Getting Through The Witching Hours

By far, the hardest time of day for me is 5-7 pm.  This is when the kids start getting whiny, when dinner has to be made, when the kids refuse to eat dinner, when I fight with them over it, when I ultimately clean up the huge mess that was made by them not eating dinner, and when I have to face and deal with said whiny kids until the bedtime routine begins.

It's during this time where I call or email my husband begging him to come home to provide me some relief.   It's during this time that my patience gets worn thin.  It's during this time where I am simply beaten down.  I lose all capability to experience emotion - no happiness, no sadness, no anger, no impatience.  Just blank, spent, flat.  Kind of like Goldie Hawn in Overboard when all she does is say "Buh buh buh buh."  (Click here for the clip.  It's classic).  

I have found some ways to mitigate these difficult hours.  

1) Go out to eat.  It's not that eating out is necessarily relaxing, but it takes away from the making and cleaning up of dinner.  

2) Order pizza.  Again, no making, no cleaning, and it really is the only thing the kids will consistently eat. 

3) Turn on the TV.  For a long time.  This is not a healthy option, but it shuts the kids up and cuts back on the whining.  

4) Have a glass of wine.  This also is not healthy, nor a good habit, so I try to limit it to my low, low moments.  

5) Go on a walk.   

Given that we are coming out of a cold, dark winter, it had been a while since I had exercised option #5.  But after a very rough dinner on Tuesday night, where I emailed my husband the following - Neither kid had a single bite of dinner.  Not a single bite.  Braden is in time out now for the fourth time after he threw his food on the floor then smeared the ketchup all over the table and threw his plate.  I am done. - only to find out that he would not be home from work imminently, I decided I had to do something.  

We went on a walk.  

For some odd reason, I took my camera.  

And you know what?  It was nice.  

We stepped outside and all of a sudden the boys turned into cute little angels.  That really liked each other.  

And without cooking and cleaning and time outs to worry about, I exhaled.  

We walked.  

And admired spring.  

This is my attempt at an artsy photograph.

We gazed at the community pool's playground, which will open next month.

And we stopped to appreciate the small things.  

By the end of it, we were all sufficiently chilled out.  

And I realized that in the midst of the witching hours, I can find moments of peace.  Of happiness. Of fun.

A horrific evening was turned around.  Thank God.  

The next night we went out to dinner.  

*******************************************************************************

Casey's Penn State t-shirt was given to us courtesy of Baby Sport.  Baby Sport offers a wide variety of baby sports products for NFL, NCAA, MLB, and NBA teams around the country.  Check out their website - www.babysport.com to see if your favorite team is featured.  They have really cute clothes and other sports paraphernalia for little ones!