Papa in Mexico, Day Three

There was not enough sleeping last night. First thing upon waking, the kids had serious ideas about food. Aleks drew a picture of a chocolate chip cookie that he wanted for breakfast. I suggested alternatives and eventually he drew a picture of a waffle. He seems to communicate best by drawing rather than by speaking. Which is great, of course. It concerns me though that perhaps he's not progressing very well with speech therapy and it's all my fault for not encouraging his daily use of proper sounds in normal speech. But then, I'm so busy I haven't time to think about such things.
Bastian had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, which seems to have become his new favorite. He brings the jam to me in bed the way he used to bring the giant glass jug of Hartzler non-homogenized milk which was scary as hell. The Amish jam from Geauga Family Farms is less terrifying, but still cold against my cheek. Later there was a bit of it laying about:
Hungry again, Bastian refuses everything I offer by screaming and searching the fridge and freezer. When Aleks settles on a waffle, Bastian complies as well. Thank god. It is way too early for this nonsense.
Here are the letter plates that we use for almost everything the kids eat. We used to have C too, but it broke, I think. Or else it's hidden somewhere I can't see. With just the A and B, they stand for Aleks and Bastian, so that works nicely. Jon is not as anal as me about insuring that Aleks has the A and Bastian has the B, though sometimes Aleks will complain if he notices they are reversed. Which usually results in a fight because you can't take anything away from Bastian, whether he wants the thing or not.
Instead of wasting all the gas lighting the stove, this morning I melted the butter over the toaster. Much more green of me, I'm sure. Makes me wish I just had a toaster oven.
Mama's very large cup of coffee, daily necessity.
This morning is cold again and raining. It's so dark. We turned the computer off for awhile due to the lightening and the kids played with Lego in their room. Aleks would occasionally call his brother a name and likely hit him and Bastian would come to me crying. Aleks is very protective of his Lego. I'm not sure what to do about it exactly, though, except to keep reminding him why Bastian deserves to play with some too and that it's never okay to hurt. Another thing I don't understand is why Firefox doesn't think the word "okay" is spelled correctly.

The weather weighs me down, so I pledge to not bother doing anything at all. I have a vague idea about going somewhere with the kids later, but know deep down that getting dressed and out of the house is far too complicated for me today. After waffles, some video games and Lego, Aleks decides to head to the basement to ride bikes. Bastian catches up with him after a few minutes, running naked in frog boots after his brother. I can hear when the bikes have stopped, but just pray that nothing huge has gone wrong like the time they spilled a neighbor's fabric softener (yuck!) all over the floor, using the blue goo to make handprints and footprints around and around the central cluster of furnaces and water heaters. After a bit, I pry myself away from my message boards where I am wasting my life to go check it out. Aleks has found the Blendy-Pen discovered in the driveway the day before inside the seat compartment of the push rider and drawn on the dryers (incidentally, some neighbor kids drew on the back porch with the thing before leaving the weapon behind as evidence).

This one appears to be Yoda in the center, but I'm not sure who the other characters are. Aleks is currently unavailable, or I'd ask. Wait, here he is now. On the right there is Darth Sidious who is throwing rocks and force lightning at Yoda and R2D2 (below Yoda in the center). The thing on the left is a prickly tree that Yoda is standing on.

And on our dryer, Darth Vader. I took these photos then wiped them off. The white dryer may be a little stained with red, but nothing horrible.
Later, the kids harass me more for food, resulting in lots of whining and screaming and argument about what is suitable food to eat. Bastian decides he wants to be like Aleks and climb up and find his own stuff. He's looking in the wrong cupboard though.
They settled for carrots, which they then chased each other around with, fighting as if with swords. Here's Aleks hiding for Bastian around a corner, the picture he painted of Dora there on the fridge behind him.
My day progressed with lots of hanging out on discussion forums, wasting my life, while the children pretty much did the same thing again and again - video games, Cartoon Network cartoons online, and Lego. Bastian would periodically make a giant mess or pee in the potty and miss a bit so I had lots to clean up. I also finally got to the cereal on the couch with the vacuum cleaner. I actually managed to vacuum the whole of the living room pretty well, getting up the ants and then spraying along all the baseboards with vinegar to try to deter them.

Then I heard some great Lego crashing from the bedroom, which I ignored in my internet stupor. I didn't have to wait long to discover the source, however, as the boys dragged the Lego tray from the bedroom, through the hallway, kitchen, and dining room to me in the living room. I was not at all pleased. I managed to keep my cool a little bit by taking this photo though, so there's that. Stress levels are high right now, so that's saying something. Shortly thereafter, however, Bastian dumped out all six baskets of blocks in the dining room just for fun.
Aleks called me into his bedroom to come see a spider (not in fear, but in interest). I, in my depression from being alone which was quickly building to anxiety due to the insane number of things I've been doing lately (not counting today), declined going to see it and suggested they take a photo instead. This is one of several of the photos they took, none of which depicted anything resembling a spider.
Here's the Lego mess. It extends under the bed and Bastian had strewn some other items about as well, not pictured.
After all that doing nothing interspersed with great amounts of clean-up activity, I had no energy to go to the store for the wheat germ and rolled oats I'd neglected to pick up for my quiche crust the other day. I also didn't realize that it was after 8 o'clock. So we had frozen pizza for dinner which I made while whining to my mother on the phone about how hard everything is. Bastian saw me cut it with the pizza cutter and promptly retrieved his wooden pizza and wooden pizza cutter from the play kitchen to be like me. He ate a slice of real pizza followed by a slice of wooden pizza and insisted I do the same. Immediately following dinner, he fell asleep nursing. That was the only easy bit of my whole day, I swear.