No clue

(It's true. When mom turns her back on the children for a few hours to "do her own thing", unless specific instructions have been issued, chaos will often reign.)

A few days ago I was doing things on the computer and also trying to organize my scrapbook supplies and I left the kids in front of a movie. All was fine, except that they apparently got hungry. All of the kids, right down to the three-year-old, are pretty self-sufficient, and do very well taking care of their own needs as well as the needs of their younger siblings, and keeping things running smoothly. But on that day, for some reason, they were doing their own thing...too absorbed in the movie to even notice their surroundings.

I walked into the room and saw kids lounging on various pieces of furniture and on the floor, snacking on yogurt, popcorn, strawberries, and peanut-butter-jelly sandwiches. The 5-year-old was sitting on the floor with a big bowl in front of her, eating the soggy popcorn that it contained. (The popcorn that her 3-year-old sister had poured water into earlier.) And the 3-year-old had spread a towel on the floor, and was sitting next to it with a container of blueberry yogurt. She was flinging the blueberries onto the towel and picking popcorn pieces out of her sister's bowl and mixing it into her yogurt container. Also on the floor was a small dish of Lucky Charms cereal (minus the milk), that had been dumped over and strewn all over the floor. In another bowl, also on the floor, was a 1/2 eaten orange. Scattered in between kids and food were stacks of books, pillows, a few toys, a few games pieces, discarded socks, a tipped-over-sippee-cup, a hot-water bottle (?!) and a scooter laying on its side. You'd think that a 14-year-old and a 12-year-old could see what was happening and control the situation a bit. But apparently when there are movies involved, oblivion reigns. And there they all sat---with no clue about their surroundings.

Needless to say, all my little piggies were snapped back to reality rather quickly as I huffed about the room, switched off the movie, and dispatched them all into the kitchen. They got to finish watching their movie only after they were done snacking in the kitchen and after the mess was cleaned up by them.

Good grief. Just a few hours to myself. That's all I wanted.

Silly kids.