boys. It seemed like they were more restless than usual, kicking one another and tugging on backpack straps and so on. I couldn't get them to calm down no matter what I tried and running around the playground on Tuesday after school only wound them up some more. Thursday was shaping up to be just as rotten after only about 30 seconds out of the school doors. I was really getting tired of dealing with their crap, feeling like I didn't want to be here. So, I decided, if I could keep them as busy as possible maybe they'd fall in line a bit.

After we left the bus, I challenged the boys to a race home. First one to the door gets to unlock it (keys being a rare treat). Then after they put their shoes and coats away I made up a scavenger hunt. Most of the things were easy to find but I added 1 blue marble to the list that I knew would take them a long time to find. It did, finally after about 10 minutes of searching they asked for a substitution, so I asked them to bring me the puzzle piece that is between J and L on their alphabet puzzle. Woo! So far, so good. (that's not a pop quiz. stop singing the alphabet song in your head.)

They were getting hungry so I made them dinner. They got a bit of chicken first then had to eat a carrot and their yogurt before they were allowed to have more chicken. Then I proceeded to draw every car of a toy train of theirs, by request, in the order that Matt chose. They just watched, but Tom handed me the markers when I called out a color and Matt held the train pieces for my artistic inspiration.

After I finished that, the boys noticed my fingernails which I had repainted red the night before (they were black when I came back from London and they noticed that on Monday). The boys begged so I finally I conceded and painted all 20 anxious little fingernails black. I was really not sure how Valerie would react to this, but whatever, it is removable.

Then came the challenging part, not getting wet fingernails on the furniture, floors, walls etc. So we spend the next 20 minutes doing every dance I could think of. We did the macarena, the hokey-pokey, the funky chicken and a few Matt made up which looked suspiciously like the afore mentioned dances only faster and gigglier.

Today I'm a little sore from all of the running around and wrestling and dancing yesterday, but it worked. For the most part they were too frantically busy to be a pain in the ass.

Turns out Valerie loved the nail polish. She was quite amused (*phew*) and FX made jokes when he got home about how scary they were while growling and making monster claws with his own hands, so I still have a job. haha Lets just see if I can keep the job for another 7 months AND my sanity too.