Out of Control

This morning Mark had a 3 on 3 basketball tournament for work.  But before that, the kids’ good behavior earned enough marbles to buy us a trip to IHOP for breakfast.  The kids all wanted hot chocolate for their drink.  The waitress put them in big takeout cups with whipped cream so they’d cool down faster.  As she was passing them out I said, “Be careful – they’re REALLY hot.”  Sammy immediately picked up his cup and took a big gulp, and burned his tongue clean off.  Or at least you would think so.  He didn’t cause a scene, just muttered a steady stream of quiet complaints all through breakfast and all the way home.  The first thing he said was, “Well, I’m not going to leave this place happy.”  And continued with how the ice chips weren’t helping, how the ice and water were filling him up and he wouldn’t be hungry for breakfast, how his tongue was STILL hurting and how is he supposed to be hungry if he keeps eating ice chips???  And how I told him if he ate his breakfast he’d feel better and he DIDN’T.

So anyway.  We went home and Mark and Josh went off to the tourney.  I brought the kids a little bit later to go watch.  We got there, and almost immediately everything falls apart.  In the space of a few minutes, Ben got spooked by the loud buzzer and wouldn’t take his hands off his ears, Sammy was afraid to go up high on the bleachers but wanted to go where Josh was and was sad to be left behind, Ben had to go to the bathroom, Ben had to go to the bathroom AGAIN only all of a sudden he had the runs and messed his underwear (so he went commando), Ben spilled his full bottle of Gatorade, knocked over his pizza, had yet ANOTHER accident and had to wear a Mark’s freebie tshirt from the tourney, and all this time I was feeding the baby and cleaning up messes with my one free hand.  It rattled me and now I’m not so sure of my abilities to do 4 kids at once by myself.

I bet if I asked Sammy, he’d say his tongue still hurts.