Yet Another Surprising Day

    The last few days have been full-on.
It was my birthday on Tuesday, so I went out shopping with Mum for the day, and then went down to Mum's until late this morning. The kids were a nightmare; Cooper is teething, Madd's being challenging, and I have had bugger-all sleep. Coop decided, on Wednesday morning, that it was a great idea to get up at 4:45am, and refused to go back to sleep until around 11am - he then slept for 3 1/2 hours straight. Fortunately this morning it was a 7am start.

     Coop has been on Nurofen the last few days - he started hitting himself in the head and screaming, so I took that to mean that he had a pretty bad headache. He seemed so much better after Nurofen, but then he was extremely hyperactive and moody. He was hitting, kicking, and being generally difficult. So I'm kinda glad to be home where he's more comfortable (not to mention Ash being here too!).

     Madd's been pretty quiet since we got back, but happy. We took the kids and the dog to the park today - Madd rode her bike (the way-too-small one that she's comfortable riding, she won't ride anything bigger), Cooper ran (and I mean RAN the entire lap of the huge park).  We got back, had dinner, and then the kids went off to Madd's room to play.

B I G    mistake.

     Ash went in to get Cooper to put him to bed.
"Jen, can you come here?" I hear him yell down the hallway. Uh oh.

I go in, and Madd has decided to run her Blustik (glue stick that's blue) over every inch of her desk AND her desk chair. Crap crap crap.
I knew that telling her off would do absolutely nothing. So I did the only thing I could think of doing - I reached for the toys I spotted first - her Barbies... I snapped 3 of her Barbies in half, saying "If you treat your things like crap, we will too." I picked the not-real-Barbie ones, since the Barbie ones are better quality.
She burst into tears - REAL tears, not the hysterical ones of frustration. I think I may have actually got through to her this time.

I set her up with a bowl of warm water and a Chux, she's now scrubbing the glue off the desk. I don't really care if it takes her all night - she needs to feel the consequences of what she does.