Cleaning house.

My refrigerator needs to be cleaned.

I just spent several minutes, hunched over, one hand holding the door and the other rattling through old jars of condiments, pickles, relishes, 4 different salad dressings, several kinds of mustard, sticky duck sauce, half used barbeque sauce, 3 different jars of jelly of various flavors, cartons of cream and egg substitute, tubs of butter, cream cheese, sour cream, ricotta cheese, quite a few tupperware of leftovers, various seasonings and marinades, milk, cream, a very old bottle of white wine, an even older bottle of margarita mix, orange juice, and a six different kinds of yogurt including the squeeze, drink, and crush kinds until AHA, I finally found it... that bottle of mike's hard black cherry lemonade that I had stashed in here lo all those months ago.

And it is good.

And I need it. I probably won't even finish the one bottle, but it's the psychological value of sitting here, enjoying my "Cold, Hard, Refreshing" beverage, that might trick me into relaxing.

My girls are up in their respective rooms having an extended time out, after a horrible shopping trip during which they climbed all over the displays at Pier 1, ran through the aisles- narrowly avoiding knocking over the displays of glasses and dishes and other very breakable items**, shouted, cavorted, and once even SPIT at each other.  I yelled.  And separated them.  And yelled.  Finally the Pier 1 lady yelled.  And then we left.  Or, I left, dragging the girls behind me.

What has happened to my children?  When did they turn into wild banshees?

I YELLED at them for the entire car road home, and they...
laughed.

They laughed!  What is wrong with my parenting skills that when I am sitting in the car YELLING at them, they are sitting in the car laughing about it?

So now they are up in their respective rooms.  Maybe I will feed them dinner. I threatened not to feed them dinner.  A good old fashioned threat... bed without dinner.  Cosette is finally taking me seriously, now that she has been up in her room for *gasp* an entire 30 minutes!  However, it is 6:30, by which time we are either eating or getting ready to eat, and she senses that I am not in the kitchen.  She is beginning to cry, "I am REALLY hungry" and from overhead I hear the stomp stomp stomp that accompanies each syllable.  "I am SOO HUNGRY!  Mommy, pleaase, I am really starving! Mommy! MOMMY why don't you answer meeeeeeee! Waaaaahhhhhhh!"

Juliette is offering these words of wisdom from her own room... "Cosette, stop crying!  If you ask, then you won't get it.  You have to be quiet."  She is taking to heart the advice her Auntie Lisa gave her today. Juliette is about to get supper.  Cosette... will have to wait.

But they are not coming out of their rooms.  I am finishing my wine cooler and then cleaning off my desk and pretending like I cannot hear them.  This is the worst punishment possible for Cosette, who loves to be the center of attention.

And so begins the era of zero tolerance.  We've been inching our way towards that in the past few days, and today we sprinted through that ribbon over to the end zone.  The end of smart mouth and answering back, the end of having to repeat myself three times, the end of being interrupted. The end of arguments and the end of tv in the afternoon.  

The girls finally sense the significance of the situation.  Cosette- who is 100% Mommy's Girl- even started asking for her dad.  She won't get any sympathy from him, however. 

So cheers, clink, down the hatch.  Here's a toast to a new leaf. I've learned my lesson, too:  the babysitter is coming tomorrow afternoon, and I am going out.  To work?  Maybe. To work out? Maybe. To shop?  Maybe. To enjoy some blissful solitude?  Most definitely!




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**reminding me of the MythBusters episode where the let loose several bulls in a makeshift china shop... and the bulls did a delicate ballet, avoiding breaking most of the china!