If I were a camel...

I am trying this new thing of not complaining so much. This post, however, does not apply. To get to the part where I explain this new resolve of not complaining, I am going to do a lot of it.

It started and ended all last Friday. There is some build-up to it all but the boil over fun happened on Friday. It began all normally, going to the Y to work-out and then the plan was to go home and pack for a quick lake trip. The weather decided to not comply with some threat of Thunderstorms. I didn't like the idea of driving an hour to the lake to become a big chicken McNugget in the lake after being fried by lightning. So, kids, lake is off but lets watch and see how it goes and we can go the splash park on post instead. A couple of hours later and it is still all hot and sunny, we get ready for a trip to post. It is now the time that I realize that I better bring the stuff we need so I can take the kids to Friday Night Out after since it starts at six.

While we are leaving the house the kids are doing the bickering that is beginning to drive me to distraction. Knock it off, or we won't go. If only I had had the resolve to go through with my threat. We walk down the basement stairs to the garage into the car, they are bickering again. I walk out of the car and down the driveway to keep myself from really losing it. When I walk back to the car, they are in there having a rip-roaring good time. Which actually made me more mad. Shouldn't they be scared that mom is losing it, might possibly lose it all over them? I get in the car and tell them in my super-calm scary voice that I am trying to decide whether or not to take them to the splash park or just come up with some other punishment because the fighting has got to stop.

That seemed to have worked. The total silence reigned in the car for about 10 minutes. I am now starting to get smug with the power. I have cowered them into the proper amount of fear, respect, and awe. It is a heady feeling that I am very much enjoying, I would laugh out loud maniacally if I thought it wouldn't break the spell.

The kids broke the spell just fine on their own. Of course, DD is the first one brave enough to talk. She engages Punx in a word game and, I kid you not, less than two miles later they are bickering. That's it, just don't talk. I can feel the hostile attitude emanating from Punx from behind my back. I can feel his angry shuffling just as much as hear it. I turn around to look at him just to see him delivering a hard elbow into DD's side. For censorship's sake, let's just say I snapped. Sna-ap-ped!

We get to the splash park and I let DD and Bug go and hold Punx back for a lecture and talk session. You will tell me what is going on and what is up with all the anger. We eventually get to it. All he can get to is basically summer boredom. What!? Now I am pissed. Well, guess what? We still have over a month to go so you better find a way to get along with everyone or it's going to be a really long summer.

After the park, I need to go to the PX. A friend and her kids are now with us. She is doing FNO also and we are going to do a Girl's Night. Her with her oldest girl and DD and I. We have a "date" tradition that they can go out with the adults solo on their birthday month and their half-birthday month. June is DD's month. After the PX we stop and get shaved ice for all the kids and let them eat their treat. They are done just in time to head out for FNO. We even split the kids along their various locations for speed. Pre-school kids have one day-care and elementary kids have another. I take her son that goes to the same place as Punx and she takes Bug who goes with two of her kids.

I back out of my parking space, put the car in drive. Just as I am about to go, I see it. A black two-door car backing out right into me. I froze. I stared, surely he will see me and stop. He kept coming, finally I find my muscles and honk. I honked about 1 second before the crunch of him backing into my driver's side passenger door. Not cool. I get out to see. It was a very light hit and there seems to be only a light scratch and the molding has snapped off. I start digging in my car for the info we are to exchange but he isn't moving. Let's leave it at this. He offered me money instead of insurance info. Here we are a few days later and I have already gotten the estimate on the car and he didn't even offer me 10% of the estimate. I stood firm and told him we would do it through the proper legal channels, would you please give me your insurance information. He was unhappy, I feel for him, but I was unhappy about being hit, oh well.

Drop the kids off, go out with the girls, dinner, cosmic bowling, even onto Wal-mart so DD could choose out a movie from the cheap bin. Time to go pick up the boys. On the way home, Punx is pouting. He starts to complain about a stretch of boredom he endured that night for over an hour and a half. The youth center has a huge room with toys, a computer lab, crafts center, gym with basketball and tether ball, and they just got a Wii that they have set up to a projection screen. Boredom at the Youth center is entirely optional. And I let him know. Next thing I know DD starts to complain that she really didn't get that much dinner. This coming from the girl who only ate half her dinner because she wasn't hungry.

That's when it happened. This load-bearing camel could go no further. All I could think of was what I had been putting myself through in the month of June to keep the kids entertained, happy, and spared from summer boredom. The vacation, the activities, the pool, the movies. What do we have to show for it? Two exceptionally whiny, ungrateful, spoiled kids. Bug, I do not put in this so much, he really isn't whiny, just really active. He isn't advanced enough to join in the complaining, yet.

It was the last straw. Ohhh, things are going to change around here kids. Prepare yourself. Me, running myself ragged to keep you happy, thinking that all the activities and fun would actually help with the fighting, obviously I was wrong. No more. This far, no farther. I am done spending money on kids who think they deserve it and don't even think to thank me. They are polite children, to other people that is.

Here are the new rules. We will still go to the Y, like always, so enjoy it all you can because that is about all the fun you guys are going to be having anymore. When we get home be prepared for chores everyday. They have chores but they do them on the as needed basis. Not anymore. Just since Friday they have cleaned their rooms, the family room, the play room, the upstairs bathroom, and the kitchen floor. We haven't even started today's chores since right now they are doing their "school work." All those workbook I have that I make them do maybe once a week during the summer. Well, kids, welcome to summer school, Monday through Friday. As for the activities, one free fun activity a week. Yesterday we went to the lake, so check. Although I will make two exceptions this week. One for the Fourth, we go to the free show on post. And for Manners Tuesday, not free, but it is our deployment countdown and I am not taking that away. After school time or chores is extended reading time, I've made it longer.

The thing that bothers me the most is knowing where the blame truly lies. Somewhere along the line, I had to have seen this coming but I did nothing to circumvent it. All the complaining, whining, they must have a model for this behavior and I am the only consistent model they have right now.

My name is Cristtin and I am a whiner.

Since I made this mess, I will clean it up. I will fix it. It's not like there is much of a choice, these are my kids. I have always at some level accepted the fact that any kids of mine would be messed up. But I thought it would be that I would cripple them with my sarcasm, dark humor, enjoyment of other people's pain, you know emotional stuff. I never thought that I would be guilty of spoiling my kids and actually raising "middle-class socialist brat from a suburban family where he never really had to work." Props to anyone who knows what that is from.

No more. This broken camel has a back brace and is not taking anymore straw.